The far right is meeting the far left in Florida, and it's going to be a doozy

[HAB911]

God bless their cranky souls, Republican voters do not fool around in Florida.

They don’t care what the media says or, for that matter, the polls. They don’t care which candidate the big-shot business leaders are bankrolling. They don’t even care whom their own party leaders are supporting.

Back in 2010, they decided they were tired of politics-as-usual candidates and took a chance on an unknown businessman in the gubernatorial race.

Eight years later, their tone has not softened.

The voters who put Rick Scott in the Governor’s Mansion and helped deliver the White House to Donald Trump have now elevated another drain-the-swamp-style candidate by the name of Ron DeSantis.

You want to know how impressive the Republicans’ wrath is?

Democrats have decided to match them outrage for outrage.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/Romano-The-far-right-is-meeting-the-far-left-in-Florida-and-it-s-going-to-be-a-doozy_171299684

[Hortensis]

1. Wow, what a biased headline. Andrew Gillum is NOT

Last edited Wed Aug 29, 2018, 08:33 AM - Edit history (1)

a far left extremist, or even radical. He works for his issues within the system. But if he were, he and De Santis, who is running very hard right/far right would have a lot more in common in personality and ideology than either would have with people who are not prone to extremist dysfunctions.

But that's not the case. I was concerned that all these adversarial farther-left groups were backing Gillum, but I've seen nothing in that even whiffs of "Our Revolution"-degree extremism or adversarial relationship with mainstream Democrats. He takes strongly liberal but still mainstream positions that appeal to many regular Democrats, and throughout his entire political career has worked within the system to harness establishment power, not destroy it.

So it appears his relationship with Bernie Sanders and OR during the primary seems not to be a meeting of "revolutionary" minds, but rather a mutually beneficial one between people who both need wins -- Gillum to have won the primary, Sanders to claim a win for someone he wouldn't have touched in 2016.

Btw, NOW Gillum has to go up against a Republican powerhouse in November. John Lewis endorsed Gillum's opponent as our seemingly strongest candidate, but no doubt his support will be expressed soon. There is an FBI corruption investigation involving a number of people Gillum's associated with, but so far no indication that he is personally legally threatened. We should expect lots of "the innuendo IS the crime" to fly from the right, though.

[Me.]

28. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

it seems to me Gillum is a convenient source of funds with that 50/50 split that fundraising emails ask for.

[Hortensis]

29. :) Jonathan Capehart has an excellent op piece on Gillum

and what's happening in the party.

He nailed it calling the media lazy. I read almost everything brought up by googling after Gillum's win, and almost no one bothered to provide any information, just restated each other's insulting Sanders proxy garbage. Almost no information has been provided about what Gillum stands for or his record, but here and there it becomes clearer that he excited voters around the state, including drawing some of the Hispanic vote in south FL.

WaPo: ... many of the hot takes have been lazy. The most egregious being that Gillum’s victory set up the fall campaign as a proxy cage match between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who endorsed Gillum, and President Trump, who gave his nod to Rep. Ron DeSantis. Nope. Gillum was an early supporter of and delegate for Hillary Clinton, the “establishment” candidate who beat Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. ...

A close second in offense is that Gillum’s platter of issues is a potpourri of radical socialism — as if advocating for $15 minimum wage and Medicare-for-all was outside of the mainstream of political thought or discussion. ...

... Gillum ran what I’m calling an analogue campaign: not one driven by analytics and stale messaging, but one powered by going door-to-door continuously to ask people for their votes while simultaneously building the infrastructure that would get voters to the polls. Most important, Gillum campaigned as an unabashed Democrat.

“My opinion as to why we’ve been losing is that we keep running these races as if we are running Republican lite,” ... He was talking specifically about past Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Florida. “What Republican voters have shown us is that when they have the choice between the real thing and the fake one, they go with the real one every time,” he explained. “And then our voters, the very ones that we need in order to win, we’re not providing them a motivation or a stimulation to get out there and vote for us. Why? Because they’re not sure that we’re for them.”

This is pretty much the same way Stacey Abrams talked about pursuing the Democratic nomination for governor of Georgia when she was on “Cape Up” last October: broad appeal, inclusive message, clear policy agenda and no vote taken for granted ...

... Yet, when following this campaign, do so with open eyes. Something is happening in Florida, in the country and in the Democratic Party. Don’t miss it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/08/31/why-are-yall-so-surprised-andrew-gillum-won/?utm_term=.826d399cabf2

Don't know if you remember the 2014 midterms, but Democratic incumbents across the nation ran as if they thought having no message would get them reelected. Don't know whose wonderful idea that was, suspect it was the new professional campaign industry protecting their own behinds in a year all the experts predicted massive losses, but there were almost no liberal ideals expressed anywhere. I looked and looked.

That changed in 2015, with Elizabeth Warren's exciting demands for change and Hillary's very ambitious plans leading off. Way, way past time for the MSM to notice.

[Me.]

30. I Do Remember

and the weakness of the challenge by Dems was so discouraging

I'm so glad that people are talking the truth about Gollum. I don't know why the compulsion to grant Sanders credit for everything but water is so adamantly pushed by a relatively small group but it does the Senator no credit.

[Hortensis]

31. The Repubs' and Russia's ongoing and un-rejected

promotions of Sanders in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 certainly do the senator no credit.

Of course, laziness, the ease of selling this phony, insulting, dispiriting and soul-less theme to editors and readers, and lack of intellectual honesty on the part of too many journalists also come into it. The new realities aren't exciting and dramatic enough to inspire thought in hacks, just roll out and sell the same old mistaken themes. Pernicious.

[Me.]

32. SNAP Hortensis

And that word pernicious is so relevant these days

[dawg]

33. You're right. Sanders had little to do with his success ...

it was mostly due to the power of The Precious!

[PatSeg]

35. I am getting so tired

of Democrats or liberals being referred to as "hard left", as if there has to be an equivalent to the radical far right in this country and both sides have an equal number of extremists.

I lived through the sixties and seventies, I know what radical, far left people look like. They are extremely rare today and their numbers are very small.

[SunSeeker]

2. Gillum is not the "far left." Sheesh.

[octoberlib]

3. Don't consider Gillum "far left", he's left of center. I

consider Maduro, Trotsky, Stalin far left.

[pretzel4gore]

6. leftwing means 'needs of the many'

go before rightwing 'privilege of the few'

the planet is gonna die, and you guys think Stalin etc were too extreme fighting the pigs?

[mythology]

15. You think Stalin cared about the needs of the many?

[yardwork]

17. Are you seriously defending Stalin?

[JHan]

23. that's some top tier whataboutism right there.

[PatSeg]

36. Stalin was a violent, cruel sociopath

For him, communism was a vehicle to power. He could have used any platform, as the goal was primarily power.

He was cruel even to his supporters, as he trusted no one. Everyone was a potential threat, friend and foe. Stalin wasn't fighting pigs, he was fighting everyone.

Stalin was not far left, he was yet another run of the mill murderous dictator. History is full of them. The tags change, but they are all pretty much the same.

[genxlib]

4. It's really not that complicated

Party affiliation is declining while more and more people are declaring themselves Independent.

Without open primaries, the selection of the candidates is left to those who remain in the parties. Meanwhile, the independents complain that there are no moderate candidates. No kidding.

The shift to Independent is largely a ruse when it comes to the ultimate vote. Those people who leave the parties pretty well stay with the voting trends. But it certainly affects who gets nominated.

[Hortensis]

7. Are Dem-leaning indies complaining there are no moderate candidates?

That's grim reality for right-leaning indies, of course; the Republican Party has been taken over by big money and strong social/religious conservatives/white nationalists.

But surely it'd be a strange complaint against Dems for left-leaners in most states this season?

Gillum's opponent ran as a strong moderate liberal with good experience and other creds, ceding him plenty of room to run as a stronger liberal, and she lost by a few points. I didn't see any big difference between AZ's Democratic candidates for governor; all three seemed pretty run of the mill, fairly middlin' liberal Democrats on issues.

I'd be interested in reading about this. Could "moderate" possibly be code used by prior socially conservative-leaning Democrats who were overwhelmed by just "too much" diversity and equality?

[genxlib]

9. I haven't heard any specific complaints

I don't think Gillum is extreme at all but he was the most liberal of the candidates in the running. I just think don't think it is a surprising result. When moderate voters remove themselves from the voting pool, the moderate candidates will lose to those farther from the center.

I actually don't think it is nearly as big of a problem in the Dem side as it is in the GOP side.

When you look at how many people have fled the GOP, the people left are mouth breathing Trump supporters. Of course they nominated the Trump guy.

As to your question, as a Florida voter, I don't think there is any real hard racism within the Democratic Party where people are "overwhelmed" by too much diversity. I think there are a lot of people assuming that he won't be accepted by enough Florida voters to get him over the top. You could consider this a sort of soft racism. Or you could consider it a very hard-learned cynicism about our fellow Florida voters. Obama proved it could be done so there are no excuses.

[Hortensis]

10. But moderate Dems have NOT been "removing themselves

from the voting pool." That's the point, and I wondered who's saying that.

The truth is that our Democratic Party has been both growing in membership AND moving more strongly left vocally -- as a whole -- as we've discovered real support for it. Any discrepancies are in how much, not that it's happening. But as somehow losing moderates in all this, no. Our very large and diverse coalition requires extensive compromises, which is a strongly moderating factor that wards off extremism, which must have its own, narrow way.

Those who don't accept the need for broad institutional compromise, and/or believe that proves the party is unprincipled and/or corrupt, are vulnerable to leaving, but of course because they insist on less moderation, not more.

Which brings me back to the only people on the left who might claim to want more "moderation."
We've had some big successes in our eternal battle to "extend the blessings of liberty to all Americans." THAT has made a lot of people unhappy . Since some of those in the Democratic Party have left, perhaps "moderate" is a little euphemism for their desire for "moderation" in equality?

Btw, those have turned out to be most typically socially conservative and economically wanting government programs. (Many are drawn to populist movements like Trump's.) In any case, obviously people who decamped to vote for Trump out of racism and misogyny would not have been seeking moderation as Democrats see it.

[genxlib]

11. Actually, the trend is towards Independants

The numbers nationwide vary but show a general trend. Here are the figures for Florida are at this link and they are pretty clear.

https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/data-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/voter-registration-monthly-reports/voter-registration-by-party-affiliation/


Figures below as a percentage of registered voters.

In 1990 - GOP 40.6% DEM 52.2% Unaffiliated 7.2%

In 2018 - GOP 35.3% DEM 37.2% Unaffiliated 26.8%


The intervening period is a pretty steady trend to those figures. Basically the GOP lost 5%, Dems lost 15% and Independents grew by 20%.

The party is growing but it is growing more slowly than the Independents. When the most liberal third of the population chooses a candidate, that candidate will naturally be more liberal than an electorate made up of half of the voters. Or put another way, the moderates in the electorate sit out the primaries.

[Hortensis]

12. The figures presented are for Florida alone and do not address

the main issue we're discussing -- the contention that moderates are leaving the Democratic Party. The unstated assumption seems to be that the party is becoming too extreme for moderates, which is not supported by any experts. This IS consonant, however, with right-wing racist propaganda being hit extremely hard in this election season.

Which, again, is why I ask where you're getting this idea from. Again, the only ex- Democrats I've read about who claim the party is too extreme are those who left to support white supremacy, most favoring continued male supremacy as well.

So, if there is any truth to your contention, please explain. I've crossed the ballot many times over the decades to vote for good public servants regardless of party affiliation, but true independents are very rare and I don't call myself one.

Thank goodness ex- Republicans are slightly less likely to support their party's positions, something of a rejection of indecency and intense corruption, but by far most right-leading "independents have still been reliably voting Republican. On the Democratic side, there is no vicious indecency or significant corruption to flee; but whatever the motivations, most still also just vote as they would have before. In other words, for large majorities calling themselves independent, it's just a pose with no substance. Most have still voted Republicans and Democrat, the only thing that really counts.

[genxlib]

16. I am not sure what you are disagreeing with

Yes, they are Florida numbers in a thread about Florida candidates.

Your last paragraph is true. Independents usually do stay with their old party that they lean to. But that has no effect in the primary because they don't participate. Hence the subject of my conversation is about who comes out of the primaries.

It is simple statistics. If you take the average height of the tallest 1/3 of the people in a group it will be taller than the average of the tallest half. If you poll the bluest 1/3 of the people, you will get a more progressive candidate on average than half the voters.

The unstated assumption was unstated because it isn't what I was saying. Nor do I agree with that statement. I said early on that I do not think Gillum is extreme at all. He was just the least centrist candidate.

Besides all of that, I said the phenomenon mostly just effects the GOP. I think it is pretty evident that they are prone to nominating worse candidates as there numbers shrink.

[Garrett78]

20. What evidence do you have for the claim that primary voters are further left/right than average?

[Me.]

34. ...

"Any discrepancies are in how much, not that it's happening"

[Garrett78]

13. Independents are neither moderate nor swing voters.

The vast majority are highly partisan.

[George II]

24. If people really care about who a Democratic or republican candidate should be in an election.....

....they should join the party of the candidate they want to support. It's that simple.

Primaries are essentially exercises in "hiring" a candidate for a party. You don't see Target deciding who should be hired by Walmart, do you? You don't see the Yankees deciding which players should be signed by the Red Sox.

[Nanjeanne]

5. 70% Dem and 51% R support M4A, 61% Americans support legalizing marijuana,

62% of Americans support debt free college

Tell me how Gillum is “far left”. Sounds like he is smack center and it’s the media who are far off.

[Hortensis]

8. "and it's the media who are far off." Spot on!

Oh, Gillum won't be mistaken for centrist for sure, but that shouldn't enable spinning his win right off the left cliff. Which they're doing.

Virtually every headline I've seen is spinning this as about Sanders, rather than the candidate and issues. The race for governor has already started, and this does NOT help our new Democratic candidate for governor of Florida. Nor is most of it intended to, I'm sure.

[Garrett78]

21. See post #14. The media lives for making false equivalencies.

[Garrett78]

14. I started a thread a while back asking what constitutes "far left."

I don't recall getting a decent answer with specifics. If the media and GOP had their way, everyone would view arming toddlers as equivalent to demanding universal health care.

[ismnotwasm]

19. Jesus Fucking Christ

Andrew Gillum is considered “far left” in Tampa?

[Initech]

25. I can imagine the meeting is going to be like this:

[rurallib]

26. Far left? I heard Gillum the other day and his platform sounds like what a majority

of America wants. Sounds mainstream to me.

I also heard De Santis and I would describe him as radical or racist right.

[Blue_true]

27. Geez, I was having a calm wind down Friday after a stressful week.

When I read a dark Gotham city struggles ode to angry screwed up republicans. Plus, the democrat was called far left. Wow!!!!! I live in Florida, should I go around posting "Give up hope all Ye who enter" signs over the entrance of every Gillum campaign office? Or should I just blow off the OP as being over the top.