tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799451770086337664.post3445828715462451812..comments2024-03-26T14:01:36.240-05:00Comments on Public Policy Polling: Florida Miscellany...Tom Jensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545052616714485196noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799451770086337664.post-90937798058531899902011-07-10T17:37:47.548-05:002011-07-10T17:37:47.548-05:00Florida's political climate is ACTUALLY consid...Florida's political climate is ACTUALLY considerably more diverse than one might think, and its changing demographics are complicating things by the month.<br /><br />Over the past few election cycles, Republicans have dominated the state's legislature primarily through default - the Dems simply haven't been able to consistently field candidates that had enough sheer intelligence, public speaking ability and ability to articulate anything that even remotely looked like they had a "vision" for the state.<br /><br />But there are more "positive" things currently going on in Florida than this article describes.<br /><br />Many of the Florida's Republican legislators are actually centrists, some are even slightly to the "left" at least on social issues. And many if not most of the Rep. legislators aren't afraid to vote against many of Scott's more extremist proposals. Furthermore, in spite of the recession, more and more younger people - especially from northern states, Canada and Europe - continue to relocate to Florida, bringing their socio-economic, educational and political perspectives with them and raising their families in Florida *with* those perspectives. Even the old Florida "southern drawl" is becoming harder and harder to find; younger Florida "natives" born in FL have very little if any such accent.<br /><br />Regarding Florida's governorship, the only reasons why Rick Scott won the election were a) a lot of people actually *wanted* to believe - in spite of his having been the CEO of the single most corrupt for-profit healthcare company in US history - that he actually KNEW how to "create more jobs" in Florida (which he doesn't) simply because he's wealthy and had a VERY consistent PR "message" that didn't require anything from the public beyond a short memory and attention span; and b) there were too many independent/unaffiliated candidates on the ballot who siphoned off votes from Democrat Alex Sink (who ALSO didn't have exactly the "cleanest" past). Consequently, Scott won by only slightly over 1% more votes than Sink received.<br /><br />At the federal level, independent Christ lost to Republican extremist Rubio only because the Democratic candidate - who never had even a remote chance of winning right from the start - REFUSED to drop out of the election and thus siphoned off too many votes from Christ.<br /><br />But on gay rights issues, the situation probably has more to do with ethnic cultural forces than Democratic vs Republican politics. Florida has VERY large Hispanic and Latino populations, and a growing black/African-American population as well. In Florida - as in certain other parts of the country - those populations tend to have *very* strong anti-gay biases. But as homogeneity among and between those populations - along with whites - continues to increase (and it is doing so DRAMATICALLY), coupled with the continuing influx of northerners, Canadians and Europeans, things should continue to improve in these regards over the coming yearsSteveHCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799451770086337664.post-18609853004513062722011-07-09T08:39:13.203-05:002011-07-09T08:39:13.203-05:00Florida has some very funky voter registration dis...Florida has some very funky voter registration distribution patterns.<br />Three counties Broward, Miami-Dade & Palm Beach have 106.5% of the Democratic registration advantage.This totals to over 606,000 more Ds than Rs.<br />The uneven distribution pattern make it more difficult for Dems in Legislative races and in many Congressional districts, yes, even huge margins can be gerrymandered quite well.<br />These facts being acknowleged, what is true in 2012 is, skilled candidates, with good messages, can win more seats in Florida during the post Amendments 5&6 (anti gerrymandering) era.<br />What is most critical is the size of Democratic turnout in the 3 counties holding the massive margins. Without intelligent professional grassroots pre-election management creating a GOTV structure based upon expanding the Absentee Ballot voter universe in all urban counties where the Dems reside 2012will be tougher than necessary.<br />The ultimate goal of the organizing is to create these Absentee voters and maintain the voters interest to recreate the same turnout margins in 2014 when Florida can eliminate the Republican chokehold on Florida's government. <br />This entire 21st century Florida has seen 1 party rule as Republicans have controlled since 1998.mike colemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02225966067536995910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799451770086337664.post-88614090236987572022011-07-06T18:46:24.378-05:002011-07-06T18:46:24.378-05:00Glad to see you liked my suggestion on sports team...Glad to see you liked my suggestion on sports teams! I'm shocked, <i>shocked</i> I say, to see that hockey isn't a sport near and dear to the hearts of a warm sunny southern state with a large elderly population. What <i>ever</i> could cause that, I wonder. ;-)NRHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12565160695480579309noreply@blogger.com