Political donations help victory -- It happened here

You probably wonder what happens to the money when you dig into your pocket and send the Democratic Party a donation. Maybe it’s only $25 on your stretchy credit card. Maybe more significant amounts. Well, here we have a report from one of our rare paid staff from the Florida Democratic Party on what the money means: Victory in a special election for the Florida House! Money puts feet on the ground to convince and activate voters. It happened in the past week in the Orlando area. A Republican seat became a Democratic seat.

So, my friends, please be generous when Karen Thurman or Joe Garcia or Howard Dean asks for financial help!

Here’s BJ Chiszar’s report on a month he spent seconded away from his Miami-Dade post to help Darren Soto’s campaign.

Hello fellow Democrats!

Every member of the statewide field team was in Orlando/Osceola for the final month of the Darren Soto campaign. Soto defeated GOP heavyweight Tony Suarez in a close race decided by about 300 votes.

Soto, a 29-year-old civil rights attorney, built a solid coalition with labor, firefighters, teachers, ACORN, and many other progressive groups. One group stood out -- the Young Democrats of Orange County were an amazing field force, knocking on almost every door in the district.

The Florida Democratic Party focused our efforts on absentee ballots and GOTV on election day. I was joined by Ted Miller and the Young Democrats of Dade and also Michael Calderin and Georgi Blumenthal of DFA came up to get in the fight. It was awesome to have Dade county people in Central Florida, demonstrating our commitment to victory in 2008!

It also must be noted that our House Victory Director Steve Schale joined us on the ground, as well as Executive Director Leonard Joseph and most of the senior staff from Tallahassee. This showed leadership by example and let Democrats all across the state know that we mean business as it relates to winning elections.

We are excited about the renewed buzz around the state about our party! I hope that you will join us in our efforts to create positive change in America.

If we all do just a little, then together we can achieve so much!

UPDATE:

Here's a fresh angle on this from Beth Reinhard's column in the Saturday Herald. Fair to say that people in politics are looking at this Orlando result with strong interest.

Lessons from Orlando column.

UPDATE 2:

Yet another angle from The Buzz, St. Pete Times political blog. Hillary Clinton is said to be the only presidential candidate to help with this race, and here's her congratulatory message to Darren Soto.

Buzz link re Hillary.