Dem Power Brokers kept many "liberals" out of FL races. Bvar22 is right about "beat downs".
I was just reading his post about how the Left HAS taken many "Beat Downs" from the Party Power Brokers.
He tells about how the party leaders, the WH and the election committees, stepped in and interfered in state primaries.
They have done so much of that in Florida. These are only instances that I know of personally, and most of them are from the early to mid 2000s. We were very active politically here at that time, and it was painful to see.
Here's what the DCCC under Rahm did in FL's 16th district with the help of then state party chairwoman, Karen Thurman.
Mahoney vs Lutrin....what was done in FL 16th by Rahm and Thurman.
Remember Tim Mahoney? He had an affair and lost miserably. He had replaced a strong union supporter and liberal school teacher, David Lutrin. Dave was forced out of the face by Rahm and Karen Thurman. On purpose. Deliberately.
David Lutrin, a school teacher, union activist and staunch supporter of immediate withdrawal from Iraq, decided to run against Foley before Mahoney entered the race. After Mahoney declared his candidacy, Lutrin was contacted by field organizers for the DCCC who asked him to drop out and let Mahoney run unopposed.
Lutrin said that he also met personally with Mahoney. During a three- hour breakfast meeting, Mahoney offered Lutrin a higher-paying job if he agreed to drop out of the primary. "Mahoney tried to get me to run in a different district. He offered me a job at one of his non-profit organizations where he said that I would make more than I was making as a teacher. He said I could campaign full time while working at his non-profit as long as I agreed to drop out of the race," Lutrin said. Lutrin declined the job offer.
According to Lutrin, when he refused to step aside, the DCCC shored up local political support for Mahoney. The local AFL-CIO chapter, of which Lutrin was a member, came out with an early endorsement of Mahoney's campaign. According to Lutrin, the union told him that "they would like to back a fellow union brother, but Mahoney has more money and more political support from the party." Lutrin eventually dropped out of the race when the local teachers' union decided to support Mahoney.
Screwed by your own union. No doubt they had pressure or promises or both from Rahm and Karen.
Earlier on there was Jan Schneider. I know of this one from personal experience.
More on the tale of what the DCCC is doing in Florida's 13th District.
Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB via PR Web Direct) March 16, 2006 -- In 2004, Jan Schneider ran the closest Congressional race in the State of Florida -- and she did it against incumbent Congresswoman Katherine Harris! Some prominent friends, relatives and associates in Las Vegas, Nevada -- including local Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-Las Vegas), foundation chair Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar (mother of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar), prominent physician and philanthropist Dr. Parvin Modaber Jacobs and actor and artist Tony Curtis -- are helping Schneider win the open seat Harris is vacating to run against Florida Senator Bill Nelson. They are throwing a fundraiser at the luxurious Grand Salon, Park Towers, One Hughes Center Drive in Las Vegas tomorrow, March 17, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has also previously contributed to the Schneider campaign.
Who Is Jan Schneider?
In 2004, to repeat, Schneider ran the closest Congressional race in the state of Florida. She held incumbent Congresswoman and former Florida Secretary of State Harris to a margin of 55% to 45%. Despite the heavily Republican registration in the Florida 13th Congressional District (roughly 50% Republican to 30% Democratic to 20% other), as a political unknown, Schneider managed to capture the hearts and minds of large portions of the local electorate. An independent-minded person who is appalled by the extreme partisanship affecting both political parties in Washington these days, Schneider is committed to putting the interests of the country and her constituents first.
A straight-shooting Yale-educated lawyer with a Ph.D. in political science from Yale. Schneider has three decades of experience as a practicing lawyer, educator and author. She also has a 30-year history of fighting for public interest causes, particularly in the areas of environmental protection, women’s rights, the arts and public housing. Among other things, Schneider is the author of two books and dozens of articles on environmental protection, and she currently provides pro bono legal services to residents of Sarasota public housing projects. For further information, consult her website at www.VoteJan.com .
Her primary opponent, Christine Jennings, came into the race with the support of the DCCC...which led to Barbara Boxer's support, and so on.
About Christine Jennings
"SARASOTA COUNTY -- In just over an hour on Tuesday morning, Democrat Christine Jennings raised more than $100,000 in political contributions in her bid to win a seat in Congress.
While $100,000 in a day is not abnormal for Republican fund-raisers in Sarasota County, it's a surprising one-day haul for a Democrat. In 2004, Jennings raised $264,000 during her entire campaign. Boxer said she wouldn't have made time for the fund-raiser if she didn't think Jennings could win. She said she checked with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee before agreeing to do the fund-raiser with Jennings.
"What did it for me was the fact that the DCCC said she can win," Boxer said.
Boxer isn't the first big name national Democrat to support Jennings. Political action committees for former presidential candidate John Kerry, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and DCCC Chairman Rahm Emmanuel have all contributed to Jennings campaign
Screwed by the DCCC. This one was personal for us.
I get almost 20 emails a day from progressives running in campaigns this time. Probably it is a result of still belonging to the DFA, run by Jim Dean. It is definitely a result of our surfeit of donations during the years of the Dean campaign.
When I think of what the Power Brokers of the party have done in Florida...just the stuff I know about on a personal level, I find myself being very cautious with my donations. Why? Because I remember how those Power Brokers played a role along with the media in the end of the Dean Campaign. And I can't forget.
The battle and its early beginnings
Liberal Oasis on Howard Dean and the DLC
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/00...
SNIP.."May 16, 2003 PERMALINK
The "Smear Dean" Campaign Is On
(posted May 16 2:15 AM ET)
(minor edit May 16 12:45 PM ET)
The DLC memo is titled "The Real Soul of the Democratic Party."
But it should be "Kneecapping Howard Dean."
However, it is so ludicrously ham-handed, Dean trumpeted it himself on his campaign web site. (A smart rapid response that bodes well for the future.)
If the memo was a principled argument over what the party should stand for, that would be fine. You can have honorable disagreements within one's party.
But the memo is nothing but a string of half-truths and contradictions designed to ward off insiders from backing Dean, while at the same time undermine Dean's support from the Left....."
My late hubby and I both thought, as did all the others in our campaign group here....indys, Republicans, Democrats....that what we were doing would make a difference. We thought our enthusiasm would bring change. It didn't, and the disillusionment has been hard to shake.
= new reply since forum marked as read
in NC after we Dean (and many Kucinich) Activists worked hard to start a Progressive movement to re-energize our Democratic Party.
We were doing great and worked hard for Kerry (although he wasn't our preferred) and worked harder after he lost. Obama won NC in 2008 and right after election it seemed the funding from Dem Party and the activists his campaign had on the ground just stopped. Part was the demise of ACORN...but the rest seemed deliberate. The candidates our Dem Party selected to run were Dino insiders and in 2010 we lost both our House and Senate and NC was Republican in both houses for the first time in 200 years.... The RW Republicans/Alec and Koch Brothers and our local RW Corporatist Art Pope took over and turned the state into their playground with a newly elected Republican Governor who was supposed to be Moderate but turned out being run by the above mentioned Conservative idealogues.
Gerrymandering meant that my district only had a Republican to vote for because our Progressive Dem was redistricted out...(just as Kucinich was in Ohio) so a strong voice for Wall Street reform was lost and we were left with the Repug. Now for our Mid-Terms we have Republican seats uncontested because with the gerrymandering we can't find a Dem who can run against the money of the entrenched Republican. Uncontested seats because the gerrymandering was so severe the districts are designed to have such a high percentage of conservative voters that even a DINO couldn't have a chance.
We are working hard with law suits and foundation help (ACLU/Common Cause, Southern Poverty Law Center) to try to get overturn what the Republicans have done. But, in one lawsuit that Eric Holder could have helped us on he said he "..didn't have enough information to proceed with the Voter ID/Early Voting Restrictions and so couldn't go forward until 2015...which is after the Mid-Terms! 
Betcha they're sorry now. 
and did not support our Dem candidates..she showed true colors.
Yes, they make it happen that progressives don't have chances.
Thank you.
In many cases, too many of them.
It makes a lot of sense. I never thought of it that way before, but you are right about their being unrepresentative.
A threat to the power structure.
Thank You, madfloridian.
And people wonder HOW that Democratic Party became more conservative than Eisenhower Republicans. The American People didn't Move to the Right,
but the owners of the Political parties sure did.
You will know them by their WORKS.
Yes, they certainly are that now.
From 2009:
Maxine Waters: Rahm To Blame For Obstructionist Blue Dogs
Waters said many of the self-proclaimed conservative Democrats, including those who have stalled legislation on the House Energy and Commerce, were initially recruited to run for office by Rahm Emanuel back when he was head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
"The chickens have come home to roost," declared the California Democrat. "On the one hand, (the Blue Dogs) don't want to spend money but, on the other hand, they want to spend money when they think it benefits them or their districts, and so they have a powerful bloc. They're holding it up and that is as clear as can be."
In terms of a possible remedy, Waters noted that the White House's bargaining chips were limited, in part because Emanuel had given these members the green light to buck the party on select issues.
"Don't forget," she said, "Rahm) recruited most of them, as when he was over in the Congress in the leadership. Rahm Emanuel recruited more conservative members and based on some of the information I'm getting, they told them that they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things."
