It's all over Florida, and at the same time it's already over in Florida. Headline in Central Florida's largest paper this morning:
Candidates Vow to Avoid Florida Over Early Vote.
Congratulations DNC! Taking all the delegates from us is one thing, but now you have sought a pledge from all major candidates to not campaign here. Spare me the lectures on enforcing the rules. This goes beyond enforcing rules to a pathological, psychotic need to punish a major swing state and disenfranchise millions of needed voters on election day.
And the GOP is LOVING it....
What makes this REALLY bad: the DNC is allowing the presidential candidates to raise money here, so they can hold a rally to fundraise, but the DNC has decreed that only a certain small number can attend. If too many people show up, it becomes a political rally and the candidates will be punished.
So we are good enough for your money, but not to hear the candidates speak.
Question: ARE YOU GUYS F----- RETARDED???
DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS IS PLAYING OUT DOWN HERE??
Grass-roots organizers in this state are furious. And those people you want money from that could help our candidates, like heavyweight check writer Wayne Hogan, are not giving money this time.
Bob Poe, former state-party chairman, has said he's talked with many former donors who don't think it's right to suck up money here and not even campaign.
Karen Thurman, our state chair, put it best. The pledge is "a pact to ignore tens of millions of diverse Americans by a selfish, four-state alliance of party insiders".
Florida, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio, are the major swing states that will play a pivotal role in the next election. We NEED Democrats motivated to get out there and fight--especially if our candidate is going to be someone with high negatives like Hillary.
We need independents, fed-up republicans, and a great turn-out of Democrats.
What you have is a GOP state chair that is absolutely gloating over his fortunate turn of events. You see, the heavily-GOP dominated Florida state legislature bucked the national GOP as well. (And I'll say it AGAIN, they are not going to move the date to help out the DEMOCRATS!!)
However, the GOP has seen the internal strife, the outrage among tens of millions of Floridians, and headlines; so they are not stupid enough to follow the DNC lead. They get to focus on the candidates and the issues in a VERY important state. They figured the goal here should be to actual WIN the election.
I hope you guys succeed in PA and OHIO, and I hope you can stop the CA Initiative to divide the votes. THAT is the only way we can win now, because you can effectively count Florida out.