Tag: Campaign 2008

State, National Democratic Party Doing Their Best to Swing Florida Republican

Trish

FCD home page, showing the “news” from as recently as Aug. 29

The news for Florida Democrats gets worse by the minute — in addition to taking away our delegates, the DNC forced most candidates to sign a pledge that they will not campaign in Florida.

Anyone who says we have effective leadership at the top of the Florida Democratic party is just plain wrong

The DNC, in short, is doing everything it can think of to ensure that Florida’s electoral votes go to the Republican candidate for president in 2008.

And what is our state party doing about it?

I don’t know. The FDP’s* web site hasn’t been updated since Aug. 29 — the day before party chair Karen Thurman and her crew unsuccessfully pleaded our case in Washington. An escalating tactical war, intended to bring Florida Democrats to our knees, has been waged since with daily headlines detailing more bad news.

But instead of helping us stay on top of the situation, offering lights at ends of tunnels, and suggesting tactics Florida Democrats like me can take to help, we get stale silence.

Anyone who says we have effective leadership at the top of the Florida Democratic party is just plain wrong.

* Thanks, Anonymous, for pointing out my original acronym was wrong. If only you’d contribute something more meaningful than minutiae and uninformed jabs about me being a novice, we’d really be in business.

Update: Almost as if they read Pensito Review, the Florida Democratic Party has at last updated its web site, so we can find out almost anything we ever wanted to know about how Florida Democrats enjoyed their Labor Day picnics. Now if only they’d address our dire situation in regard to the 2008 elections…

If Fred Thompson Were Running for Least Sincere Candidate, He’d Get Our Vote Hands-Down

Trish
The truck parked in Fred Thompson’s mother’s yard since his last campaign

With summer reruns ending, Fred Thompson is ready to make the surprise announcement that he’s running for president. And as a Republican, too. Who’da thunk?

The big question is, will he pull out the secret weapon this time around? Our bet is yes because it’s hard to get more jaundiced than Fred Dalton Thompson.

As we reported earlier, Fred’s been waiting for Law & Order season 18 episode reruns to end before he announces for two reasons.

One: Big, massive jowly-faced bucks.

Two: To get around the FCC’s equal time requirements.

His opponent said Thompson was actually a “Gucci- wearing, Lincoln- driving, Perrier- drinking, Grey Poupon-spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist.”

Under the equal-time rule, if a network gives time to one political candidate, it is required to provide the same amount of airtime to his or her opponents. In other words, if Thompson appeared on a “Law & Order” episode for 10 minutes during prime time, NBC would have to give Thompson’s rivals for the Republican nomination 10 minutes of prime time each.

…an NBC spokeswoman said, “If Fred Thompson formally announces his intention to run for president, NBC will not schedule any further repeats of ‘Law & Order’ featuring Mr. Thompson beyond those already scheduled, which conclude on Saturday, September 1st.”

Now that the summer season is over and Fred can begin his “real” campaign, will that red pickup truck parked in his mama’s backyard all these years be revived? It worked like a charm last time.

Early in the 1994 race, after struggling to connect with voters, Thompson decided to lease a used truck and drive around the state in what turned out to be a wildly successful effort to recast himself as a folksy man of the people.

His opponent, Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper, derided the truck as a cynical prop to deflect attention from Thompson’s inside-the-Beltway status. But Thompson was able to shake off Cooper’s suggestion that he was actually a “Gucci-wearing, Lincoln-driving, Perrier-drinking, Grey Poupon-spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist.”

Thompson ended up capturing more than 60 percent of the vote.

A Taliban truck with women about to be shot in the head at the soccer stadium

Readers of Khaled Hosseini‘s books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, will of course flinch when they see a red pickup. The trucks became a symbol of the Taliban, which used them to patrol for people violating their 7th century rules of conduct.

And the pickups provided ideal platforms for intimidation and enforcement. From their Land Cruisers and Hiluxes, the Taliban were ready to leap down and beat women for showing a glimpse of ankle or to lock a man in a shipping container for three weeks until his beard grew to the approved length. Or, most dismal, to drag an accused adulterer or blasphemer to the soccer stadium for execution.

Fred’s non-stump speeches to date have been all about fear, ala Bush/Cheney. So go ahead, Fred. Drive around in that red pickup. It might be the most sincere move you’ll make in your witless run for power.

Like Its Boycotts, AFA’s ‘Debate’ Will Likely Be Ineffectual

Buck Banks

Donald “The Wildman” Wildmon is touting the American Family Association’s upcoming GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate Sept. 17. Here’s how he describes it:

We’ve heard the questions from talking snowmen. We’ve gotten the crumbs that fell from Chris Matthews. Now it’s our turn. It’s time the candidates answer questions from the largest voting block in America: the values voters. Yes, the values voters.

It wasn’t supposed to be just a GOP event among the presumptive losers. Wildmon invited all candidates, Democrats and Republicans to come to Fort Lauderdale to answer real questions. Of course no Dems are coming, and the list of GOPers who have committed to the event reads like the also rans following the primaries: Huckabee, Brownback, Hunter, Paul, Tancredo and Cox.

What does Wildmon say makes this debate different?

The candidates will be asked questions related to abortion, immigration, marriage and other issues Values Voters consider important.

If you want to see where they stand on the traditional, pro-family issues, don’t miss this debate.

Whoa, there should be a wide array of differing opinions among these white guys in black suits with red ties, setting off a spirited debate among them to see who can be the most right-wing and least tolerant.

Of course, this marginal event is not being broadcast by any television network, but will be streamed live from the AFA Web site.

DNC Leaps Ever Closer to Irrelevancy as It Pledges to Stay the Course

Trish

Democrats in Florida today are of one voice: “Well here we are.”

The day we all dreaded has come and gone, when the DNC would decide what to do about the fact that Florida’s legislature mandated the state’s primary move ahead on the calendar. And the decision we’ve all been waiting for said, “We are rigid and terrified and if we act reasonably with Florida, all the other states will expect us to be reasonable with them. Mayhem will ensue. We must stay the course.”

The DNC said, “We are rigid and terrified and if we act reasonably with Florida, all the other states will expect us to be reasonable with them. Mayhem will ensue. We must stay the course.”

At least one DNC member seemed to understand why it’s not a good idea to cut Florida adrift.

“We have to enforce our rules, but we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the head trying to heal a little cut on the hand,” said former DNC chairman Don Fowler of South Carolina, worrying the move could have long-term consequences. “You put the Republicans down there for a couple of months just humming and drumming and shucking and jiving and there’s an absence of Democrats, that’s going to give them a great advantage.”

Probably so. But now that it’s happened, now that our silver-tongued state party chair has failed to persuade, now that the national Dems have turned their backs on us, I say, “Who needs ’em?”

Florida Democrats don’t. We will vote in our state primary, regardless of whether our votes translate into delegates for a convention whose only real purpose is the official kick-off of the general election campaign cycle.

After all, the convention is either a fun show to watch if you’re wonks like us at Pensito Review (and likely you, dear reader) or a big pain in the butt if you’re like most of the viewing public. Either way, its main value is in entertainment since the “nominee” is long known beforehand.

The drama being acted out now is that everyone has 30 days to think of a way for Florida to send delegates to the DNC’s miniseries. FDC Chair Karen Thurman is exploring pay-to-play caucus options, which the DNC will pretend to accept reluctantly rather than reveal its relief at not having to ax a main cast member in its lavish and irrelevant production.

We’re being asked to stay tuned with hints of a surprise ending. Given the state of DNC leadership, not to mention go along to get along types like Pelosi and Reid in Washington, I will probably reach for the remote.

Obama In Miami — Whole Lotta Audacity Going On

Buck Banks

In what could be the last opportunity for a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate to campaign in Florida without being punished by the Democratic National Committee, Barack Obama spoke today before a packed house at a local Democratic fund-raiser. Today was also the day that the Florida Democratic Party had to lobby the national party to not punish it because the state’s Republican-controlled legislature moved Florida’s primary to Feb. 5, violating the opposite party’s rules.

Overall, Barack Obama was a hit, keeping his audience fired up and on its feet most of his speech.

But nobody mentioned that at the rally, a grass-roots Miami-Dade Democratic committee fund-raiser for its mostly state-level local candidates. An early speaker at the event — and there were many of them — noted that in 2000, nobody could have imagined holding a Democratic Party event in Little Havana for a black presidential candidate.

Indeed, just seven years ago, the Miami Cuban voting bloc was perceived as fundamentally and monolithically Republican, with Spanish speakers seen as loyal to the Republicans who seemed to hate Fidel Castro and were willing to impose an ongoing economic embargo until the Third World island nation saw the error of its ways, collapsed economically or Castro died, whichever came first.

But today a Cuban candidate for the state house stated unequivocally and to thunderous applause that the Republican Party could no longer count on the South Florida Hispanic vote.

Obama said that if he were elected he would remove all restrictions on travel to Cuba and lift all restrictions on sending money or goods to family members. But when he said that he would leave the embargo in place “as an inducement to change” and “use aggressive diplomacy” to begin moving toward normalizing relations with Cuba, he received a few scattered boos and some of the Cuban faction began to leave the theater.

But for the most part, it was a rousing rally with at least 3,000 in attendance, and Obama performing his stump speech, often with the spirited inflections of a preacher and with more piss and vinegar than he usually shows in his nuanced television appearances. Indeed, starting with a woman in the balcony hollering, “We love you, Barack!” to which he responded, “I love you, back, baby,” in a convincing Barry White imitation, there was a casual, ongoing call-and-response aspect to the proceedings that continued throughout his speech.

Not to sound too corny, but I think people felt Obama was speaking to them, not at them, and were inclined to holler out questions to which he invariably responded. These were not hecklers, as they waited for an appropriate pause or responded to a comment from Obama before calling out a question or comment.

Obama hit the “audacity” theme pretty hard, saying that if the Washington press corps were there, they would be calling him a “hope peddler” and “hope monger,” monikers he gladly accepts, but it resonated very well with a very mixed audience of blacks, whites and Hispanics who had paid either $30 or $100 for seats.

Busloads of college students from Florida Atlantic University were brought in (the school bought blocks of tickets) to the event, and most responded enthusiastically to Obama’s positions on affordable education and job creation.

Overall, Barack Obama was a hit, keeping his audience fired up and on its feet most of his speech — and that was after an hour and a half of short speeches by local commissioners, state legislators, party officials and music by Democrat folk singer Ellen Buckstell and a rousing number by the Miami Northwest High School marching band.

Obama hit all his stump themes: universal health care, energy independence and green tech, education, jobs and wages, and the failure of the Iraq War and the failure of the Bush administration to make us safer and more secure.

His abiding message, however, is that to him, politics is a mission, that we all have a stake in each other, and that he has both faith and hope in the “decency and generosity in the heart of the American people.”

UPDATE: You can watch an unedited video of Obama’s entire speech here.

Quotes from Barack in Miami

Buck Banks

Barack Obama’s stump speech is well-oiled and filled with quotable lines. But as often as he has given it — often to crowds 10 times the size of the 3,000 assembled in Little Havana today — it is still delivered with passion and vision. Here are a few choice quotes:

“Crowds remind me of a couple of things: pundits are not right about much, and when it comes to what’s wrong with this country, it’s not the American people who are the problem; the American people are the answer.”

‘I don’t trust Alberto Gonzales with my civil liberties.’

“The American people are tired of being sick and tired. Enough is enough! The American people want to turn the next page in American history.”

“We’ve never had a better marketing agent than George Bush for the Democratic Party. Though Dick Cheney gives him a run for his money.”

“I don’t believe in little change. I believe in big change, and we need big change in America.”

“I’m asking you to be hopeful at a time when it’s easy to be cynical.”

“You can disagree without being disagreeable, and you can find consensus without compromising your beliefs.”

“I want us to out-educate the world today so we can out-compete the world tomorrow.”

“I’m sick and tired of an administration treating our Constitution as something to be negotiated around instead of as the foundation of our democracy.”

“If we can get enough Republican congressmen to change their minds, we can end this war without George Bush.”

“I want to go before the United Nations and say, ‘America’s back.’”

“I don’t trust Alberto Gonzales with my civil liberties.”

Barack and Me in Miami

Buck Banks

So, having seen Barack Obama in person today, what did I come away with? An increased appreciation for the man as orator, an excitement about the Miami-Dade Democratic Party and a nagging thought that will warm the hearts of my co-editors:

Maybe I should join the Democratic Party, if for nothing else, to vote against Hillary Clinton and for Barak in the primary.

It’s probably not likely I’ll drink the Democratic Kool-Aid, but if Obama continues to inspire and motivate people the way he clearly did today in this political backwater of a Third World country, I might just be so inclined.

Not that I’m ready to do that. There’s a lot that could happen between now and primary time (especially if the national Dems punish the Florida Dems and render any party switch or vote of mine meaningless).

Frankly, I wish Dennis Kucinich had a snowball’s chance. I like him, not just for his chutzpah, which he has in spades, but for his sense of humor and mostly for his really progressive ideas, which I agree with. Mostly.

But today I was impressed by my local Dem pols, for a change. Not that I gained any respect for the Florida Democratic Party and Karen Thurman, who fortunately had nothing to do with today’s event. But if the Miami-Dade Dems can pull off a series of these events (which they promised Barak was the first of), and if I see some coalition of Dems in Miami and an ongoing robust intensification, organization and concentration of effort, then I might be inclined to give up my independence and drink the Kool-Aid.

Today I saw representatives of Equality Florida, who are backing a Fairness for All Families measure aimed at providing rights to nontraditional families (read:gays), I listened to the first openly gay Hispanic elected official in Miami and I heard my city commissioner talk about passing a bill of rights for the City of Miami that includes “equality for everybody” (Miami is the only city in South Florida that doesn’t have a bill of rights), I heard a song about how religion shouldn’t be used to take away my right to choose, and at the end of the rally I heard a high school choir sing the old Bill Withers song, “Lean On Me.”

It’s probably not likely I’ll drink the Democratic Kool-Aid, but if Obama continues to inspire and motivate people the way he clearly did today in this political backwater of a Third World country, I might just be so inclined.

But don’t hold your breath, Jon and Trish.

Florida Democrats Still Fighting to be Counted — But By Our Own This Time!

Trish

Florida Democrats are having that deja vu all over again feeling some more. But while being disenfranchised feels very familiar, having our own party do it to us is brand new.

Florida Democrats are over this whole, “Your vote doesn’t count but maybe next time,” thing.

Buck explained that the DNC is considering yanking our delegates if Florida holds its primary before Feb. 5, 2008 as the Republican-led legislature recently mandated. Maybe what he, as a registered Independent, didn’t tell you is how galling is this prospect.

Our own FDC Chair Karen Thurman actually summed it up well in a missive yesterday.

Our state has seen far too much of this in the past: the 2000 election debacle, eligible voters purged from the voting rolls based on race, Black voters intimidated at the polls, 18,000 votes vanishing because of touch screen machines in 2006, the list goes on and on.

The list does go on and on, since she didn’t even mention the shenanigans in 2000 in nearby Duval County that led to the ouster of the Jacksonville supervisor of elections and served as the impetus for establishing early voting sites there.

Florida Democrats truly have had it up to here (holds hand over head) with having zero representation at the local level, feeble representation in Tallahassee, and dwindling representation in Washington. If our own party takes away our voice in the 2008 election, I for one would — Jon please cover your eyes — consider leaving this trainwreck of a party and joining Buck in the land of purists, contrarians, and exiles.

Thurman did supply a link to a page where you can register your feelings on this subject, which the FDC will then use to bombard DNC Chair Howard Dean. The page doesn’t even ask for money after you hit “submit.”

Go tell Howie that Florida Democrats are over this whole, “Your vote doesn’t count but maybe next time,” thing. No more.

Just Like Iraq? On the Campaign Trail with the Romney Boys

Trish

The Romney Boys in Iowa: “Craig got the strawberry rhubarb, Josh and I got the cherry.”

From the Five Brothers blog: “Craig, Josh and I had about as much fun as allowed on a campaign last weekend in Iowa. Road trips and bike rides are very low key ways to get out and stump for the old man…We laughed a lot that weekend, especially when Craig started getting desperate for food halfway through the ride. At one point I remember turning to him and saying, “Isn’t this fun?” to which he gruffly replied: ‘I’m seriously grumpy right now. We have to get food NOW!!’ …we finally found a farm that was selling homemade cookies, pies and ice cream…Craig got the strawberry rhubarb, Josh and I got the cherry.”

What’s crashingly offensive about Romney’s response isn’t a small set of ill-chosen words but the entire universe of assumptions behind them.

Columnist Froma Harrop got right to the heart of what was wrong with Mitt Romney equating his sons’ participation in his campaign with serving in Iraq. Supporters of the former Massachusetts governor and forever Mormon later characterized the question about why his sons aren’t serving in Iraq as “rude.”

We know that the armed forces are all-volunteer (“the good news,” Mitt said) and that few children of the rich have much to do with it. If military service were a prerequisite for becoming president, most of the current contenders would be out of the running. The only candidates making the cut would be Arizona Sen. John McCain, California Rep. Duncan Hunter and Texas Rep. Ron Paul on the Republican side, and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel on the Democratic.

What’s crashingly offensive about Romney’s response isn’t a small set of ill-chosen words but the entire universe of assumptions behind them. Throughout the campaign, Romney has showcased his athletic boys, ages 26 to 37, as all that is good about America and himself. It apparently never occurred to him that anyone in the audience would place his five princes in the same thought as Sadr City.

The official Romney Website even features a “Five Brothers” blog — a youthful jaunt across a cloudless America that seems solar systems away from the Sunni Triangle. Son Craig talks about how he and brothers Josh and Matt participated in the Annual Great Bicycle Ride across Iowa. (Two of them had trained on a hotel’s stationary bikes, we are told.) Photos show the clan boating in New Hampshire, bonding after a volleyball match and enjoying a game at Boston’s Fenway Park.

And the boys’ day jobs? Ben attends medical school in Boston, Craig works for an ad agency in New York, Josh develops real estate in Salt Lake City, and Matt manages commercial properties in San Diego.

Tagg helps run his father’s campaign and gets a bit political on his blog. He writes that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, wants to “raise taxes, grow government, take over health care and run away from Iraq.”

So while the “chickenhawk” label could stick to most of the candidates, there’s something especially jarring about the Romney family portrait: six hunky males, all untouched by military service. (During the Vietnam War, Mitt obtained a draft deferment to do missionary work in France.)

As part of his answer to the “rude” question, Romney called for a “surge of support” for the troops. A more politically astute response would have been to propose a national program requiring everyone’s children, including his own, to serve their country in some fashion.

It’s a good bet that the idea never crossed his mind.