In 2008, President Obama won Florida by appealing to an increasingly large and diverse group of voters. Hispanic voters were strongly energized by hope and change. He also won, by-passing the state Democratic apparatus-- especially old-guard affiliations. That was by design. This overlooked fact, now that the 2010 election results are in, points the way forward for Florida Democrats.
Part of Obama's calculation was that he didn't need to cultivate, like the Clintons, alliances within the African American vote. But there is every indication, from this-- Florida's most populous county-- that deal-making by African Americans for their slice of the political pie has only served as a form of permanent political enslavement. African Americans are far from the only group hostage to the political past.
South Florida's senior and more liberal Democratic voters have been captive, too, to cracker politics that dominate the old line, north Florida. North Florida Democrats produced conservative, 7 term Congressman Allen Boyd not to mention a sad list of failed campaigns for state office; including Buddy McKay, Bill McBride, Betty Castor, Jim Davis, and now Alex Sink and Rod Smith.
Boyd, from Florida Congressional District 2, was proud of being a conservative Democrat and part of the
Blue Dog Coaltion that vexed the Obama White House that ultimately felt compelled, as a result, to sharply curtail its legislative priorities. Priorities, like the environment.
As noted by the Florida Independent, Boyd has been, recently, a key figure in the effort to eliminate funding for the EPA, to kill the most important initiative to protect Florida's environment in decades-- restrain the pollution of Florida streams, rivers, and bays.
Ultimately, Boyd could not save his seat from the torrent of cash seeking an even more conservative, radical Republican home. But the take-away lesson is not that Democrats somehow failed to reflect the Florida electorate. This state has proven, as recently as 2008, that its voters are receptive to change. The problem is that Democrats can't find the words to communicate why Florida's economy is in such desperate shape.
The shocking loss of Alex Sink proves not just that she ran a terrible campaign-- and she did-- but that Florida's respected Democratic status quo have been staring for years at a computer screen displaying a fault message while claiming that they really can see the program we should all be following. It has been more than four decades since The Who sang, "We won't be fooled again" and nearly that long Florida Democrats nominate, cycle after cycle, candidates who can't win because they don't reflect the new Florida. Not the Florida of a small town past, but the inchoate mess of Florida's suburbs and cities groaning under poor schools, inadequate infrastructure and a degraded environment.
The popular truism is that no one ever got elected by saying how bad things are. But there is a political fact that is also true: really bad times can sweep you out of office if you can't explain 1) how we got here, 2) what we are going to do, to get out of an economic mess, and 3) where we are going.
Alex Sink did not explain how Florida became a state with a 12.4 percent unemployment rate and a foreclosure rate that is nearly the highest in the nation. She did not identify the bandits. She certainly did not explain what we are going to do-- nor did any other Democratic candidate for state-wide office beyond the standard platitudes-- nor did she paint for voters a clear picture of where we are going.
Here is the bottom line: Florida taxpayers are paying the price for a snatch-and-grab economy that worked while the rest of the nation was eager to buy into the winter sunshine on borrowed money, but not after the housing bubble and mortgage fraud disaster popped. The churning destruction of the American dream is resonant across the spectrum of Florida voters. Seniors, unable to make ends meet on threatened pensions. And for Hispanics-- especially the more recent generations-- the notion of promises hijacked to serve the purposes of an insulated economic elite is especially resonant, but not a theme that Florida Democrats have been able to articulate.
Alex Sink wouldn't even take the occasion of her campaign to tag the culprit for putting Florida's pension funds at risk of multi-billion dollars losses: that would be Jeb Bush and political insiders who ran the State Administration Fund out of the back pocket of Lehman Brothers. I'm sorry: the fact that Rick Scott in the final weeks of the campaign was able to pin Alex Sink with that responsibility is just... well... unprintable.
Florida Democrats are shell-shocked by the 2010 results. How could the GOP that created the weaknesses in the Florida economy through policies advocated by continuous majorities in the legislature and a hold on the executive branch, have taken such clear advantage from the misery they created? Stockholm Syndrome is at work, partly. The same old line political consultants in Tallahassee advise Democratic candidates who take the same route, cut and pasted from past campaigns, to defeat. Some might even claim there is no way for a Democrat to raise enough money for a state-wide campaign without being defeated.
But that is not a way forward. With 2012 and the passage by more than 60 percent of Florida voters for Fair Districts, re-districting of both state and Congressional lines will create a blank slate. That is the most significant change for the Florida political landscape in decades. What is needed is a vigorous effort to recruit and train a new generation of candidates for office who are Democrats, and the place to begin is to help Florida voters understand the costs of this snatch-and-grab economy, who is responsible and the way forward. Anything less than re-setting the Democratic agenda in Florida is just pushing against a string.
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