Who gets kicked off Elephant Island?

Thanks to Franco Caliz, the almost 20-year-old president of Democracy for America-Miami-Dade, for the tip on this one. Franco thinks he's young but he's really quite old.

We help take up slack on John McCain

A think piece in Tuesday’s NY Times helped me understand the flurry of activity we’ve had in the last few days chasing John McCain in Miami and Tampa: We’re part of a smart strategy. Hey, I like it. Better than sitting around waiting for something to happen in two or three months when our nominee finally emerges.

The headline told the story: “Its candidates otherwise engaged, Democratic Party goes after McCain.”

Down in the detail you’ll learn that while Clinton and Obama have lots of money to spend on campaign ads, the Democratic Party is running close to empty – but spending that anyway on ads highlighting McCain’s vulnerability.

A quote from Howard Dean:

Speaking with reporters on Monday, the Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean, expressed urgency when he described deciding to run a party-sponsored advertisement against Mr. McCain. “I said look, it is time for us to get this done,” he said.

This explains why the DNC is asking for donations. Time to give a few bucks.

UPDATE: And here's a link to a view of the ad -- and a convenient place to donate.

So while the national Democratic Party is buying ad time, the Florida Democratic Party has leaped into action with a campaign to birddog McCain in the Sunshine state. I was part of a gang of about 20 Democratic activists who attracted a line of TV cameras Sunday afternoon outside the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, where McCain was with donors.

And we weren’t just standing there: we had signs and a 10-foot-tall mockup of “Economics for Dummies” – a great visual – to taunt McCain for admitting that economics is not his strong suit. (Not to mention geography, since he confuses Iran and Iraq.)

Congratulations to county party Chair Bret Berlin and Alejandro Miyar of the Florida Demcocratic Party for orchestrating this strong demo. Miyar was dashing off to Tampa for today’s McCain appearance on the topic of health care.

Meanwhile, those who turned on the Miami TV news Sunday evening saw reports about McCain that included decent coverage of our anti-McCain demos. Here’s a link to one on Channel 10.

And here's one on CBS4, with a fine quote from Shirley Alexiou, a super activist and vice president of the Democrats of South Dade Club:

"I don't want a president that doesn't know much about the economy."

I hope they're doing as well today over in Tampa, where in fact I know there are a lot of smart and active Democrats.

Florida somehow: A primary too early, but campaigning soon to get official

I'm at an early voting site in Miami Beach, the North Shore Regional Library, early Monday

A few weeks ago the Miami Herald was opining that the Florida primary vote wouldn’t count. To HELL with a newspaper’s civic responsibility! Citizens, don’t bother to vote. But that changed. I guess Florida’s flagship newspaper noticed that their darling, Rudy Giuliani, wouldn’t get his anticipated boost from Florida’s primary if the vote doesn’t count.

So the political tune has a new verse, and its title is “Florida still critical for Democrats.” That was the lead headline in Sunday’s Miami Herald, Jan. 13. Flip to the jump inside, and the headline is “Florida is pivotal in general election.” (Don’t ask how they leaped from the impending primary election to the November general election.) Nice photo there of my friend Big Dave Patlak and his wife Maryanne with a cardboard cutout of Barack Obama and a delighted passerby as if they’re doing a honk-and-wave – all gracing a long story to the effect that there is no official campaigning by the candidates in Florida, but it’ll count anyway. Bigtime. Somehow.

We have 10 million registered voters and a primary on Jan. 29. The problem is that the Republican-dominated state legislature passed legislation putting the 2008 primary ahead of the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday – flouting rules of both parties – thereby screwing us addled beach bums out of our seats at the national nominating conventions. Except the rules will change by the time of the conventions. And we’ll be seated. Somehow.

We have a history in Florida of mangling elections, and this is Chapter Umpteen. Plus, we’re already voting: Our early voting started on Monday Jan. 14. I’ll put up a photo of myself trying a honk-and-wave at the early-voting site near my addled beach home. You’ll see that I’m for John Edwards. I even went to Iowa, my birth state, and campaigned for him before the caucuses. Now I’m on a steering committee helping to organize grass-roots campaigning in South Florida – alas, no cardboard cutout of JRE, but we’re doing the best we can. Unofficially. Somehow.

I’m glad we already started, because the pressure is building to let the Democratic campaigns wash over Florida like Global Warming in Al Gore’s wet dream.

My little steering committee is begging John Edwards’ campaign to come and do (permitted under the rules) fund-raisers in Florida. I should know, I wrote the news release and the DailyKos diary about it.

Hillary Clinton is about to do Florida fund-raisers after the Jan. 26 South Carolina primary, and the Obama campaign is complaining loudly. Funny, but wasn’t that Barack Obama raising money like gangbusters in Florida back in the summer? Including a rally for 2,000 people in Miami’s Little Havana to benefit the local Democratic Party? I should know, I wrote some of the news releases for that and organized the media as best I could. Even the Wall Street Journal covered that event – but it wasn’t campaigning, just a little fund-raising.

Others have noticed the logic of campaigning in Florida. Here’s the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial of a few days ago urging the national parties to let up on Florida:

The surprising results and record turnouts in Iowa and New Hampshire show this year's presidential race has lit a fire among voters. So why would national party bosses, of all people, want to pour cold water on that fire in Florida?

Indeed. I saw the enthusiasm in Iowa. Trying to get to a caucus site in Waterloo, where I was working for Edwards, I found myself in a huge traffic jam, and like hundreds of others I never got to the site. They couldn’t caucus; I couldn’t observe, though the view was good when I got to the Irish bar downtown and watched C-span with a jar of well-tended Guinness in hand.

A break here to defend Iowa. The newspapers all call it overwhelmingly white, and therefore, sort of, unAmerican. Well, the Democratic side of the Iowa equation is NOT overwhelmingly white. Maybe the Republicans are, but the Democrats in Iowa are more concentrated in the strongly industrial cities in the east, like Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Dubuque (where I was born), some with sizeable minority populations. I’m not saying it’s like Birmingham, just not lily white. Waterloo has several Mexican restaurants and groceries. And Iowa is where I went on my first civil rights marches, in the late ‘50s, so I like to think Iowans have their hearts in the right place in as high a proportion as anywhere in this country. And their reps in the U.S. House are four Democrats and one Republican, with a Democratic governor. What’s yours, progressive Florida? A lot of ground to make up, huh? Well, Florida and Iowa are tied in the U.S. Senate with one each of Republican and Democrat. The Iowa climate is ahead of Florida’s in suitability for having the occasional jar of Guinness. Enough. Not talking here about the perils of glaze ice on the Waterloo driveway.

Back to voter enthusiasm. It’s cooking in Florida. On Monday over 20,000 Democrats used the early-voting privilege, topping Republican turnout by about 3,000. Democrats also are cutting into the usual Republican advantage in absentee voting. Read about it here on the Democratic Party web site. They’re forecasting almost a doubling of the Democratic absentee vote.

Does that sound like Iowa? Yes, Iowa Democrats also came out in almost double their numbers from the previous cycle. That amounted to about 240,000, while in Florida, maybe one million Democrats will vote. That’s to admire and strive for, to campaign for. And that’s why this observer and participant expects campaigning to start to look almost official in the next week.

Footnote: this analysis doesn’t apply to the Republicans, who are campaigning in Florida like no tomorrow. As usual, they don’t care about rules.

Become a delegate: You WILL be counted

Now it's becoming clear, despite all the Republican misleading. Florida's Jan. 29 primary will have a strong effect on choosing the Democratic nominee for president, and that person will see that Florida's delegates will be welcome at the national convention.

With that in mind, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party wishes to remind that it is time to apply to become a delegate to the Aug. 25-28 convention in Denver. Here are the guidelines:

• Deadline to apply is Noon Jan. 29, the date of the primary.
• Download application forms from the Miami-Dade Democratic Party web site http://www.miamidadedemocrats.com/ or the Florida Democratic Party web site http://www.fladems.com/
• Complete and notarize the loyalty oath, submit the forms to the party.
• Registered Democrats are eligible.
• Delegates will be elected at caucuses in each congressional district on Saturday March 1.
• Florida has a total of 210 delegates and 31 alternates.
  Forms can be mailed to the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, 1200 NW 78th Ave. Suite 214, Doral FL 33126. Call 305 477-4994 with questions.

The mixed results from the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary have awakened even the political reporters at the Miami Herald, whose analysis in Wednesday's paper predicts that Florida will be a "battleground few expected." Well, they didn't expect it. They were telling people their votes wouldn't count. The Florida Democratic Party, meanwhile, beseeched people to vote on Jan. 29 - on the referendum questions, as well as on the presidential primary. But many Floridians did not heed that message and fell for the argument that Florida's delegates would not be seated at the National Convention in Denver because the primary date was too early.

True, it is earlier than permitted. However, here is reality: Once the nominee is known, which may be soon after the nationwide primaries of Feb. 5, that person becomes head of the party with authority to waive rules and seat contested delegations. Voila, Florida's delegates will have full voting powers. Can anyone imagine that a candidate for president would snub Florida?