Here's a round up of blogs in the Special Election:
Florida Progressive Coalition - What Went Wrong
Grassroots Brevard - Why Calling Supervoters is Dumb
Ray Seaman - Postmortem for SD3
Tally - More Thoughts on SD3
Florida Kossacks - Reflections on SD-3
More will be added as they come available.
Under Democratic National Committee rules, any state that moved its primary to earlier than Feb. 5 would forfeit half of its delegates to the convention. Also, candidates who campaign or raise money in that state also would lose delegates they won there. Howard Dean has said that Florida's primary "essentially won't count."
Tell Gov. Dean What You Think!
Regarding the candidates, Hillary Clinton says she will campaign in Florida anyway. While other candidates haven't released a statement on the matter, I imagine if Clinton campaigns in Florida the other candidates will as well. Also, I doubt that whoever becomes the nominee at the National Convention would refuse to seat all of Florida's delegates. The question is whether the will of the people, as expressed in their votes on January 29th, will be binding or not.
Florida Democrats met with Chairman Dean last Thursday in hopes of reaching a compromise. While no decision has been reached yet, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Florida delegation appeared hopeful:
Representative Robert Wexler"I'm both hopeful and confident that when all is said and done, there will be a compromise that is acceptable to the Florida Democrats and to the national Democratic Party, " Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, said afterward.
"There's a realization on both sides that we're all on the same team, and that the goal is identical - to elect the Democratic nominee president."
Representative Kathy Castor"He's going to be listening and talking to other states, and try to work out a solution, " Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, said as she left.
...
Castor said she hoped for a compromise before Aug. 25, when the party's rules committee meets to decide whether Florida's primary schedule breaks the party rules.
Washington Dateline also reported:
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz"It was a good conversation," was all Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston would say as she left the Democratic National Committee headquarters and quickly walked away from reporters outside. "We are moving forward trying to make sure that Florida’s voters are not disenfranchised."
The Florida Democratic Leadership has told Gov. Howard Dean what they think.
Tell Gov. Dean What You Think!
You may want to take notes, these are some required reading materials for any Democrat wanting to help build up the Party here in Florida:
Ray Seaman's 3 Part Series
Party Building Basics: Part 1
Party Building Basics: Part 2
Party Building Basics: Part 3
Grassroots Brevard
Mobilizing Young Voters: Ideas to Win Elections
This seat is winnable! Donate and/or Volunteer Today! If you live in the district, be sure to vote June 26th!
Here is the map of the district:
Yes, the joys of gerrymandering, but this is a plurality Democratic District who's previous State Senator, albeit Republican, was not representative of the far right.
To make this work we need money and lots of volunteers!
Volunteering
In Leon County - The Leon County Democratic Party will be working hard on Suzan's campaign. Even if you don't live in Senate District 3, please contact Vince George, the Leon Dem Party's Coordinated Campaign Manager (vincegeorge@earthlink.net), to help us with phone banking, sign-waving, and canvassing. There's a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, so please contact Vince George and volunteer, even if only for a couple of hours.
In Marion County - The Marion County Democratic Party is assisting with the campaign. If you would like to help out with the campaign to elect Suzan (all volunteers are certainly welcome) email us at info@mariondems.org.
Or sign up on Suzan's website: http://suzanfranksforfloridasenate.com
The Florida Progressive Coalition has an excellent post on its blog "Support Suzan Franks for State Senate" detailing the needs of this campaign. You can help. Take action today!
The special election is on June 26th.
This past weekend, the Florida Democratic Party held its annual Jefferson-Jackson Weekend. What made this weekend unique from all the previous ones is that they held a Blogger/Netroots Luncheon and provided media credentials to bloggers for the dinner featuring U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Here is a run down of the blogger reports from the event: Florida Disability Caucus Meeting The Netroots Unites, Grassroots Validated My Thoughts on the Netroots Luncheon Florida Kossacks JJ Bloggers Luncheon - Blue Plate Special Tampabay Democrat Bloggers Lunch with Karen Thurman The Florida Democratic Party's 2007 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Shout-out to Phillip Perry, Internet Technology Director of FDP Blast Off! Florida Bloggers and Netroots Unite Complete list of Blast Off's liveblogging found here. Change in Tallahassee Change In Tallahassee: The Netroots Invade The Democratic Party I think that covers the highlights. If you wrote about the JJ event and want your diary featured here let me know.
Florida Progressive Coalition
Campaign and Legislative Committee Meeting
Shortly after I launched the Florida Netroots blog I was contacted by an Active Duty Soldier from Walton County, Florida serving in Afghanistan and by someone serving in the Executive Committee of the organization Florida Veterans for Common Sense.
The message: How can we help?
Think about that for a minute. One is currently deployed in a war zone and the other is battling with the treatment of vets here at home and for the safe return of their brother and sisters in arms ... and they want to help us.
To say that I was both humbled and honored would be an understatement.
For this piece, I'm going to focus on the words of the active duty soldier and post a follow-up story on the Veterans group.
Shortly after receiving this offer to help, I notified fellow Netroots members and asked if members wanted to know anything him.
They passed along three questions:First, what do both active duty military folks and veterans think is the best way to support our troops in Iraq?
The second is how do the veterans feel about the current administrations' pronouncements about supporting our troops versus their actual delivery of services (health care, etc) to veterans?
And how do they feel about the recent vote to continue funding the war?
For the most part, his answers were along the line of: "its not really talked about" and "everyone is more concentrated on the mission."
Then he told us what we really needed to hear:IRAQ IS NOT THE ONLY WAR.
Every day the media, the politicians and those of us in the blogosphere talk about Iraq. We're so focused on it that when given the opportunity to question a soldier serving in Afghanistan, we asked about Iraq.
He went on to say:People are getting shot at, dodging IEDs and dying everyday herein Afghanistan, and the American people and the MSM have generally forgotten about us. When we were extended to 15 months, most people I told had no clue, because the media only reported that Soldiers in Iraq would be extended. Everyday someone dies in Iraq it is reported in the MSM ...
But not those who die in Afghanistan. He went on:This war is just. I implore anyone who disagrees to come to this country and see what we are fighting and how we are helping. However, I believe our continued presence in this country to be more immoral than our presence in Iraq. This may sound confusing, but remember this: There is actually a mission here. There is actually an enemy which we can define. There is a clear goal to the operation. However, we have been here for nearly six years. In six years, a nation with the greatest military capability in the history of the world has not been able to defeat a third world shadow government. This is not to say that the troops on the ground have failed, or that the U.S. is not able to win this war. The problem is that this administration has been distracted by a war created and continued by deceit and pride.
A few days ago, five brave Americans were killed. My reaction was, "and for what?" Why did those men have to die? True, they died fighting a righteous fight, but why are we still fighting it? Why are we still here? Why have we not defeated our enemy here? Why are brave men still dying? Again, because this administration is too eager to save face to commit resources to a just and winnable war.
The most terrible thing is that this is not isolated. This has become the modus operandi for this administration. Resources are committed out of pride to Iraq, so we cannot help victims of national disasters in Louisiana and Kansas. We cannot help our poor because we must give tax breaks to the rich. We cannot aid the sick, because we must aid Big-Rx ... We can not slow the energy crisis or global warming, because we must aid the oil corporations. This administration has a record that is at best immoral and at worst criminal of ignoring big problems that we can actually do something about, in order to protect pride and cronyism.
Iraq is not the only war. Remember our troops in Afghanistan. Hope for their safe return home and take whatever steps you can to make sure that happens.
The Florida Progressive Coalition hosted two separate chats with each of the Democratic Candidates running for State Senate District 3: Suzan Franks and Mark Ravenscraft.
The Florida Progressive Coalition provided a unique opportunity for people to interact with Sophia Diaz-Fonseca, a Democratic candidate for Florida House District 43, by sponsoring an online chat.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Stephen Colbert's ongoing series "Better Know a District" where he does humorous interviews with members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Florida Netroots Blog is going to try out it's own "Better Know" series with categories like "Better Know a State Legislator", "Better Know a Local Official" and "Better Know a Candidate" where contributors to the blog write diaries about specific state or local politicians here in Florida.
Now, they wouldn't be the funny, face-to-face interviews a la Colbert, but researched articles or actual interviews about the person's background, voting record, job performance, and reasons to support or reject from public office.
The focus is on state and local polticians because the Democratic Party in Florida is in serious need of a strong bench. We won't have good candidates to run for Congress without first recruiting and promoting folks who run for local and state office.
Our mission, in part, is to educate ourselves and others about state and local politics. Together we can Blog Florida Blue.