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."