Best line at FDP convention goes to Dan Gelber

My convention was fun and interesting. Not like my first, two years ago, when Howard Dean, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Mark Warner and Tom Vilsack were strong orators, stirring the crowd and displaying the strength that the Democrats would present for the 2008 election. It was still only 2005 then, but it was already clear how badly the Republicans were leading this beloved country, and what an opportunity it was for us in the ’06 midterms and the ’08 presidential elections.

I made up my mind then as to who was the best presidential candidate. This blog, however, is neutral, and you have to know me personally to see whose button is on my shirt. I haven’t changed my mind. I’m laying this out so the reader will understand why I’m not upset that the Democratic candidates are staying away from Florida. I don’t need any more information to make up my mind. Those who gnash their teeth about the supposed lack of attention paid to Florida are wasting their dental enamel. Florida will NOT be ignored. Its needs WILL be met. Even if the candidates stay away right up until November 2008, Florida is too important to be left out of the federal budget or limelight. Squealing and wailing is, to me, a sign of insecurity.

The Florida delegation at the Denver nominating convention will be seated, one way or another, and their votes and our votes in the primary will count. I confess to feeling annoyed when the media report that the Florida primary will all be in vain, or votes won’t count, or even that they won’t be counted.

Sorry, this is a Rovian conspiracy to keep Democrats from voting. The Republicans always are trying to get Democrats to stay away, and this entire affair has been a Karlish trick to drive down Democratic participation in the Jan. 29 election. For a while, they were trying to slip some wild property tax change through as a referendum, but now it looks as if they have screwed it up too badly for that to happen. We’ll know for certain about this by Monday night, when the legislature must pass something to get it on the ballot by Jan. 29.

That area (the budget and taxation) needs more careful consideration than something slammed together behind closed doors and presented at the deadline – though that’s the way the Jebbian party operated for eight years, so we must be careful that it doesn’t happen again.

So my appeal goes like this: Please, stop suing others in the Democratic Party. Please, stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Instead, be united as Democrats. Concentrate our fire on Republicans.

A little ridicule is good. Here I’m taking Dan Gelber as my model, and I see that his raking comments at the convention were picked up by the media. Let the Republican candidates campaign in Florida as much as they like, the leader of the state House minority Democrats said.

“The truth is, the Republicans are here almost in excess,” the Orlando Sentinel quoted him as saying in his Saturday speech. “You see these Republican candidates everywhere. And the more you hear about them and see them, the less you like them.”

The Miami Herald picked out a different line from Gelber’s speech: “All they do is trash our candidates and pander to their base,” he was quoted as saying. “I think we should keep them in the state of Florida as much as possible.”

The Herald also opined that the posters distributed for Gelber's speech were “deliberately ambiguous” in that they said he was running “for Senate” without saying exactly that he is running for the state Senate. Wow, it could also mean the U.S. Senate, and the bumbler incumbent, Mel Martinez, will be up in 2010.

The plot thickens. And lengthens.

As we speculate on that, let’s follow Karen Thurman’s admonition. Concentrate on building the grass roots, the state party chair said.

And we have the wisdom of our own Miami-Dade County veteran, Maria Roberts: “I feel very positive about building the Democratic Party, and that’s what this convention is all about,” the Herald quoted her as saying.

To that end, the netroots gang showed up 60 strong for a series of workships Saturday afternoon on how to do a better blog, a better website, how to organize an on-line community, how to be a candidate with an on-line presence. We're at the heart of the Florida Democratic Party now, and we need to continue getting ready to we can pounce into action when the nominee becomes known -- February, shall we say?

UPDATE: This post vaulted to the front page of the Florida Politics blog Monday morning. Check it out at this link. And read on there, too. Florida Politics performs a valuable service in summarizing what's happening, what's reported, in our political scene.

EVEN MORE: The Netroots blog has more detail here on the Netroots workshops. A lot of good information was transmitted, and we could watch in awe as the tech experts made those laptops work.