One dubious thing after another in Crist statement

Memo to self: Listen to what they’re saying, and analyze.

This strikes me as a mission for the next six months, right up to election day, Nov. 2. I’ve been trying to do this with Marco Rubio, who sometimes demands of his audience: “Now listen to what I’m saying. Listen!” And then he tells a whopper. As if “Listen to what I’m saying” is anesthesia of the brain and auditory nerves, and no one will challenge his saying, for instance, that the United States is great because it’s the only place on earth where you can write a business plan  on a cocktail napkin and then go out and get wealthy.  What? You can do that lots of places. Probably Communist China is the best place for that trick. Especially if you’re a Communist.

Yesterday Gov. Charlie Crist spoke for less than six minutes announcing his switch to running for US Senate as a former Republican, and if you wade through the platitudes, you’ll find quite a few examples of doubt-provoking statements.

My crude Flip video-editing skills may not be fully up to the challenge of describing on video how it went, so I’m adding some written commentary here so that when you get to the video down below, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

He starts, for instance, by saying his decision to run without a party label says more about the United States and Florida than it does about himself. Seems pretty dubious to me. He’s the one dragging in the polls as a Republican. If it must  point at something other than Charlie Crist, how about pointing at the Republican Party, which is riven by ideology and corruption?

Next clip declares that our political system is broken. Again, it’s really the Republican Party and its divisions that are highlighted by Crist's exit from the GOP. The broken political system is better seen when one looks at the Republicans in the US Senate, the Party of No.

Easy thing would have been to run for governor? Wait a minute! Way back months ago when Mel Martinez followed Sarah Palin in quitting his/her elected office well before time done/job done, there was speculation that Crist would bail out of the governorship because Florida was heading for unemployment like seldom before, and he’d be blamed for that if he ran for re-election as governor. So I don’t think he’d have had an easy run. I think his career is at an end. And the jobless rate is still over 12 percent, as Democrat Kendrick Meek reminds us along with the fact that Crist and Rubio are the political authors of the misdirection in the Florida economy.



Note: the tipoff in the example above is that he starts with the word frankly -- a major clue that the next phrase will be untrue. "Frankly, the easy thing for me would have been to run for re-election as governor."

To continue, Crist talks about his brilliant decisions and declares that he’s stopped off-shore drilling. What? What was it that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico the other day? It doesn’t seem he stopped it, not at all. But it was a pretty good applause line.

Then he says he’s going to be with us forever. Forever! What more can I say?

Barack Obama in Miami -- fixing problems, getting laughs, calling our candidates' names

Tucked in my box of campaign memories from 2008 is an event at the University of Miami, when candidate Barack Obama gave what seemed a mild shout-out to our Democratic challengers to the incumbent Republicans in the US House of Representatives. That may not be an accurate or full picture of what happened. But since we were struggling to get media coverage, endorsements, donations -- anything! -- it was always disappointing when the result didn’t seem whole-hearted.

Well, this was not the problem Thursday evening in Miami when Barack Obama, who buzzes in on Air Force One now, started his speech at the Adrienne Arsht Center with full-voiced shout-outs to:

• Alex Sink, running for governor
• Loranne Ausley, running for chief financial officer
• Kendrick Meek, running for the open seat in the US Senate
• Joe Garcia, running for open Florida District 25 in the US House
• Scott Maddox, running for commissioner of agriculture and consumer affairs
• Suzanne Kosmas, seeking re-election in Florida District 24 in the US House.

Sorry I didn’t get my Flip camera running quickly enough to get Obama calling Alex Sink’s name and her happy wave in response, but the others can be seen in tiny images -- Hey, the Flip only has a two-power zoom.

It was also super to hear the president thank the brilliant Esperanza Spalding, who thrilled the house with three jazz numbers before the political speeches. If you haven’t heard of her, check out the long profile of her in the New Yorker. Think the rare woman playing bass, think lovely singing, think beautiful. She was a treat.


Let me note that the president called Joe Garcia “a great friend of mine.” Joe has just left his high position with the Department of Energy to run for the open congressional seat in District 25, and we should be on track to a win.

Also on stage with the president were our own US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, FL-20, a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, and DNC Chair Tim Kaine, former governor of Virginia.

Kaine noted that the pundits predict the president’s party loses 28 House seats in the typical mid-term election. “They under-estimate us,” he countered. “We’ve got a great president.” There’s a major health law that will look better and better, Kaine went on, and we Democrats have enough fine candidates that we’re going after some Republican seats -- not merely defending. Hey, there’s Joe Garcia again, running for the seat long misrepresented by Mario Diaz-Balart, who’s escaping to FL-21, vacated by his retiring brother Lincoln. (What is it with these Republican quitters?)

And as the president declared in his humor-laced speech, “We’ve begun to fix the problems” -- chiefly health care to this point (long applause there), but coming soon is financial reform (long applause again for levying fees on banks to recoup all that bailout money).

Obama reminded us that the recovery act included a lot of tax cuts for the middle class, and said he was “amused” that rallies were being held on this Tax Deadline Day to protest supposedly high taxes. “You would think they’d be saying, ‘Thank you,’” he said, drawing one of a string of big laughs.

From this very pleasant time at the Arsht Center (well worth the money), your blogger is predicting that the president will be using his charm and gentle wit to cut the Party of No down to the Party of Nothing in the coming months.

US Senate: Kendrick Meek's campaign video released

Enjoy:




UPDATE: It was announced Thursday that the Meek campaign had qualified for the ballot by the petition method -- first time for a Senate candidate. The state Division of Elections verified over 115,000 petitions collected all around Florida.

Kendrick Meek video'd a rescue in Haiti. Thanks to Miami Dade rescue team!

This just in. Though I'm a week late with this, it still moves me.



Kendrick Meek, now running for US Senator, represents District 17 in the US House, and has the largest number of Haitian people in any congressional district, I've heard.

Massachusetts lesson for Florida Dems: Wall Street will be our foe

What was going on in Massachusetts? It was hard to tell from South Florida, so with the hindsight of knowing who won, let’s just look ahead to Florida and November of this year when we are electing a US Senator, and ask ourselves, Who will be behind the Republican candidate? Especially if it’s Marco Rubio.

The answer is in my email today in a jolly call from Club for Growth for a “knockout blow” to “big government,” which is said to be “the issue on everyone’s minds.”

Set aside the fact that big government is not on everyone’s mind when the job is gone or endangered, the mortgage is under water, and the health insurer is waiting to get your last penny and then deny you coverage.

And where does Chris Chocola, speaking for Club for Growth, want to swing and land that knockout blow? In Florida, in the Marco Rubio campaign.

That’s all laid out in his email, and below you’ll find excerpts to prove it. But before that, let’s consider the Club for Growth. Call it Wall Street. Call it Goldman Sachs. A front group.

Read what our friends at Think Progress and Daily Kos lay out on who funds the Club for Growth and who will fund Marco Rubio in Florida. It will be Wall Street, even as the handsome former speaker of the Florida House trots around the state playing to the teabagger crowd, which is deeply suspicious of Wall Street.

This is the irony underlying the Rubio campaign. It’s what our friend FlaDem describes in his Daily Kos post as the lesson from Massachusetts: “ … the Massachusetts race teaches that a Wall Street funded anti-Wall Street politician is a formidable foe.”

Quotes from the Club for Growth email:

It's a new year. Campaigns have begun in earnest.

After a year of liberal tax-and-spend politics, big government is the issue on everyone's minds.

Even in Massachusetts, voters have rejected Barack Obama's out-of-control liberalism, leaving the tax-and-spend Democrat leadership in Congress reeling.

Well, it's time to deal them the knockout blow.

And there's no better place for you and me to focus right now than the Florida U.S. Senate Republican Primary.

There's no doubt about it, this will be the most critical and closely-watched Republican primary in 2010.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

In one corner of the ring stands our endorsed candidate, Marco Rubio.

....

But his opponent -- in the far left corner - stands [sic] Governor Charlie Crist.
...

Polls have been tightening over the past few months, as Marco Rubio has dramatically closed the gap. In fact, according a December Rasmussen Poll, he's now neck and neck with Charlie Crist!

That means this race will likely come down to money. Plain and simple. 

As you may imagine, the email is replete with links to donate money to Rubio. Any questions? Remember, the Club for Growth has been one of the biggest backers of the economic policies that drove the US economy -- and much of the world -- to the brink of destruction. They are no one's friend. And their vision is seriously skewed if they think Charlie Crist is "far left."

New chairman meets party members informally

It was a pleasure to meet our new Miami-Dade County chairman, Richard Lydecker, and hear his aims for moving ahead. We are a group that needs moving ahead, if only from the unfortunate reputation of being dysfunctional. I’ll grant that meetings of our Democratic Executive Committee can be tiresome, but we are the people who made a big contribution last year to electing Barack Obama president and this year we have helped Democrats gain local office. This is a lot more than dysfunctional, and before Richard Lydecker was named to chair the DEC, there was considerable agitation to fire up the nucleus of the highly effective campaign arms of 2008.


Your blogger is not going to retell the individual stories that led to the decision by state party Chair Karen Thurman to replace BJ Chiszar as county chairman. It happened. By the luck of my surgeon’s schedule, I was under anesthesia when BJ was ousted and for most of the next week I was on my back with icepacks on the incision where my hernia was repaired, and so the temptation to mix it up, blogwise, was lost on me and my pain pills. Just as well. I have not wanted this blog to dwell on personal matters but rather on issues. On local matters, especially, I try to avoid gossip. The blog is open to Democratic candidates at any level, but I hope those who take up the offer will not attack Democratic primary opponents on these electrons. For the general election, all gloves may be taken off.

That said, it was a pretty happy group that got together Monday evening in the ground-floor restaurants where Lydecker has his law offices on Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami. The Steering Committee was the vehicle for the meeting but close to 40 people attended, as many activists had also been invited. No formal meeting ever happened; instead, people talked in groups, ate, drank, acted like Democrats and introduced themselves and their hobbyhorse issues to Lydecker individually. Finally, someone convinced him to talk to the group.

His main job, he said, was to develop a plan to go forward. He wants to help Democratic candidates gain office, to elect Florida’s first woman governor (Alex Sink), to elect the state’s first African-American US senator (Kendrick Meek), to elect a Democratic attorney general and thus control the state cabinet. And he wants to have good DEC meetings to draw out the membership and let them see leading Democratic candidates. His official message can be found on the DEC Website.

On the topic of more functional, Lydecker said the DEC office would be moved to Miami Beach to be a neighbor of the national Democratic campaign arm, Organizing for America, and the party should be able to provide tools like buses and polls to make things happen.

First up is the mid-December gala, Florida Blue Celebration, in a little more than two weeks. Let’s get up a big turnout for this event and launch ourselves to the election year of 2010. As first vice chair Daisy Black said, “I want to go into 2010 on a united front.”

One place for this to start is at the gala: Firefighters Memorial Building, 800 NW 21st Street, Doral FL 33122, 7 pm Friday Dec. 18. Sign up here.

UPDATE: From the content of this little blog post, it seems as if the elusive Blue in Miami blogger was at the same event I attended with Lydecker.

One more Democrat for US Senate? Stay tuned

One more Miamian may be about to enter the race for the Democratic nomination for US Senate: Maurice Ferre, former mayor of Miami. He's in the Orlando Sentinel yesterday and in the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog today. The latter says he will announce next Wednesday.

Other prominent Democrats in the race are Congressman Kendrick Meek of Miami and former Mayor Kevin Burns of North Miami. On the Republican side are Gov. Charlie Crist and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. This is the seat given up by the vanishing Mel Martinez. The primary is next August, election in November 2010.

UPDATE: There's a more complete story in the Friday Miami Herald.

Dem Blogger videos Republican Senate hopeful

In this piece your blogging videographer, or your videoing blogger, takes a step into Republican territory. Marco Rubio is the subject. He’s the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who’s vying with Gov. Charlie Crist to be the Republican candidate for US Senate in the 2010 election. Rubio is raking in about a tenth of Crist’s money, according to the Sept. 20 workup in the Miami Herald that described how Crist spends most of his time (on our dime, fellow taxpayers, but that’s politics, ain’t it) dialing for dollars or squeezing official events between his appearances at fundraisers.

Rubio’s counterpart of that latter activity – the fundraiser – is how I found myself in the same room with him for an hour Saturday evening, at my sailing club in Key Largo. One of the founding members is a leading local Republican, Ken Sorensen, who hosted a fundraiser for 50-60 people. I’ve had many a fine political argument at the sailing club bar with Sorensen, who is a former state representative and, then when termed-out, an assistant to Speaker Marco Rubio. Our last argument was about ACORN, and so it goes.

Speaking of ACORN, I was on the Herald website the other day and hit the editorial asserting that ACORN “must prove it’s squeaky clean” and be purged from top to bottom. In the Comments section I veered decidedly away from everyone who thought ACORN was below Lucifer. My comment suggested applying the same standard to the Republican Party, which even if confined to Jack Abramoff and his co-conspirators must have more people in jail than ACORN. Not to forget John “Torture Memo” Yoo, who’s got a column on the Herald op-ed page when he ought to be facing trial for war crimes. Yes, let’s do a top-to-bottom cleanup on the Republicans, and then turn to the small potatoes at ACORN.

Rubio, you’ll see in the following clip, took notice of my Flip camcorder and gave me a supporting role as citizen journalist sort of like the heroic “college students” who tipped us all off to the purportedly bad apples in an ACORN office. Well, Media Matters checked out some of that story and learned that the “college students” were Republican activists. Plus, the ACORN lady who sounded like Lizzy Borden with a propensity for killing her husband was just leading on the strange couple invading her office. The police say all her ex-husbands are alive and well. Anyway, that’s the poor backgrounding and unethical investigators you get from a far-right world where the gospel comes from Fox and Beck and no questions are asked.

You’ll hear Rubio, like everyone on his side, crow over how CBS and other media didn’t get this (over-hyped) story. Like George W. Bush, he’s probably mad that the US attorneys couldn’t find valid charges against ACORN, either. Well, there is this thing about ethics of prosecutions and of reporting, wherein you don’t start off by lying about who you are, like the “college students.” There is a place for hidden cameras and underground investigations, no doubt, but if Rubio’s taste prevails, “citizen journalism” will be the Wild Wild West.

As Rubio asks us to “listen closely,” I think I heard him saying that ACORN was “a front for political activists.” What’s that, some new offense? Maybe the “college kids” are “a front for political activists,” and we’ve got tit for tat here. Big deal. Readers are referred to the section above where I urge attention to war crimes first, small potatoes later.

The Atlantic, in its fresh October issue, has a rundown on rise of internet reporting with a close examination of how partisan politics is taking over from traditional media, and standards often suffer:

With journalists being laid off in droves, savvy political operatives have stepped eagerly into the breach. What’s most troubling is not that TV-news producers mistake their work for journalism, which is bad enough, but that young people drawn to journalism increasingly see no distinction between disinterested reporting and hit-jobbery.

In the next clip Rubio takes on Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, against whom he’s not running, and Gov. Crist, his main opponent, and says he doesn’t know what they stand for. I thought I’d find something on Bill Nelson’s campaign website or official website to contradict Rubio, but something must be under construction. Well, Nelson doesn’t have to run until 2012, so he has an excuse. And there is plenty of information, though no platform in sight.

Next he’s talking about health care legislation (my question, he didn’t mention it in his stump speech, nor environment/energy/education except in the most sketchy way), and he makes a pretty wild statement about health care in the rest of the world, making it sound as if no country ever has had a good public health system. It may be that he’s defining it so narrowly (he’s a lawyer, after all) that it would have to be a single-payer system that didn’t have the tiniest smidgeon of rationing of care to meet his standard. Well, great, but we’re here in the real world where tons of countries get better results with lower expenditures than ours. And our care is rationed all the time by insurance companies that get rich by denying care.

In the following clip I can agree with his drift on malpractice, especially where he says there’s an overabundance of lawyers.

Finally, is it a waste of time to consider Rubio when Crist is raising money by the ton? If the primary were in a month or two it would be easy to dismiss the young (38) Rubio as someone polishing his resume to run against Bill Nelson two years later. But the primary is almost a year away, and Crist keeps getting skunked in Republican straw polls. What’s going on? A lot could happen.

Check out this story on Fine Print in which Rubio is itching to get into a debate with Crist. Could be interesting.

Meanwhile, our side's main contenders are Kendrick Meek, the congressman from Miami, and North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns.

For the record, the seat was held by one-termer Mel Martinez, who left for no good reason. Gov. Crist could have appointed himself to take the seat but instead named his sometime campaign manager George LeMieux, who's trying to live down the label of crony. So far has the US Senate fallen, when the Constitution, in the 17th Amendment, clearly prefers election rather than appointment to fill a vacancy. Now who's the strict constructionist? Your faithful blogger.

.

Crist vulnerable? Here comes Kendrick Meek

His 43rd birthday, according to Wikipedia, was on Sept. 6, but no matter, Kendrick Meek was still partying Sunday afternoon with a low-threshold fundraiser in Coral Gables. The U.S. Representative from District 17 in Miami-Dade, who’s running for US Senate in 2010, only wanted $20.10 from attendees, and there was a nice crowd of over 100 at the Biltmore Hotel to meet the candidate and donate.

The Sunday Miami Herald enticed your blogger out for his third time around with Senate candidate Meek. Interesting story by Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times pointing out the feet of clay worn with the empty suit of Charlie Crist, the supposedly leading Republican contender for the US Senate.

Charlie Crist could be vulnerable in race for U.S. Senate - South Florida - MiamiHerald.com

The story covers the usual ground with Crist -- that he's popular (despite his record) and that he runs for one office after another (despite not finishing the job). But then it seems that Adam Smith and a lot of Republicans are catching on that Crist, for all his money, is not a slam-dunk for the Republican nomination.

My favorite quote from the article:

But talk to veteran Republican activists across Florida, from local organizers to elite operatives to big-money bundlers, and there's a sense Crist could be in trouble. Probably not, but just maybe.

Meek was introduced at the fundraiser by Ana Navarro, who described herself as the "token Republican" on the Meek campaign. She declared forcefully that Crist will be beaten. I guess she was saying that Meek will beat Crist next year, though Crist's more immediate challenge comes from Marco Rubio, the former speaker of the Florida House, who's well off to the right of Crist and contending for the Republican nomination.

This is what raised my morale -- the prospect of a nasty battle between Crist and Rubio. Crist is the governor who has backed out of the trials of managing Florida to run for the US Senate, and has already fouled the nest by appointing his crony George LeMieux to complete the Senate term so ignominiously uncompleted by Mel Martinez. What a bunch of quitters! And the other main Republican contender, Rubio, will throw red ideological meat to the Republican base and alienate them from Crist. We Democrats will look like the soul of reason in comparison by the time people start voting in 2010.

So it was a pleasure to have a piece of birthday cake and dream of one more Democrat in the US Senate after the next election. And not a Blue Dog.

For the record, I should point out that the Florida Division of Elections has six active Democratic candidates for the US Senate and nine Republicans, not to forget four independents. Also, there are seven Democrats registered as candidates to succeed Meek in his reliably Democratic Miami District 17. So we have our own chances to dissolve into nasty primary fights. Let us hope that we got infighting out of our system with the Republican-plotted mess around the early presidential primary date in 2008.

UPDATE: And here's Politico's wrapup of how Crist is in trouble from both sides now. Thanks to the DSCC for pointing this out to me.

Calm prevails at Meek's town hall

Calm prevails at Meek's town hall http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1216851.html
MiamiHerald.com - Beth Reinhard
US Rep. Kendrick Meek emphasized the importance of a government-run healthcare plan at a low-key Miami town hall meeting attended by about 400 people. ...

No bullhorns, no protesters at Meek's town hall
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2009/09/no-bullhorns-no-protesters-at-meeks-town-hall-.html

Meek Holds Health Care Town Hall - Politics News Story - WPLG Miami
Sep 3, 2009 ... Kendrick Meek is holding a health care town hall meeting Thursday ... www.justnews.com/politics/20708651/detail.html
Video: http://www.justnews.com/video/20718160/

Miami-Dade Democrats favor universal health plan

Candidates for the Democratic nomination for US Congressional District 17, from the left: Yolly Roberson, Phillip J. Brutus, Shirley Gibson, Roderick Vereen.

A good Democratic Party meeting Monday night, and a fine setting at Florida Memorial University’s up-to-date auditorium.

A lot of new members of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee were sworn in, more than I could count with confidence. Almost 20, I think, a good sign that people are coming aboard even in the summer doldrums. Chairman BJ Chiszar said DEC membership was very close to his interim goal of 300.

Main events were three:

· We passed a resolution urging Congress to go for universal care in health reform. There was spirited debate as to whether it was good to go against President Obama’s plan that would add a public option to a wide modification of the present system.

· Candidates for the state legislature had the opportunity to speak from the stage and make themselves known. Seven Democratic challengers in open seats were featured, along with two incumbent reps, Oscar Braynon of Miami Gardens (District 103) and Ron Saunders of Key West, whose District 120 includes a chunk of Miami-Dade as well as Monroe County.

· Four of the Democrats vying to succeed US Rep. Kendrick Meek in FL-17 (he’s running for US Senate) were on stage for a candidates’ forum, making statements and responding to questions. The four were former state Rep. Phillip J. Brutus, Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, state Rep. Yolly Roberson and attorney/activist Roderick D. Vereen. Also among Democratic candidates in FL-17, according to the Florida Division of Elections, are Haitian activist Marliene M. Bastien and state Rep. Frederica S. Wilson.

All three of these agenda items were well worth the drive to Miami Gardens, and the meeting remained lively until after 10 p.m.

State Rep. Ron Saunders, who is slated to be leader of the Democratic minority in the state House in 2010, described the statewide strategy to build the number of Democratic winners in next year’s election. The Democrats are specially targeting 34 of the 76 seats the Republicans now hold in the 120-seat House. The criterion for choosing them, he said, was to identify districts in which Alex Sink got 48 percent or more of the vote in her run for Florida chief financial officer in 2006.

Sink, now running for governor, is the only Democrat in the state cabinet. She won with 53.5 percent in 2006, meaning there must have been plenty of state House districts where she captured otherwise Republican voters.

And here's a three-hour event compressed to 40 seconds:

Wheels starting to turn in US House Districts 18 and 25

I think there were two developments on Tuesday in the coming races for the US House of Representatives from Miami-Dade County, involving Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo, the Democratic candidates who waged strong campaigns in 2008 but lost in FL-25 and FL-18, respectively.

I’m guessing that Joe Garcia took himself out of the House race in 2010 by accepting a nomination for a job in the Obama administration, and Annette Taddeo declared, once again, that she’s mad at the incumbent Republican, and she squashed talk that she’d run for chief financial officer of Florida.

Taddeo’s stump speech in her brave battle to unseat Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2008 always included the story of her decision to run. It was because Ros-Lehtinen had voted repeatedly against expanding children’s health insurance coverage. Taddeo would bring tears to her listeners’ eyes by recalling her many surgeries to repair a cleft lip, and she would say this experience convinced her to challenge Ros-Lehtinen, who’s been in the US House now for 20 years.

Now the issue is the environment, Taddeo said in a statement ruling out a run to succeed Alex Sink as Florida’s CFO. She didn’t declare outright for Congress, but it sure sounds like the next thing in her sights.

Here’s most of what she said:

I have taken time to seriously examine this [CFO] opportunity and to confer with family, friends and supporters. I’ve had an opportunity to do some soul searching about my future and I’ve come to some clear realizations. I am most passionate about my family, my business and public service. I’ve dedicated my entire life to family, while dedicating my professional life to building and growing my company, LanguageSpeak. Through my service on a variety of public boards and groups and then my run for Congress, I have been able to follow my passion for public service.

The Chief Financial Officer position is very appealing to me. I believe my background as the owner and active CEO of a small business gives me the skills I would need to serve the people of Florida in this position. As I examined the opportunity, I felt confident I could raise the money to be competitive and that I could do the job well and with vision.

But something was missing.

Just over a week ago, the House of Representatives passed landmark legislation to attack climate change and to address our dependence on foreign oil and the deadly greenhouse gasses that fossil fuels spew into our environment. I followed that debate with rapt attention and realize the legislation isn’t perfect. However, in spite of the science, in spite of the clear and present danger climate change presents to the future of Florida, my own member of Congress voted against the bill.

I realized at that moment what was missing as I considered the CFO race. I just wasn’t passionate about it at this time. I am passionate about climate change and health care and restoring our economy. I am passionate about economic development and job creation and making sure America is on the forefront of innovation for the future. I feel we are being let down, once again, by political leaders who can’t see beyond the next election.

Therefore, I have decided not to be a candidate for CFO or any other office at this time. I hope and believe that I will run for public office again in the near future. I have decided to keep my focus on my family, my business and to engage in public policy from the perspective of a wife, mother, business owner and activist for now. Thank You.

A month ago, at the Jefferson-Jackson Day event in Miami Beach, she said she wouldn’t run for Congress again without the full backing of the Democratic Party, as she had to do in 2008. Well we remember the thrashing and gnashing that went on as we in the grassroots begged and yelled for our incumbent Democrats in the US House, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) and Kendrick Meek (FL-17), to get behind the strong Democratic candidates challenging the three Republicans in our county’s US House delegation. It was like the poor Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the impossible mountain.

In the end, Taddeo lost 42 percent to 58 percent – the same margin that Democrat Raul Martinez lost to Lincoln Diaz-Balart in FL-21.

Joe Garcia did considerably better against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25, losing 47 percent to 53 percent.

Not long ago I heard Joe Garcia speak at a Democracy For America-Miami-Dade chapter meeting, and he clearly was leaving the door open to a new run for the US House. The demographics are getting more and more favorable for a Democrat in this district that includes Miami’s southwestern suburbs and through the Everglades to the eastern part of Collier County.

But now Garcia is taking an interesting chance in Washington, and I think this rules out a run for the US House. It’s already July of 2009, and within six months he’d had to have a campaign up for the November 2010 election. Somehow Joe Garcia doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d put the citizenry through the agony of confirmation hearings and then a few months later quit and run for some other position.

Yes, confirmation hearings – that’s what the Miami Herald says on the Naked Politics blog.
Click on that and you'll see that the White House said of Garcia:

"Joe Garcia's dynamic public service career spans over 20 years and consists of a diverse body of work in the fields of energy, foreign policy and human rights. As a law student, Mr. Garcia directed the Exodus Project, a non-profit refugee resettlement program that reunited over 10,000 families at no cost to American tax-payers. In 1992, the late Governor Lawton Chiles appointed Joe Garcia to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), where he fought for lower utility bills for the people of Florida. In 1998, Mr. Garcia's fellow commissioners elected him as chairman of the PSC. As PSC Chairman, Joe Garcia worked across party lines to pass the largest energy rate cut in Florida's history, saving Florida's families more than $1 billion. In 2001, Mr. Garcia was named as the Executive Director of the Cuban American National Foundation, where he served as a tireless proponent of freedom and improved human rights conditions in Cuba and throughout the Americas. In 2004, Mr. Garcia was named Executive Vice President and Director of the Hispanic Project for NDN, a policy research institute in Washington D.C. Joe Garcia earned his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctorate degrees from the University of Miami."

Oh, yeah. The job is director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact at the Department of Energy.

Dave Aronberg announces for attorney general

Now we have one Democratic state senator announcing for attorney general and another saying he’ll announce in a few days. So, careful readers, that stuff from a few days ago about avoiding primaries and being all united as a happy family – no longer in effect. That car’s not in gear. That idea is inoperative, to borrow a 35-year-old usage made famous in the doomed administration of Richard Nixon.

We’re gonna be Democrats. Will we have slugfests like that between the 2006 candidates for governor, Jim Davis and Rod Smith? That will be up to Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres (District 27), who announced on Thursday, and Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach (District 35), who said in an email, “I expect to be making my own announcement of my intentions within a few days.”

Let us fervently wish that they don’t spend all their money and venom on each other for the primary to be held in August 2010, and that the winner will be in good shape to defeat a Republican in November next year.

UPDATE: Both would have to resign their Senate seats to run for attorney general, under Florida's so-called "resign to run" law, text at this link. The state law does not apply to the federal office that Gelber sought, the US Senate.

Meanwhile, there’s confirmation that Democratic U.S. Rep Corrine Brown of Jacksonville (FL-3) is considering a run for the U.S. Senate nomination. In that race, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami (FL-17) has a strong start, with North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns saying he likes primaries. Gelber said last weekend he was stepping back from his declared run for the nomination for senator to avoid the chance of a divisive primary.

Alex Sink, now the state chief financial officer, is the mainstream announced candidate for the governorship that Charlie Crist will not run again for, instead running for the U.S. Senate nomination against Marco Rubio, former speaker of the state House of Representatives.

If you think this story is getting cluttered with political names, be glad I’m not talking about those announced Democrats for Kendrick Meek’s seat. They number six already. You may click on this link to the Florida Division of Elections list of who is running for everything. Note that Charlie Crist also has six announced Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate nomination.
This looks like a good two years for political consultants. Something to think about for those whose jobs have gone south.

Here’s the text of Gelber’s email.

“A few days ago I receded from the U.S. Senate race in order to avoid the circular firing squad that has characterized too many past Democratic efforts. My hope was that with the opening up of every cabinet office (for the first time in 140 years) that Democratic hopefuls – like me -- would take a step back to give all of us time to reach a thoughtful judgment on how best to unify our party in a year when real change is finally within reach. In fact, over the last few weeks many of the potential candidates had been in dialogue with each other and with others hoping to avoid the type of divisions that damage our ability to present a winning slate in November. I am grateful to have heard that so many of you share my concern and were also hopeful that our party could break free of its past missteps. This afternoon my friend Dave Aronberg let me know that he was not waiting any longer and announced his candidacy for Attorney General. While I would have preferred a different timeline, I expect to be making my own announcement of my intentions within a few days. While part of me worries that this is déjà vu all over again, I am still optimistic that ultimately we will be able to deliver the change Floridians so desperately need.”

And here’s a link to Aronberg’s campaign site, which was under construction a few days ago but now is well populated with content. He plans to talk a lot about consumer protection in his campaign.

Footnote: Nixon was the first president I covered in my years with Associated Press. Does that make me a big-deal White House correspondent? No, my first AP job was in Philadelphia, and Nixon came there (probably 1971) to give a speech on education; the AP traveling White House staffer was generous and let me write the second-cycle story on the speech.

Meek/Burns/Gelber US Senate politics at JJ meeting

Dan Gelber is stepping back. Kevin Burns is not. Kendrick Meek is confident of the Democratic nomination to run against whomever the Republicans put up for the US Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez.

UPDATE: Just learning at midnight Monday about a new entry in the US Senate race: Corrine Brown, U.S. Rep. from Jacksonville (FL-3) says she's considering a race for this seat.
ALSO: The Gelber campaign used my video of Gelber (see below) in a message to people in the Gelber Facebook group. Cool to be linked. It's also on the Broward New Times blog, where you also can see a snip on Corrine Brown.

That’s a bunch of names, and even more will enter the picture. Aside from the jockeying personalities and ambitions, the thing that stands out is a drive by many Florida Democrats to avoid divisive primaries in the 2010 elections – midterms in the presidential cycle but the year to elect the governor and the three other state cabinet officers. No incumbents seek re-election for the first time in over 130 years. Democrats are ambitious to grab all four so-called statewide offices – they only hold one now – and elect a Democrat to the US Senate.

This would be a tremendous state coup for Democrats on the heels of taking Florida’s 27 electoral votes for Barack Obama last November. But it goes against the typical history of midterm losses by the president’s party, and may not be possible anyhow unless the national economy brightens and makes voters more happy with Democrats. The Republicans, after all, also are trying to avoid tough primaries, though Marco Rubio, the deeply conservative former State House speaker, shows no sign of leaving the Senate field to Gov. Charlie Crist, the empty suit.

What do I know about the Republicans, anyway?

Here’s the way this played out among Democrats in public Saturday at the day of training and campaigning that was part of the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day in the luxe venue of the newly renovated Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach.

Dan Gelber, 48, my state senator (District 35), said he had walked a few hundred yards to the meeting from his Miami Beach home. Finding coffee at the GLBT Caucus room, he told this blogger he was likely to step back from the US Senate race and was talking to people about running for state attorney general. He’s a former federal prosecutor, one highlight in a busy resume of politics and public service, but his ambition in this direction runs up against another rising Democrat, state Sen. Dave Aronberg (FL-27), 38, who’s perhaps even more in need of a bigger job than Gelber. Gelber is early in his first state Senate term, while Aronberg is in his second and last. Term limits, Ta DA!

Some say Florida Democrats don’t have a deep bench of candidates. Gelber and Aronberg are evidence for the other view: that talent is abundant. Unfortunately, attorney general is a natural office for each of them.

Now I’ve mixed the race for state attorney general in with the US Senate. Let’s go back to the senatorial possibilities.

The hapless Mel Martinez announced last year, after being cashiered as head of the Republican Party, that he wouldn’t run for re-election to US Senate. The Democratic scramble started back in December when Gelber said he was thinking of the Senate. A month later Meek, 42, in his fourth term in the US House (FL-17), made the first official step into the race, and Gelber officially announced for US Senate soon thereafter. In February Kevin Burns, mayor of North Miami, launched his bid. This made the Democratic race an entirely Miami-Dade County affair, though the three are a diverse set, Meek being African-American, Gelber Jewish, and Burns gay, in a 26-year relationship and having an adopted, charming daughter. Hey, we’re Democrats. So what if it’s Florida and some parts of the state are still in the Deep South. I can’t help but think … Anyway. Get over it.

All three showed up at the Netroots Coalition training session Saturday morning and spoke briefly, setting wheels in motion. Here are video links to clips of their talks. Text summaries soon thereafter.

Key words from Gelber:

• “Every time we get involved with divisive primaries, we lose.”
• In recent election cycles, “there’s really only been one (Democratic) candidate who’s won, Alex Sink. Guess what – she didn’t have a primary. … I’m in this US Senate race. But I will likely be taking sort of a step back in this race….”
• “I do think this cycle is going to be (about) how disciplined we are going to be as Democrats. Whether we can put together a group that delivers change, really changes the face of our state.”

Kevin Burns was the only enthusiastic proponent of primaries. “I love primaries,” he told the Netroots crowd, while cautioning that a primary should be “responsible.” He contrasted a good primary with the Republicans’ usual tactic of special interests anointing someone to be the nominee.

That doesn’t make Burns a front-runner, however. Meek seems to have that position. But it’s a long time before the primary in August next year.

Gelber and others talked about a 2010 slate – the US Senate, plus the state leadership offices of governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture and consumer affairs. (The lieutenant governor is elected as a team with the governor.)

In the evening, at the banquet before over 1,000 people, Gelber made it more official, saying in his podium speech, “I’m going to step back from my US Senate bid and consider other seats in the (state) cabinet.”

This won the best ovation of the evening. There was prolonged applause and many rose to their feet. Neither Alex Sink, the gubernatorial nominee, nor keynoter Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia and head of the DNC, got prolonged applause. After Kendrick Meek spoke and didn’t acknowledge that Gelber had, in effect, withdrawn (What does “step back” mean, anyway?), Bob Graham, the wise old Florida Democrat, with vast experience as governor and prominent US senator, seemed to depart from his text to thank Gelber, and praised his “courageous, unifying and patriotic statement.”

Now came Alex Sink to the podium after Graham’s introduction. Unchallenged for the Democratic nomination for governor, she gave a speech rich in platitudes until she got to her growing up on a farm. The chatty audience finally hushed and seemed enthralled by her description of how she learned self-reliance and a “love of numbers” from helping her father with the farm accounts. She wrote the checks, and it seemed that soon she was head of the Bank of America in Florida, and now on the threshold of the governor’s office.

She’s facing Bill McCollum, whose distinguishing feature is having run for office a ton of times without seeming to become especially smart or effective. Now he’s the state attorney general, term-limited, so he’s up or out of office.

On Sunday morning Gelber sent an email to supporters announcing again that he’s “stepping back” from the US Senate race, and that he’d been talking with Bob Graham, Alex Sink and US Sen. Bill Nelson about a “slate of candidates” for 2010.

The text of his email:

As you may know I have decided to step back from my U.S. Senate bid. I wanted to let you know the reasons.

When Governor Crist announced he would be a candidate for US Senate, he created a domino effect that opened up every seat on the cabinet. At a time when our state is facing its greatest challenges, ironically, we have our greatest uncertainty and dislocation. But I believe this is also an opportunity – the chance to set a new course that avoids the mistakes of the past and tracks a better future for our families.

It makes little sense -- when we do face the prospect of real change in Florida -- for me to participate in a potentially divisive primary for U.S. Senate that will only serve to diminish our chances against a very formidable and well-known Republican nominee.

I also believe that we have a historic opportunity here in Florida to reshape the political landscape and more importantly, bring fundamental change to Tallahassee. I have had a number of conversations with Senators Graham and Nelson, and CFO Alex Sink, about how we can best unify our party and move forward with a slate of candidates that can communicate our vision for a better Florida, and I look forward to continuing these discussions. I would like to hear your thoughts as you have been a good supporter and friend, and I value your opinion. You can reach me at dan@dangelber.com.

Tim Kaine, in his keynote speech, promised to pay a lot of attention to Florida campaigns and said his DNC will “invest” in our 2010 Senate race. Kaine waxed philosophical in describing how hard it was to know when one’s political “moment” was in bloom and when it was past. “We’ll be measured by what we do in this moment ... You don’t know how long a moment will last … We’ve got to do as much as we can.”

A few more words on that slate for the state offices. Who might be in the other state cabinet slots? One delightful surprise was to learn that Annette Taddeo is considering a run to succeed Alex Sink as chief financial officer. Taddeo ran a strong campaign for US House District 18 (my district) but lost to the entrenched Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2008. Taddeo is a successful businesswoman in her own right and would be a credible occupant of the CFO portfolio.

She, too, appeared at the Netroots session and spoke after Gelber, Aronberg and Burns had left.

“This was not my idea,” she said of the CFO draft, but went on, “I am considering it. I am talking to people ... it’s a very difficult decision. I just went through a very grueling campaign.”

She said she’d never run again without party backing, as she did in the ’08 congressional campaign. This was something I saw from medium close-up, and while it was tough on her, it made me and many others admire her grit as much as her intelligence, talent and charm.

So, check it out, the website to draft Annette Taddeo for CFO.

And here’s a link to the Miami Herald’s story, which didn’t have any reporting from the Netroots meeting.

A link to an earlier post here on this topic.