Yes, people have put Florida in the voting hall of shame for the long voting lines and even longer wait to count said votes from Tuesday's election. It's a dreadful situation, one that will have to change before 2014 midterm elections -- when Gov. Skeletor is on the ballot for re-election.
However, this tidbit should make those of us in Miami-Dade who worked on the ground smile, pump our fists and dance in the streets.
In a race won by razor-thin margins, nowhere mattered more than Miami-Dade, where Obama managed to increase his eye-popping 140,000-vote victory margin in 2008 to an uprecedented 204,000-vote margin this year. Miami-Dade by itself essentially delivered Florida to Obama.
Did you read that detail? Let me repreat:
In a race won by razor-thin margins, nowhere mattered more than Miami-Dade, where Obama managed to increase his eye-popping 140,000-vote victory margin in 2008 to an uprecedented 204,000-vote margin this year. Miami-Dade by itself essentially delivered Florida to Obama.
YES!!!!!!
This is especially sweet for me. I was downsized from my job and went to grad school, something that I wanted to do. I also became a fellow with OFA in Summer 2011, at a time when few people down here were talking about the presidential election. There were a handful of us trudging through databases, calling, knocking on doors to re-acquaint people with the campaign. People were into their own thing and were totally not focused on any election.
Yet we persisted. By Summer 2012, things were much different. Staff and volunteers from other states were on the ground and interest was high. But few third party groups were doing voter registration because of the onerous law from Rick Scott and the tea party legislators that reduced the early voting days and levied heavy fines for the simplest of errors or for not returning registration forms within 48 hours. That law single handedly allowed the GOP to close the registration gap that Democrats traditionally held.
A judge set aside that part of the law late summer, so a few more groups resumed registrations. I worked with another group to help register more people. We worked off our butts to get up our numbers. So to see this 204,000 vote margin is brings me to tears.
I kept saying we were working hard in South Florida to put the Sunshine State back in President Obama's column. It didn't happen on Election Day, but dammit, it happened.
Sooooooooooooooooo happy!! GoooooooooObama! Miami-Dade, take a bow. We earned this!