Message To The Florida Democratic Party: You Can't Win If You Don't Play, Bozos

 

So what happened with the $780,000 in PPP money the FDP grabbed? 

Maybe you saw the comparison between the competent Texas Democratic Party and the incompetent Florida Democratic Party that we ran yesterday. Dr. Fergie Reid, who ran the 90For90 effort to recruit state legislative candidates in every district had some thoughts he expressed to me that I asked him to jot down.

"You can’t win," he reminded me (again), "if you don’t play."

That sounds like a trite, obvious, throw away phrase; but, in politics, it’s very controversial. Between late March 2020, and the Florida state legislative filing deadline on June 12, Janelle Christensen and I made this argument to many Florida Democratic officials and prospective candidates. It’s a logical argument. However, in some political circles, the "smart" play is to NOT run a candidate in any district that is perceived to be "unwinnable."

"It’s a waste of money, we can’t afford it."

"We’ll be able to run more candidates in more districts when we start winning more."

"Running Democrats here in this part of Florida, just makes Republicans mad."

"We can’t find a good enough candidate."

"We like the Republican incumbent; he’s very friendly; we know him personally."

"You just don’t understand the way it works around here." [Yes, the fatal embrace of toxic dysfunction, a ruling principle of the FDP.]

"Why is someone from Los Angeles, so interested in Florida?"

"You are a toxic influence, and an 'outside agitator.'"

"You are a net negative to the candidate you’re trying to help; you should stop helping her, and let us handle her."

"What’s the use in running a candidate if you can’t finance them adequately to win?"

So many excuses NOT to run a Democratic candidate, from people whose job it is to run Democratic candidates! Oy Vey!!

Fergie, Janelle Christensen, Margie Stein and a whole lot of very helpful folks, ended up getting it done; a Democratic candidate running in each and every one of the 141 state legislative races on the Florida ballot in 2020; they recruited 36 of these 141, and facilitated ballot access for at least that many. That’s fully one quarter of the state legislative contests... absolutely amazing !

They asked the Florida state party for help, either in recruiting or financing ballot access; they declined, but said "good luck." They were introduced to their assigned overseer of "down-ballot” races, who had a separate budget specifically for “down-ballot" projects. We asked for help from this group; they declined, but said, "good luck."

"Janelle and Margie," Fergie told me, "made sure each candidate had basic care and nurturing; in many instances, including candidates that we did not recruit, but who needed, asked for, or would otherwise benefit from a little love and attention. Janelle and Margie did what the party would not do... talk to the candidates. 'Are you alright? Do you need anything that we can get for you? Call us if you need us.' That is basic human kindness and appreciation in action. Janelle and Margie did that. Bob Lynch helped more than a few of these candidates with early financial support and advice; Matt Rogers of Politidope provided much appreciated political experience and help to many; scores of grassroots activists gave their time and sweat to make these heroic candidates understand how appreciated their personal sacrifice truly was." Reid continued:

Some of the state party officials understood the importance of this effort and joined in with gusto. Others resisted; and continue to resist. With an opportunity to achieve parity in the Florida state Senate totally within his grasp, the Dem Caucus Chair, Senator Gary Farmer, still hasn’t endorsed Kathy Lewis in FL SD 20, a crucial seat that could give Gary Farmer shared power with his Republican counterpart, Wilton Simpson. The Dem Senate Caucus hasn’t yet called the 9 Democratic Senate candidates who are running in the perceived, "unwinnable" districts. (Do these candidates have "cooties?" Do phones not connect into their Republican districts? Do good form and manners cease to exist at the doorway to the Senate Caucus offices?) Yet, the candidates persist. They carry on. Because, if they don’t play, they can’t win. They probably define winning differently than the old guard party apparatchiks. By running and persisting, they’re winning marginal votes for Joe Biden in their districts; they’re winning hearts and minds of disaffected and previously disrespected voters who have been neglected cycle after cycle; they’re winning the argument within these disregarded communities about the environment, the economy, civil rights, voting rights, and COVID; they’re in the game, sweating, putting in the work.

That’s cool. That’s heroic. That’s high level citizenship.

Are they all going to win? Absolutely not. Some-- and remember, these are all districts the state party decided to not compete in-- are getting tantalizingly close and actually may win. And all of them are turning out votes for the Biden/Harris ticket which is perhaps even more important than Gary Farmer's and his cronies' careers of systemic corruption.





No one ever said all these candidates are going to win. Some of them are running in beet red districts where Democrats haven't run in years. Of course, that's part of the reason they may be so beet red. Rachel Brown is running for the state Senate in Lee County, which the FDP always seems too eager to write-off as "unwinnable." If she wins, the Senate flips from red to blue. But Gary Farmer was dating a Republican running in that district and he literally demanded Rachel drop out. (His GOP girlfriend lost her primary-- in a massive landslide-- and, thank goodness, Rachel didn't drop out. Today she's busy helping turn out Democratic and independent voters for Biden-Harris and she's educating voters about what Democrats stand for. "Always trying is the key," she told me this afternoon. "The second we give up any state, we lose momentum. For those who don't like the party, change it. For those who like the party and think sacrificing battle grounds with no fight... bad strategy. Even if you think you will lose, continuing to talk about medicaid expansion, Rights of Nature, a Green New Deal, will all add to the momentum that our party is lacking and shoot us into the right direction. The only thing we are doing by not having progressives run is creating intellectual deserts."

Before he became a candidate in a swing district state legislative seat in Miami-Dade where the Florida Democratic Party didn't want to run anyone (which would upset GOP powerhouse Daniel Perez), Bob Lynch had a career in Structured Products Trading on Wall Street. That included mortgages, auto, student loans, and also SBA loans. He has an intimate knowledge of loan documentation. "I can tell you with 100% certainty," he said, "that there has never been a single loan that walked into a bank and applied for itself. The Florida Democratic Party created a shell company in order to apply for this loan because political organizations were ineligible for obtaining a PPP loan. The stated purpose of this loan was to save 100 jobs, despite the fact that this entity had no payroll."

In short, Terri Rizzo, the party chair, and Juan Peñalosa, the party executive director, were committing fraud. Lynch:

Why is it that when the Florida Democratic Party was shamed into returning the loan, no jobs were cut? In fact, they hired more people... including third party consultants and contractors with multi million dollar budgets that were never accounted for.

Campaigns like Ricky Junquera’s in HD-118 were funded by this money. Subsequent donors contributions were essentially used to backfill this fraud. That’s a big deal.

When I called for Juan Peñalosa to be fired, I was attacked by the party and accused of being a racist. None of this money went to black or brown women.

Leading Florida Dem “strategists” told me that I should not kick the hornets nest and that because of Juan Peñalosa, Latino strategists such as Rosy Gonzales Spears, Luisana Pérez and many others finally had a place at the table.

All of this was a cash grab. It came down to the people who blew the election for Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson. Now they’re going to blow it again because that’s what these people do for a living.

Nobody cares about actually winning. It’s just about who can get the biggest piece of the wallet share. The Florida Dems spent over $14mm this cycle and $2mm of that went to an independent contractor to focus on only 19 races.

Following the money is extremely straight forward. Why can’t anyone tell me how any of this adds up?

On Wednesday morning, if you wake up and see that Rachel Brown won her Florida state Senate race in "red" Lee County, it means more than just the state Senate flipping blue; it will mean a whole new day dawning in Florida politics. "I think if I don't like something I should fix it," Rachel told me a few minutes ago. "There were many things the Florida Democratic party could have done to help us, requiring no money. In the future, the party should have an orientation in June, telling candidates about the 0.03 cents texting that they told us about two weeks to election day at the point where we were too busy to give them our money and they were too busy to give us the service, about robocalls, about 'data tickets,' about the hundreds of volunteer callers from around the U.S., they had the whole time, who wanted to help flip Florida. They should have one person whose job it is to call through those lists and assign them to campaigns."

She continued, explaining that she didn't want to just sit and complain about how the FDP does its business. "I know how frustrating that attitude must be to party leadership. I'm going to make sure future candidates know about these things and actually help get them started. I'm happy about the positive improvements in the party I've seen locally. For example Lee County Democrats made slate cards for the first time and distributed them to all the Democrats in the county. That's work. We all had many sleepless nights, making ads, printing, cutting and stapling flyers... and days of lit drops and phone calls and texts, and interruptions from media, emails and, of course, questionnaires that never amounted to anything. Anselm [Weber, candidates for the state House in the same area] and I had a volunteer who did 20 hours of phone calling a week. We had a couple join us, calling, making graphics, social media posts, running errands, and lit drops. I found comrades in the Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking communities who did translations for me. I had a 15 year old volunteer who couldn't vote because of her age but wanted to help and learn from us. Local donors in the vegan community, friends sharing posts and helping make events. We had someone donate huge signs for us to paint, and then put them up for us! There's a man in Bonita Springs, just going house to house registering Democrats to vote and making sure they do... There's so much being done here. I plan on keeping up that positivity and making comrades in Lee County."

Janelle Christensen from the state environmental caucus reiterated tome today that "Running for office, especially when you know the odds are not in your favor, takes incredible dedication to the democratic system. I see the biggest barriers as the antiquated system that the State of Florida has set up for candidates to register to run, the barriers put up to keep people from qualifying and the challenges in finance reporting. Margie and I tried (and at times failed) to help candidates navigate the system designed to keep out the average person. Despite those barriers each candidate has made connections in their communities, educated about climate change, and ensured that entrenched Republicans did not get to set the narrative without challenge. I am happy Margie and I could help candidates in any way we could. I hope we can do it again." She asked me to acknowledge the incredible difference the Blue Wave Coalition has made in some critical areas... they helped register voters and get out the vote in deep red Lee (DEC Chair Gabe Spukes) and Collier (DEC Chair Annisa Karim) Counties and the DEC Chair of Sarasota County, Joanne DeVries has been an amazing advocate and support system also. Some of the best voter turnout is happening in red districts." This is a spreadsheet Janelle updates several times a day.

Why Is The Florida Democratic Party Working So Hard To Lose?

 

Remember when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was bragging that his do-nothing response to the pandemic was just what the doctor ordered and how Florida would never be like New York or Italy. Today Florida has had 734,491 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (34,198 cases per million Floridians). New York has had 509,460 cases (26,189 cases per million New Yorkers) and Italy has had 354,950 cases (just 5,873 cases per million Italians). On Sunday Florida, still in the first wave, had 1,870 new cases. New York appears to be in the early phases of Wave II and reported 1,145 new cases. Like Trump, DeSantis has made every single wrong decision about the pandemic since it began, Because of DeSantis and Trump 15,365 Floridians are dead and the state currently has 284,231 active cases, more than any state other than California, which has nearly twice as many people.

DeSantis, the most hated governor in America, isn't on the ballot 3 weeks from today. He's lucky; but his party is on the ballot and voters know who the puppets in the state legislature are. The Florida state Senate consists of 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats. Four seats and the Democrats flip the Senate-- not an easy task... but not an impossible task either. Too bad the Florida Democratic Party doesn't seem interested in doing so.

"The party," former Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson told me yesterday, referring to the state Democratic Party, "should have come together and advocated a pro-survival, pro-health platform including free widespread testing, contact tracing, free state-provided PPE for everyone dealing with the public and all seniors, 'public nuisance' or 'disturbing the peace' enforcement against rule-breakers, free COVID treatment for everyone without insurance, frequent state inspection of nursing homes and senior communities for staff compliance, serious quarantining, selective restrictions tied to local outbreaks, virtual school open to all, and everything else that has been proven to work in places that have beaten the virus. Instead, crickets. Just crickets and funerals."

One of the least-covered scandals of this election cycle is how the head of the Florida Senate Dems, Gary Farmer, attempted to persuade-- rudely-- Rachel Brown into dropping out of an open state Senate race in Lee County to smooth the path for Farmer's Republican girlfriend, Heather Fitzenhagen. Luckily, Brown was not easily intimidated. Farmer's Republican girlfriend lost her primary to a neo-fascist Republican, Ray Rodrigues, and Brown is all that stands between him and another GOP extremist in the state legislature. Farmer is completely dismissive of Brown's campaign and has cut her off from state party funds.

Similarly, Farmer is protecting Trump Florida campaign Chair, Sen. Joe Gruters-- who is also chairman of the Florida Republican Party-- and has done everything he can do to sabotage the campaign of Democrat Katherine Norman, one of the best Democratic candidates fielded by the party this cycle.

Another case of Farmer working as hard as a Republican to make sure the Senate does not flip has been getting some national coverage. Joan Walsh's recent exposé in The Nation, Do Florida Democrats Want to Win the State Senate This Year? tells the story of Kathy Lewis, a distinguished African-American candidate who came close to beating the Republican incumbent last time she ran in a swing district that takes in parts of Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk counties. The Republican incumbent is retiring and the Democratic Party recognized a prime opportunity to flip a seat. They worked hard to recruit, not Kathy but failed gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink. When Sink declined, the party took the district off the map, despite Kathy's candidacy. Many observers say Farmer doesn't like black candidates running in white districts.

Last week, the Tampa Bay Times endorsed Kathy and demonstrated the short-sightedness of the state party. "Kathy Lewis," reads the editorial, "brings a compelling life story and a rich mix of professional and civic experience to this race. Her drive and clear view of the problems Floridians face would bring a fresh jolt of reality to the Senate." Gary Farmer should read the whole endorsement:

Lewis, 59, is an author, speaker and businesswoman who advocates on behalf of families with children with special needs. She was motivated to run for this Senate seat in 2018 after an ordeal with obtaining services for her daughter-- an experience that Lewis said shows the holes and indifference in the social safety net that punishes hard-hit families.

Lewis said her fight for disability rights grew beyond an interest in expanding Medicaid. And she says the coronavirus pandemic exposed the need to deal with social services across the board. She would invest more in education and public health, improve the unemployment benefits process and devise a strategy to address impacts to the budget. She also rightly wants Tallahassee to be more disciplined about preempting local control. Her agenda and infectious energy could bring average residents into the decision-making process and help restore public faith in government.

Republican Danny Burgess, 34, is an attorney and former state House member who served as executive director of the state Department of Veterans' Affairs from 2019 to 2020. Aside from supporting more reliable access to Florida’s jobless benefits system, Burgess doesn’t offer many exciting ideas or stray from the Republican playbook. He supports the costly plan for new transportation corridors, which is unfocused at best.


Lewis would bring a rich life experience to the upper chamber and a history of perseverance. She emerged from an inner-city household in Baltimore to become a financial analyst in both the public and private sectors and a civic leader in school and children’s groups. She has a command of what’s happening on the ground and what should happen at the 30,000-foot level. The Times Editorial Board recommends Kathy Lewis.

Over the weekend, Daily Kos diarist, SemDem, noted that "For the past two decades, there’s one thing the Florida Democrats have gotten really good at: losing." And, as he points out, there are far more registered Democrats in the state than registered Republicans. As of August, 2020:

• Democrats- 5,203,795
• Republicans- 5,020,199
• No Party Affiliation- 3,653,046

The Florida Democratic Party is fairly good at winning seats in overwhelmingly Democratic districts of Miami-Dade, Duval, Broward, Pinellas, Alachua, Orange, Osceola, Leon, Hillsborough, and Palm Beach counties, but would rather not contest races in districts were they need to work hard making a case to non-affiliated voters. They are lazy and incompetent as a party-- which is why it is so refreshing to have candidates up and down the ballot who are not affiliated with the party apparatus, whether state Senate candidates like Kathy Lewis, Rachel Brown and Katherine Norman, state House candidates like Joshua Hicks, Bob Lynch and Anselm Weber or U.S. congressional candidates like Adam Christensen and Cindy Banyai. (By the way, the 2020 ActBlue Florida thermometer on the right will allow you to contribute to any or all of these candidates. Please consider clicking on it.)

Yesterday Rachel Brown-- who isn't in one of those overwhelmingly blue districts-- told me that she only needs $7,000 to get her entire district's voters to click on her website from Facebook Ads. "A $100 donation," she said, "is the equivalent of a volunteer phone banker who calls for 4 hours a day for 7 days a week for 1 week. There are 132,809 registered Democrats in Lee County. I need 121,000 votes to win. This district is definitely flippable. We need help getting the word out. Please sign up for a phone bank or make a donation today. Even if I lose, the information that I put in my ads is necessary for the people to know. I give stats about livable wage, healthcare, climate, affordable housing, COVID-19 in all my ads. If people donate, the money goes to information/education based ads and conversational texting, and blast texts/robo calls reminding left leaning irregular voters to get out to vote."

One of the promising-- future of the Democratic Party-- state legislative candidates, Anselm Weber, is being actively ignored by the Florida party, despite an energetic and compelling campaign in Lee County that will be turning out votes in the presidential, congressional and state Senate races. Yesterday, Weber told me that "In the face of an openly fascist GOP administration, the gatekeepers in the Democratic Party still cede immense ground to the Republicans while actively helping them in key areas. Florida is a swing state with majority Democratic voters. It is deeply negligent in the face of a DeSantis administration that is openly trying to criminalize peaceful protests, refuses to expand Medicaid, and continues to destroy our environment, that the Democrats are not spending as much as they can to help flip the Florida State Legislature. Even if the Democrats win the Presidency and both chambers of Congress, the door is wide open for Republicans to continue their authoritarian and austerity driven agenda in Florida or any other state. The Democrats should take a page from the Republicans and fight for state and local elections as much as they fight for the Presidency."

Another candidate candidate didn't want to go on record but told me that "the party should and can do way more to help down ballot candidates and it's a shame they don't. Whoever is the chair in 2022 needs to commit to truly supporting down ballot candidates-- as many great candidates won't run again because they aren't treated well."

SemDem went on to point out that Farmer is only targeting 2 Senate seats (SD-9 and SD-39), guaranteeing that the state Senate will not flip. A vigorous grassroots movement has a bone to pick with Farmer and the state Party and has helped make sure a Democrat is running in every district. Like most people, SemDem has identified Kathy Lewis as the Democrat who has the best chance to bring the party the crucial 3rd seat that would force the GOP to share power with the Democrats. He points out that her swing district "transverses the I-4 corridor, which is critical for Biden’s Florida campaign... Supporting this race is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, not only has most of the Democratic senate caucus not endorsed her, she told me that two major donors who had pledged money were told not to donate to her campaign. What is going on?

Florida Senator Gary Farmer, who is set to be Democratic Minority Leader in 2021, oversees the Democratic Senate Victory funding. He has ensured that Senate Districts 9 and 39 are flush with money. District 9 challenger Patricia Sigman has been receiving funds from the Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign since March. More importantly, she and District 39 challenger Jose Fernandez received endorsements early on that helped big donors open their checkbooks. Sigman and Fernandez have raised half a million each.

Kathy Lewis never received such treatment. Mr. Farmer has tweeted against spending money on “long shots” that take away from races that he feels can be won. To be fair, he must spend a lot to win both Districts 9 and 39, and this year he must also spend money in District 3 (Tallahassee) and District 37 (South Florida) to ward off surprisingly strong challengers—even though they are in blue areas. The Democratic incumbents for SD-3 and SD-37 have over $300K each.

However, District 20 is far from a long shot. In fact, an internal poll, commissioned by a large donor in September, showed the race to be very competitive. The poll data showed that Lewis’ Republican opponent, Dan Burgess, had an edge until questions were posed from the GOP agenda, such as cutting Medicare, fracking and not fixing former governor, current Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ unemployment system-- which became an utter disaster in this state after COVID. The poll swung to Lewis by a 24-point margin! With appropriate funding, and Lewis’ plan to digitally micro-target constituents, the district could be in great shape for a flip.

Nonetheless, she not only received the cold shoulder on funding, she also has only managed to get the endorsements of five state senators as of this writing: Annette Taddeo, Lori Burman, Victor Torres, Audrey Gibson, and Bobby Powell. Endorsements are needed to bring in big donor funding. The other 12 Democratic state senators have not endorsed her, and in some cases, stated they wouldn’t. Fergie Reid, Jr. of 90for90.org revealed that Democratic state Sen. Darryl Rousen told him he had a friendly working relationship with Burgess, the Republican candidate, and thought Kathy Lewis wasn’t a strong enough candidate to beat him. I reached out to state Sen. Rousen and left messages, but they were not returned as of this writing.

If the Florida state Senate doesn't flip, it will be Gary Farmer's fault. If Florida fails to deliver its 29 electoral votes to Joe Biden this cycle it will be Gary Farmer's fault. If Florida remains a Republican hellhole it will be Gary Farmer's fault. Debbie Wasserman Schultz ran the Florida Democratic Party into a ditch; Gary Farmer is keeping it there. Whose payroll is Farmer on?

And it isn't just the venality for characters like Wasserman Schultz and Farmer that have turned Florida into such a challenge for Democrats. The party's incompetence is legendary. Adam Christensen, one of the state's rising stars, told me, regretfully that the state is far behind where it should be technologically-- at least in the rural parts of the state the party has been ignoring for years. Recently, his campaign spent $3,500 buying data from the party. "We decided to run tests on this  data to see just how effective it would be. We found that 80% of it was wrong. This included disconnected phone numbers, wrong cell numbers, incorrect addresses or emails ect… Data wins races, and right now Florida Democrats are running blind in the most critical areas-- that is if they are able to pay for this data at all. In my opinion if the Democratic Party of Florida gave out their software to everyone running and taught them how to do constant updates then they would have a phenomenal crowd-sourced operation and would win far more races than they do currently. It’s time to move into the 21st century, and we can’t afford to keep making the same mistakes."

Why Does Ron DeSantis Seem So Determined To Make His Pandemic Even Worse For Floridians?

 

Florida Man

On Thursday, Florida reported another 2,541 COVID cases and another 172 deaths (by far the worst in the U.S.). Only 7 full countries had more deaths on Thursday than Florida:

• India- 1,144
• U.S.A.- 942
• Brazil- 818
• Mexico- 601
• Argentina- 390
• Colombia- 178
• Iran- 175

Yesterday, Florida reported another 2,847 new cases-- bringing the state's total to 695,887, third worst after much bigger California and Texas. In fact, Florida now has 32,400 cases per million residents, compared to Texas' 26,243 cases per million and Califoirnia's 20,249, which is below the national average (21,767). Florida has 417,626 active cases, are than any state by far. In short, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, aided by Trump and a Republican-controlled legislature, has turned Florida into a COVID-basket case.

Yesterday DeSantis decided to make his pandemic worse by allowing restaurants at operate full capacity and preventing even the worst hit cities and counties from ordering businesses to close. This while new daily cases are spiking like mad in a dozen counties. Yesterday these were the 10 counties reporting new cases worse than some entire states!

• Miami-Dade- 503
• Broward- 191
• Palm Beach- 157
• Orange- 157
• Hillsborough- 155
• Duval- 120 (where Trump hel;d a super-spreader event Thursday night)
• Alachua- 98
• Polk- 96
• Brevard- 92
• Leon- 88

DeSantis announced that all restaurants in Florida will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity regardless of local rules. Additionally, the governor says local governments will have to justify any capacity restrictions between 50 and 100 percent. Those would require state approval... The governor says he will not allow local governments to close restaurants. As he has stated this week, he does not believe restaurant closures have made a difference in limiting the spread of COVID-19... [B]ars will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity, just like restaurants.

Meanwhile, DeSantis' boss, Donald, is reported to have "lost patience" with Dr. Robert Redfield the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventio, "as well as with the other public health experts on his coronavirus team because their sober messaging on the future of the pandemic clashes with his rosy assessments.

Trump believes that breakthroughs are not coming swiftly enough, according to people familiar with the President's thinking. Trump's frustrations have caused some to question whether Redfield is on the chopping block, but a Trump adviser said they did not expect the President to make major staffing changes before the election.

The ever-looming threat, Trump's public undermining of the CDC chief and Redfield's tendency to fold to the White House are taking a toll on CDC staff, from top to bottom, employees say. Some have questioned whether their work is making a difference and others have even considered resigning-- and whether the sagging spirits may be hampering pandemic response.

Eight current and former public health officials described for CNN a crushing environment at the agencies charged with the coronavirus response brought on by a President intent on contradicting critical public health messaging and downplaying the threat of the virus, politically motivated pressure from the White House and baseless allegations from political appointees that government scientists are part of a disloyal "deep state."

"The morale is as low as I've ever seen it and we have no confidence in our leadership," a CDC official said. "People are miserable and it's a shame because this pandemic is still flying away and we still need a robust public health response."

Inside the White House, Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci have struggled to compete with the growing influence of Trump's new favorite coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no public health or infectious disease expertise whose views are wildly out of step with leading public health experts. Birx has told people around her she is "distressed" with the direction of the task force and is uncertain how much longer she can continue to serve as the coronavirus task force coordinator.

And at the FDA, the agency's top career officials penned a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month reasserting the agency's independence and commitment to science amid political pressure from the White House and "deep state" allegations from the President.

In a nod to the dispirited mood engulfing his agency, Redfield registered his disappointment during a Senate hearing on Wednesday with since-departed top Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo's wild accusations that CDC scientists are part of a "deep state" engaging in "sedition."

Back to Florida for a moment. Matt Dixon reported at Politico that on Friday Bloomberg announced that he’s blanketing Florida airwaves with a $40 million TV ad buy, the first since he pledged to spend $100 million there to defeat Donald. "The massive buy, being made through the Bloomberg-funded Independence USA PAC, comes the same week that nearly 5 million vote-by-mail ballots are being sent to Florida voters in the the start of what effectively is a month-long Election Day in the nation’s largest swing state."

Bloomberg told Dixon that "This fall, the path to the presidency goes through Florida-- and with mail-in ballots going out this week, voters will soon start deciding who gets its 29 electoral votes. That’s why we’re doing everything in our power to tell the story of Donald Trump’s failed presidency and why we need Joe Biden as the next president of the United States."

Florida Republicans can't stop his ads but they are trying to stop him and others for paying the fines of felons so they can vote. Former Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson, one of the first supporters of the idea of re-enfranchising felons who had served their time, told me that "The threat to investigate Bloomberg is the best illustration so far of the psychopathology of the Florida GOP. Florida voted by almost two-to-one in favor of the principle that no one can take away your right to vote, even if you’re a convicted felon. That’s one of those 'INALIENABLE' rights-- a right that you cannot lose-- that the Founders said was 'endowed by the Creator.' But to the Florida GOP, that’s just LOL."





NPR reported yesterday that Ashley Moody, Florida's crackpot, right-wing attorney general, urged on by Matt Gaetz, the furthest right of the Florida congressional delegation, is demanding law enforcement agencies open an investigation into Bloomberg's contribution to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The Republicans are whining that Bloomberg and other contributing to the Coalition are trying to buy their votes.

Northeast Florida state House candidate Joshua Hicks, endorsed yesterday by President Obama, isn't buying DeSantis' bullshit. "Last I checked, the pandemic is still present," he told me, "we haven't found a cure, people are still getting sick and dying. Yet, today's decision to reopen Florida by Gov. DeSantis was another example of his severe incompetence and his obvious need to please Donald Trump. This decision made by the Governor places lives in danger-- young and old-- and he's playing political games with all of our lives. It's shameful and unbecoming of a Governor. Instead of addressing this virus head on, the Governor has been spreading lies and hiding the facts from the people. He continues to do so and I look forward to holding him fully accountable when I'm elected to the Florida Legislature on November 3rd. Or, he added... as The Atlantic put it Thursday: "In present-day politics, we have one party that consistently seeks advantage in depriving the other party’s adherents of the right to vote."

Bob Lynch is a state House candidate in Miami-Dade, running against one of DeSantis' top allies in the legislature, Daniel Perez. Bob told me yesterday that "You have to remember that Ron DeSantis is doing this AFTER doing nothing to shore up our state’s unemployment, deliberately making it hard to access Federal PUA money, and not rejecting the extra $300 a week in Federal unemployment assistance. So what choice do people have who work in the restaurant industry? Go to work and get sick while bringing the virus into your home or stay home and get no assistance and risk starvation? If we had had a comprehensive state and Federal response since he beginning of the Pandemic we would not be facing this brutal decision.  We should have acted like other modern countries and paid people to stay home. Instead, the Republicans just want to send people to their deaths while providing immunity to business owners that don’t follow whatever messed up version of the CDC guidelines appear from day to day. There is no gray area on the science here. Dining indoors helps spread the virus. The negligence is criminal. The GOP has a very fluid position on states and local rights. They are all in favor of them as long as The will of the people is bent to their vision of what’s 'best'."

Lynch said that "Residents of Florida already overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in 2018 to restore voting rights for felons. There was no provision for a poll tax to make them pay their fees. Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan have honorably stepped in to assist in this effort as many ex-felons can’t even find out what they will be required to pay to exercise their Constitutional rights. Overturning the will of the people is nothing new in Florida. It happened with Medical Marijuana, it happened with disenfranchising felons, and it will happen again. Hopefully not with the results of the election in November. DeSantis will not provide a critical check on the Trump Regime and Florida Republicans will never provide a check on DeSantis. Our only hope is to vote them all out and elect Democrats who believe in science and the constitution. People will continue to die due to Ron DeSantis’ decisions."

If Rachel Brown wins her state Senate race in Lee County on November 3 you will read the next day that the Democrats, despite the party leadership-- and particularly despite Gary Farmer-- have flipped the chamber from red to blue. This morning Brown told me, referring to DeSantis and his puppets in the legislature, that "they are sacrificing people, school children, for the sake of 'normalcy.' A leader does not pretend everything is ok. A leader deals with an issue head on and is honest with their people. It was absolutely devastating, revolting, apocalyptic... the news. Now that the schools have adapted in these tough times, now this? Now they will have to deal with parents not sending their kids to school with a mask? ... Now it's not safe to go to the grocery store... or go out and vote? That was their plan all along. Discusting."

Is Gary Farmer's Abject Fear Of Winning Going To Cost Biden The State Of Florida?

 

Florida is the ultimate 50-50 swing state. After FDR died-- and Florida had given him over 70% of its votes in each of his 4 runs-- Florida became a purple state. Truman won and then Eisenhower won there twice. After that, it went like this:

• 1960- Nixon 51.51% to JFK 48.49%
• 1964- LBJ 51.15% to Goldwater 48.85%
• 1968- Nixon 40.53% to Humphrey 30.93% to Wallace 28.53%
• 1972- Nixon 71.91% to McGovern 27.80%
• 1976- Carter 51.93% to Ford 46.64%
• 1980- Reagan 55.52% to Carter 38.50%
• 1984- Reagan 65.32 to Mondale 34.66%
• 1988- Bush I 60.87% to Dukakis 38.51%
• 1992- Bush I 40.89% to Clinton 39.00% to Perot 19.82%
• 1996- Clinton 48.02% to Dole 42.32% to Perot 9.12%
• 2000- Bush II 48.85% to Gore 48.84%
• 2004- Bush II 52.10% to Kerry 47.09%
• 2008- Obama 51.03% to McCain 48.22%
• 2012- Obama 50.01% to Romney 49.13%
• 2016- Trump 48.60% to Clinton 47.41%

Very few votes-- just a handful anywhere in the state-- can tip a statewide election, and often does. And there are 29 electoral votes at stake-- same as New York and more than any other states other than Texas (38) and California (55). Trump can't win a second term without and it's such a major target for Biden because of that more than because he needs it himself. In Politico yesterday, Matt Dixon noted that Florida Democrats have built a vote-by-mail lead. But there is more than that at stake: control of the state legislature and at least 3 or 4 congressional seats. Dixon pointed out that Florida Democrats "have requested roughly 730,000 more election ballots ahead of the general election than Republicans, who have seen their traditional vote-by-mail dominance eroded by the president’s efforts to brand it as a vehicle for widespread fraud."

As of Thursday morning, Democrats in the nation’s largest swing state had requested 2.3 million mail ballots, compared with 1.5 million requests from registered Republican voters. That’s a departure from four years ago, when a million Republicans requested ballots compared to fewer than 882,000 Democrats.

It’s a good-- but not conclusive-- early sign for Democrats less than six weeks from Election Day in a state where every vote counts. Trump and Democrat Joe Biden are all but deadlocked in the state, where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by just 166,911 votes.

...[But a] request for a mail ballot does not equate to a ballot cast.

During Florida primaries last month, Democrats failed to return nearly 800,000 mail ballots. Republicans, by contrast, had fewer than 562,300 requested ballots unaccounted for. Florida voters in all mailed 4.2 million ballots in the primary.

...Florida Republicans also tend to turn out in much larger numbers on Election Day, which can swamp Democrats’ mailed ballots and early in-person voting advantages. During the August primary, 576,875 Republicans voted on Election Day, compared with 325,961 Democrats, an advantage that the GOP expects to maintain in November.

...Trump this year has made mailed-ballots a partisan bogeyman with baseless accusations that have hurt his own chances in the battleground state. While on a tirade about remote voting, Trump appeared to encourage North Carolina residents to illegally cast two ballots-- by mail and in person-- prompting a fresh spate of worries among his allies. But Republicans close to the president so far have been unable to persuade him to stop equating vote by mail to fraud.

The persistent attacks already have hurt Republican voter turnout in Florida, where the party long has had an edge in vote by mail. During the August primaries, 1.9 million people cast ballots by mail. Of those, nearly 60 percent were Democrats, a shift from past performance.

In the 2016 primary, for instance, of the 1.1 million vote-by-mail ballots cast, 57 percent came from Republicans.

“Republican numbers are tanking for sure, due almost exclusively to Trump’s false claims of rampant fraud,” said incoming state Senate Leader Gary Farmer, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat running his caucus’ 2020 campaigns. “Historically, the Republicans have kicked our butts with vote by mail. Not this year.”

Republicans may lose the state because of Trump... Democrats may lose because of Farmer, whose ambition is to be Senate Minority leader. The Florida state Senate consists of 40 members. Right now, 23 are Republicans and 17 are Democrats. If the Republicans lose 4 seats (net), the Democrats get a say in state government. Farmer is so panicked about the idea of a Democratic majority that he has worked-- not something he is known to do much-- to sabotage Democratic candidates running for the Senate! Joan Walsh, reporting for The Nation last week, told the story elegantly yesterday of how Farmer has undermined Kathy Lewis' campaign. Just as bad, Farmer demanded that progressive Democrat Rachel Brown drop out of her race and cede her district to the GOP without a fight, a move that could cause Biden to lose enough votes to lose the state and perhaps the presidency. That's who Gary Farmer is-- the worst of the Democratic Party anywhere.

The Rachel Brown story is an interesting one. Farmer was eager to see his girlfriend, Heather Fitzenhagen, a Republican state Rep, win the Lee County-based Senate seat (Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel). GOP incumbent Lizbeth Benacquisto is termed-out of office and Fitzenhagen is a vaguely mainstream Republican compared to another state House member, neo-fascist Ray Rodrigues, who was also running for the Republican nomination. Farmer demanded-- on several bullying phone calls-- that Brown drop out, insisting that somehow that would help his lover. Brown demurred and is now the Democratic nominee-- who Farmer-- in control of all institutional state Senate campaign funds-- adamantly refuses to back. The Trumpist neo-fascist Rodrigues slaughtered Farmer's girlfriend in the GOP primary, 47,935 (74.8%) to 16,115 (25.2%).

A couple of days ago, Brown told me that "Compromise is something I am familiar with. My university (Florida Gulf Coast University) has sanctions on the percentage of university owned land they can develop on, so every year they buy more land so they can build on more of it and still remain in the required percentage agreement. This is exactly what we are doing when we bend the knee to people who don't think healthcare, clean air and clean water should be a basic human right. When we accept compromise, we lose land we will never regain. Farmer and friends handed the nomination to a Republican who, like Gary Farmer, voted against allowing folks to purchase prescription drugs at lower prices from Canada. They saw Heather having a heart once because she voted against parental consent for abortions because "in many cases the parent is the cause of the pregnancy" (Heather's words). She has a level of personhood but under pressure from her party she will always vote against the needs of working people." She continued, bending over backwards to be "fair" to Farmer. Please read her whole statement and consider contributing to her campaign by clicking on the 2020 Florida thermometer below.

It can be easy to feel defeated, which is why I sympathized with Gary when he called. He sounded scared. The Republicans are the party of the rich, and to win an election you need to buy ads. The person with the most money usually wins because they can buy the most ads. I'm sure Gary has lost plenty of times, and he is forced into a rigid way of thinking... how can I do my job... who can I get in who can help me do my job... So he starts to empathize with the enemy and graciously accept any crumb they give him.

I am on the outside and I see the big picture. If we leave vacant seats uncontested across Florida, we are handing over democracy to the Republicans in exchange for 40 lashes instead of 41. We have to fight because our entire nation depends on the way Florida votes this year. Yes, I have a personal fear of Ray Rodriguez winning and destroying Florida but the heart of the matter is what the public knows. If the public knows that an awful man is in control, and they don't like him and they revolt, great. If the public thinks everything is fine when in reality it is not, well that's even more dangerous.

Also, when you don't support a candidate financially you are sending them into battle with nothing. Yes I can get creative, but I'm going to need at least $20,000 to reach all the voters I need to reach and that's still incredibly low for a Senate race.

The fact that Gary at this point cannot work with Heather to join me, the way he joined her to take me down is pretty nasty. I offered a hand of unity to Heather when she lost. I asked her to join me in my fight against Ray. Surely she cares about beating him a little bit (even though she never showed up to forums with the two of us, I cannot imagine she gave up her congressional race to go after the party's chosen future governor for nothing) I thought surely a good political move for her even would be to join a young emerging female in politics, but no. She and Gary and the rest of the state Senate Dems chose to shun me like an Amish community. I have never felt more unwelcome. I, someone who is putting my life on hold to save Florida from a tyrant... the Trump of the Florida Senate.

Florida Democratic Party-- Exposed!

State Senate candidate-- and passionate environmental leader-- Katherine Norman will change Tallahassee in ways that will be a transformational joy for the entire state of Florida

 

Congratulations are due Joan Walsh for her powerful and cogent exposé of the crooked, worthless Florida Democratic Party in the new issue of The Nation: Do Florida Democrats Want to Win the State Senate This Year? "Party leaders’ reluctance to support promising challengers, and a penchant for punishing those who complain about that lack of support," she wrote, "provokes the question." Too bad she missed the one about Gary Farmer trying to bully Rachel Brown, a Democrat out of an open seat race because he was screwing the Republican (who lost her primary anyway). Now Farmer refuses to back Brown in the race.

"Florida Democrats," wrote Walsh, "are locked out of state-level power by a GOP trifecta that runs the governor’s office, the House, and the Senate. But they only need to pick up three Senate seats to achieve at least a tie in that chamber, and thus reach a power-sharing arrangement with the GOP, which is especially important as the state takes up redistricting next year. Party leaders and local observers seem to agree that two Democratic candidates have a decent chance to flip GOP-held open seats, in the Miami-Dade and Orlando areas. But a 21-19 balance gets the party very little in terms of legislative clout, particularly when it comes to redistricting. That’s why observers and activists are increasingly perplexed that Florida Democratic leaders and donors haven’t coalesced around at least one or two more Democrats whom concentrated support might push across the finish line, especially if November turns into a blue wave election. Which it could. The once-popular Governor Ron De Santis now has the second-worst Covid-approval rating of the nation’s governors, right behind Iowa Republican Kim Reynolds. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is running ahead of Donald Trump in a state Hillary Clinton lost by only one point, largely on his strength with seniors. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg just announced plans to pump $100 million into Florida to elect Democrats."

As you may be aware by now, Blue America is supporting some of the most promising challengers in Florida, including three amazing women running for the state Senate, the aforementioned Rachel Brown, the amazing Katherine Norman, who is taking on Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a top Trump lackey, and the candidate Walsh concentrated on in her piece, Kathy Lewis. Clicking on the ActBlue thermometer on the right will show you all of our Florida candidates and allow you to contribute to all or any of their campaigns. Building the Florida progressive bench is incredibly important.

Most of the confusion about why the state Democratic Senate leadership isn’t championing more challengers converges on Kathy Lewis, a writer and disability-rights activist who ran in a red district in 2018 and came closer to winning than anyone expected, taking 46.5 percent of the vote in this traditionally Republican, rural, urban, and suburban district, even though she was outspent more than 10-1 by a longtime GOP incumbent. Now he’s stepping down, prompting a special election for an open seat in this Tampa–St. Petersburg area district anchored by Hillsborough County. With more money and experience behind her, Lewis and her supporters believe she has a solid chance of victory this time, but party leaders don’t seem to see it that way.

And pointing out her lack of party support is, confoundingly, making it harder for her to raise money, Lewis told me. At least two major donors told the Senate District 20 candidate directly that party leaders warned them away from her campaign, because she has talked to local and national news outlets, including The Nation, about her struggles to get state Democrats to take her campaign seriously. More than one Florida Democrat has suggested she stop talking to the press about her travails, if she wants to gain support.

“Nobody’s gonna tell me what to say,” Lewis told me. “I can’t be bought.”

Lewis is not the only Florida Democratic candidate to feel abandoned by party leaders. After the State Democratic Environmental Caucus and the voter-access group 90 for 90 collaborated on recruiting 36 challengers for state House and Senate races-- one for all but one seat-- Senate Democratic minority leader Gary Farmer, who drives official caucus spending on 2020 races, belittled their efforts.

“I’m guided by science & reality,” Farmer tweeted. “Contesting every race is great if you have $ to do so. We simply don’t & won’t until we achieve majority. When you spend on races that are long shots you take $ from races that can be won.” Beth Matuga, a consultant for Senate Victory, a group representing Florida Senate Democrats, also replied defensively on Twitter, arguing that “the caucus has grown in 10yrs from 12 to 17, with very real opportunity to get to 19 this cycle…I’m tired of people pretending like contesting downballot seats is a new idea when they’ve been ignoring it for 10yrs.” It’s true that the caucus has clawed back seats, but if it only gets to 19 this cycle, critics note, it cedes redistricting entirely to the GOP, which will then draw new maps unlikely to give the Democrats a chance to win the Senate anytime soon. (I got pushback on that notion from one Florida source, who says that with a slim two-vote majority, Republicans won’t be able to sacrifice any incumbents to change district lines, which they did in 2011, after the GOP landslide of 2010, because they had a larger edge.)

Down With Tyranny blogger Howie Klein, long a pull-no-punches advocate for the party’s progressive insurgency, retorted in a post, “If There Was No Florida Democratic Party, It Would Be Easier For Democrats To Win.” Klein specifically cited Lewis’s lack of support, among others, as an example.

There is clearly major friction, in Florida and elsewhere, between a new wave of outside groups plus longtime activists who believe Democrats should be contesting many more, if not every, state legislative seat, and party leadership, which tends to fight to protect incumbents. “This is a real tension,” a leader of an outside group working in Florida told me. “Running in every district, if it doesn’t come with the necessary support, isn’t strategic.” On the other hand, party leaders tend to be over-concerned with protecting incumbents, along with their own leadership positions, and thus often define “winnable” races too narrowly, this person said, adding, “Kathy Lewis is exactly the kind of candidate we should support.”

I watched this play out in Virginia in 2017, where by most accounts Democratic House Caucus leaders, and even some progressive activists, thought they could pick up roughly eight GOP seats in the House of Delegates, though they were down by 16. Yet many more Virginia challengers argued, loudly, that they deserved support. Ultimately, Democrats won 15 seats, almost taking over leadership, thanks to brave insurgents, the intervention of new outside groups, and the emerging blue wave that in 2019 gave Virginia a Democratic trifecta, with control of the State House, Senate, and governor’s office.

Florida Democrats indeed look to be outmatched in terms of fundraising this year. The Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (FDLCC), the arm that supports Senate candidates, had raised just under $2 million by the end of August, compared to $7.1 million hauled in by the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In 2018, the Democrats were outspent $46 million to $18 million.

So the party is investing in flipping two Senate seats, also, like Lewis’s, left open by the departure of GOP incumbents. Leaders backed Representative Javier Fernández to pursue an open seat in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, and put money behind him. In the Orlando area, officials recruited and invested heavily in labor attorney Patricia Sigman. In that Orlando race, the two parties have already spent more than $1 million, combined. Senate Democrats are also defending incumbent Jose Javier Rodríguez of northeastern Miami-Dade, who won narrowly in 2016 and faces a well-funded GOP challenger, as well as an open seat in greater Tallahassee, recruiting Representative Loranne Ausley.

In Lewis’s District 20, party leaders tried to recruit Alex Sink, the state’s former chief financial officer and 2014 candidate for governor. Sink declined, and has endorsed Lewis. Lewis is beginning to rack up other meaningful endorsements, including four Senate incumbents-- but Florida’s Senate has a 17-seat Democratic delegation, which means that with only seven weeks before the election, 13 of them are still AWOL. And she has received nothing from the official Senate Victory funding arm, the FDLCC.

Meanwhile, Lewis’s GOP opponent, former state representative Danny Burgess, has raised more than $270,000 so far to Lewis’s $44,000, and just went on television with his first ad.

Weirdly, even some of Lewis’s supporters are reluctant to talk about her struggle for funding. Several Lewis backers ignored my outreach. One incumbent senator referred me to Senate minority leader Gary Farmer, instead of returning my call. Farmer, who controls Democratic Senate spending and has not endorsed Lewis, did not return two messages. A representative from Senate Victory stressed that decisions about individual races are based on data, adding, “While Kathy Lewis is a great candidate, the numbers show better opportunities for pickups in other areas of the state.”

Most disturbing, Lewis, who is African American, says she’s been criticized for making race an issue, when she herself has, as far as I know or can determine via Google searches, done no such thing. The issue of race did move front and center in July, when a local white Democratic leader said on a Zoom call with Black Democrats that Lewis’s race was “not high on our list because of where the polling was. What we do is, we prioritize based on our overall goals. White, Black, brown—it doesn’t matter who that candidate is, it’s where they fall on our election priority list.” A local Black Democratic activist protested: “I just think any Black woman in the race right now stands a chance and should be given a little more money than you might think they need. I just feel that you should give them more money!”

It must be said: After this conversation drew national attention, Lewis’s endorsements by local Democratic leaders began to surge. Money, not so much.

Lewis supporter Dr, Fergie Reid Jr., of the group 90 for 90, has no qualms about discussing the role of race in the lack of support for Lewis. During his many phone calls advocating for recruited candidates, he intermittently heard the phrase “minority-access district,’’ which he took to mean majority-black (which Lewis’s district is not, though the number of nonwhite voters is continually climbing). And he said so, explaining that he understood that to be a Jim Crow euphemism for a “Black District”-- or, alternatively, an “acceptable district for a Black person to pursue.” He received no pushback, he says, “only embarrassing affirmation.”

Whatever the role of race, many smart Democrats are increasingly questioning the Senate caucus’s neglect of Lewis’s campaign.

One Democratic operative who has worked in Florida said, “If you don’t compete, you can’t win. Senate District 20 should be a top target. It’s in the heart of the I-4 corridor that has seen strengthening support for Democrats this year, it saw strong Dem performance in 2018, and it could be the key to winning the Senate, when few competitive seats are up.”

This morning Rachel Brown reminded me that "Kathy Lewis won over 87,000 votes last time, more than 46%, without any help from the state party... That's what showed me that grassroots candidates like myself can give the Republicans a run for their money without state party help... We have to fight because our entire nation depends on the way Florida votes this year. Yes, I have a personal fear of Ray Rodriguez winning and destroying Florida but the heart of the matter is what the public knows. If the public knows that an awful man is in control, and they don't like him and they revolt, great. If The public thinks everything is fine when in reality it is not, well that's even more dangerous. Also, when you don't support a candidate financially you are sending them into battle with nothing. Yes I can get creative, but I'm going to need at least 20,000 to reach all the voters I need to reach and that's still incredibly low for a senate race." I'll just leave off here with another reminder that readers can support Rachel Brown, Kathy Lewis and Katherine Norman in their state Senate races by clicking on the thermometer above or right here. Every voter they contact and persuade in their own races, is another voter-- whether they win or lose this year-- against Trump in November. If Rachel, Kathy and Katherine win their races, the GOP no longer controls the state of Florida. That simple.

Two Young Independent-Minded Florida Progressives Running As Democrats But...

Anselm Weber and Rachel Brown are a progressive couple in Southwest Florida who have organized for voter registration and around issues of sensible drug policy, voter rights restoration, $15 minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, and climate action. Rachel Brown is running for the Florida Senate District 27 and Anselm Weber is running for Florida House District 76. Rachel is working on her environmental engineering degree and Anselm got his bachelors in history. I asked them to co-write a guest post for DWT introducing themselves. If you like what they have to say, please split a contribution between them by clicking on the 2020 Up and Down the Florida Ballot thermometer below.


  We met at Florida Gulf Coast University, both having a deep concern for financially distressed and uninsured individuals. We got politically active and came together as we co-led the Students for Sensible Drug Policy university chapter, where we brought to light the horrors of the drug war and mass incarceration which disproportionately target minorities and poor people of all backgrounds. Although our main priority was mass incarceration, we talked in depth about the price gouging inherent in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries and the need for Medicare-for-All. Our main action was petitioning for the Florida Cannabis Act, but we also incorporated Medicaid expansion petitioning and voting rights restoration for felons since they are heavily related issues.

During the 2020 election, we volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign as much as we could, as we both felt the urgency of the change Senator Sanders was endorsing. In our own lives, we feel the issues that many working class and low-income people are facing across the country at this moment. We have both worked service sector jobs and have had difficulty in finding adequate healthcare (Rachel does not even have health insurance), affordable housing or a well-paying job with benefits.


Florida has gained national coverage over the GOP's disgusting response to COVID-19. Its leadership has left its people at the mercy of the virus, rushing stores and schools to reopen, with no regard to low-income people who have no hazard pay or rent forgiveness. While we recognize how morally intolerant the GOP is and how their regime needs to be upended, we also understand that the fight for equity for all will not stop at flipping the country and the state blue. We've watched in frustration at the Democratic party over the course of the primary and how they showed heavy disregard towards demands for universal programs, upending of our criminal justice system, and a nonviolent foreign policy.


To enhance our skepticism of the party, we've seen the Democrats fail to prioritize low-income people during COVID-19 and go along with the trillions of dollars going to high income earners and corporations. Their response to recent uprisings for racial justice in our criminal justice system was pathetic as they rolled out a series of half measures to address police brutality and did a perplexing symbolic gesture with Kente clothing and an empty 9-minute kneel for George Floyd.

Our presidential nominee will not commit to Medicare for All, even as COVID-19 is exposing how abhorrent gatekeeping health coverage is. The leadership would rather talk about Trump's endlessly nauseating tweets than the deep divide between tenants and property managers, worker and management, or felons and prosecution. Trump is obviously one of the most reckless and racist presidents of our modern age, but we must be more than anti-Trump and be anti-poverty, anti-racist, and anti-pollution in all aspects of political life.

We are running as Democrats but we are not going to listen to calls from the conservative wing of the party to hedge our priorities for the working class. We know what is necessary politically at this time and for the years to come. Although we are running in conservative areas, we feel like our message about prioritizing material needs will be a refreshing turn from tired tropes from either party. Although we took a massive loss when Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race this last April, there is still hope for real progressives to succeed in making this country a better place for all Americans.

Florida Is One Weird State... And Then There's The Politics

Fatally-flawed Florida Democratic Party boss Gary Farmer

Florida's 27th senatorial district-- most of Lee County and all of Fort Myers and Cape Coral-- is safely red. There are 197,866 registered Republicans, 128,204 registered Democrats and 139,293 others (mostly independents). In 2016 Lee County voters backed Trump over Hillary, 58.7% to 38.3%. The "blue wave" two years later didn't make it to southwest Florida and Lee County voters voted heavily for Rick Scott for Senate (60.3%) and Ron DeSantis for governor (60.1%).

Republican Lizbeth Benacquisto is a sleazy career politician who won the 27th senatorial district in the 2010 Republican wave election when the district went from Lee County clear across the state into the Gold Coast and the Sun Coast. She has been in the Senate ever since, served as Majority Leader from 2012-14 and is termed out of office this year. State Rep. Ray Rodrigues (also incredibly sleazy) was expected to ascend to the senate seat without opposition. And then last week, another Republican state Rep., Heather Fitzenhagen, termed out of the state House, and running for the area's open congressional seat, withdrew from the crowded congressional race and filed to run for the SD-27 seat.

On occassion, she has been cooperative with the Democratic minority, voting, for example, for the Parkland gun safety bill and against an extreme right anti-abortion provision and backing a Lee County COVID-19 lockdown. [Lee County, the 8th most populous county, reports the 6th most coronavirus cases in the state-- and 202 new cases on Sunday, the third most of any county in Florida. So far only Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach have had more COVID deaths than Lee.]

SD-27 candidate-- not Rodrigues and not Fitzenhagen

Rodrigues had expected a coronation and now he has a primary AND a Democratic opponent. Democrats don't normally bother to run there. The Florida Democratic Party is so moribund, useless and bankrupt that a decade of loser party bosses has come to believe not running candidates in dozens of state legislative districts is somehow a smart strategy-- as they've watched the party continue to shrink. Florida is a 50/50 purple state-- with a state House that has 73 Republicans and 46 Democrats. That summarizes the Florida Democratic Party's grand strategy. You'd almost think the GOP pays top party Democrats to keep it in place. If you want to contribute to Rachel's campaign, you can do it here.

I spoke with the courageous, Democratic candidate, Rachel Brown, who refused to be bullied, yesterday. She's amazing. "Yes," she told me, "a man told me he would fund millions to other candidates but not me because I 'can't win' and even tried to bargain with me, saying he would submit a Green New Deal bill in exchange for me not running so his career politician friend can have my votes. The reason I don't want to say his name is not because I care about his career. I don't care about anyone's career. I just don't want to give people one person to pin point for something that a network of people are doing. It's not just him. It's not that easy. I was recruited to run for office by the President of the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida, Janelle Christensen. I am in cahoots with them and I am proud. AOC was recruited by the White Heads and she is proud. This man who called me two days before the filing deadline begging me not to run so that votes that will go to me could instead to go his fellow establishment politician who has not brought justice for the people, is in cahoots with someone. Who? He wouldn't tell me, and so I don't trust him and whoever is in his network. He also voted against a legislation that would allow people to get more affordable prescription drugs. I don't trust that."

She continued-- in her own words "Before he called me he even had his attorneys which he so graciously gave me free access to, attempt to sabotage my filing documents. If his goal was for this story to come out so republicans can see what a fantastic saboteur of democracy he can be and then receive funding from the "bottomless pit of money" he says they have... he's a genius. If he truly is just terrified of Ray Rodrigues winning... I understand. Ray Rodrigues will allow developers to destroy our beaches because they fund his campaign. He in fact was part of a preemptive legislation that prevents local governments from establishing a legal right to clean air and clean water for their citizens. That legislation, deceptively titled 'SB712 Cean Water Says Act,' is currently waiting to be signed by Governor DeSantis and if not vetoed within 15 days, will automatically become law. It's not fair. The people should have a legal right to clean air and clean water and they don't even know this is happening.

"I understand the fear of someone who signs legislation like these getting into power. My tactic however is not to bend over and allow an easier loss, not to be intimidated by the bottomless pit of money my opponents have, but to fight back. I believe there are enough genuine people who are tired of politics and want to vote in genuine people. I believe taxpayer money should go to taxpayers and not to corporate handouts. A true public servant finds their network in the public, not in whoever and whatever company can give them the largest donations. I am not intimidated that this man will not help me, the same way he did not help Cathy Lewis who got 46% of the vote and only spent 1/12 of what her opponent spent. No. We cannot allow ourselves to rely on the establishment, because they and their dishonesty are exactly what the new wave of Democrats, that I am apart of, are working to eradicate."

A grassroots movement to ensure Democrats fighting in every one of Florida's 120 state House and 40 state Senate districts has been successful-- much to the chagrin of the state party, which has fought the effort every step of the way. Progressive activist Rachel Brown filed to run for the Lee County Senate seat. The state Party didn't welcome her.

A longtime reliable source inside the office of a top Democratic elected official in Broward County told me that incoming Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer personally called Brown-- more than once-- to dissuade her from running. The word "strong-armed" was used to describe Farmer's discussion. A married man (separated and notorious for his relationship with a Republican Tallahassee lobbyist, Andreina Figueroa) with two children, Farmer has a "close" relationship with Republican Fitzenhagen, who is known to be in "an open marriage," and is eager to see her beat Rodrigues. (Who knew being a member of the Florida legislature was more productive than being on Tinder?)

In any case, how does this make any sense, at least politically-speaking? Does he expect Democrats to vote in the GOP primary if there's no Democrat running and pick his girlfriend the less far right Republican? Or is Farmer just paying back the state Republican Party for not running anyone against him in 2018? Republicans failed to field a Democrat in 22 House districts and 2 Senate districts.

After the fact-- and after not lifting a finger to help anyone-- the corrupt state party claims to be happy to have so many candidates running for the legislature. (Only one district is uncontested.) Party executive director Juan Peñalosa said the effort shows "no seat is safe." No free rides for Republicans this time-- and down-ballot candidates turning out Democratic voters who can also be expected to vote for Democrats running for president and for congressional candidates. I asked millennial congressional candidate Adam Christesen how this strategy plays into his own race in north central Florida's 3rd congressional district race. He told me that "It’s a game changer. Not only will it help boost Democratic turnout in every district but it makes the Republican party have to contest and spend money, time and resources in places they don’t want to. It stops them from shifting resources to contested races and double or triple teaming Democratic candidates at the state and congressional level. To use a sports analogy, before this year the Democratic party has attempted to play a football game, using only 8 players while the other team has 11. Democrats in Florida may score an occasional touchdown but no matter how well they do or how good they are, they were outnumbered and at a severe disadvantage."

Dr. Janelle Christensen-- no relation to Adam, beyond both being progressive Democrats-- is, as Rachel mentioned, president of the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida. She told me that "in April 2020 there were 33 seats that did not yet have a Democrat running. The Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida (DECF) recruited 27 candidates from our membership and the remaining candidates from our network (like College Democrats). I think Juan Peñalosa is correct: most in the party really are glad we have more candidates running in 2020. Democratic Executive Committees (DECs) who had trouble with recruitment were usually receptive to having more people stepping up. Until recently, FDP just didn't have the resources to back candidates in deep red areas, which meant we had to make a grassroots effort to find the funding for filing fees. But, there is a new initiative that we hope will provide resources (like access to data) to candidates (who otherwise had to pay for it). Hopefully that will empower candidates all over Florida." Such an optimist!