In 2008, Illinois Senator Barack Obama won Colorado by 9.0%, Florida by 2.8%, and Indiana by 1.0%. Guess which one was the “swing state” in 2004.
The answer is Florida, and if that seems strange in light of the above – it is. In fairness, one might counter that Obama did relatively poorly in Florida (where he didn’t campaign in the primaries) and relatively well in Colorado (where the Democratic convention was held).
Here’s another question. Colorado, Florida, Indiana. Only one of these three sends a majority-Republican delegation to the House of Representatives. Which one is it? (A hint: it’s not Indiana.)
It turns out that Florida elects 15 Republican congressmen and 10 Democratic congressmen. Again, to be fair, one might note that Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature gerrymandered Florida’s congressional districts to achieve an unbalanced result. This is relatively easy – most Democrats live in tightly clustered South Florida.
But that’s just it: Florida’s state legislature is Republican-controlled. In fact, Republicans have 60%+ majorities in both chambers. Florida’s governor is Republican Charlie Crist. Florida was voted Democratic in only two of the last eight presidential elections. John Kerry’s campaign was shocked by the margin he lost by in Florida. Bill Clinton won Georgia, of all states, while losing Florida in1992.
To be fair, I’m picking and choosing my numbers. If you go back to the past nine presidential elections, you’ll find Democrats batting three for nine, not two for eight. And three of those eight elections were big Republican victories.
But there’s only so many times one can say “to be fair.” There’s only so many excuses one can make for yet another indication of Republican dominance in Florida.
Because the closer one inspects as Florida, the more it begins to look less like a swing state than a conservative state with an unusually big Democratic base – which the media happens to call a swing state.
In the next section, I’ll be analyzing why exactly this is so.
–Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…
the Democrats have won three of the last four elections in Florida. Al Gore won Florida, and had it stolen by Jeb Bush, Theresa LePore, and Diebold.
I can’t think of a single other state where the elected representatives are so divergent than the people of the state. This happened through careful manipulation and fraud by none other than King Jeb Bush.
The Republican coalition is composed white racists in the north, and country club Republicans in the central and south (not to mention the Cubans in Miami).
The Democrats have blacks, Jews, and non-Cuban latinos. And with the exception of the Jews, the Republican coalition is generally just better at turnout. The best example of this is what usually happens in Duval county: it’s where most of the vote suppression that made George W. Bush president happened, and even though it’s almost a third black, it almost always votes Republican. Obama was finally able to narrow the margin substantially there, but even with historic black turnout, the whites are so racist there that he still couldn’t win.
Obama in comparison to Kerry won in Flagler and Osceola counties and improved significantly in Orange and Polk. What’s the reasoning here? I’m suspecting higher minority growth plus creative class, younger than average, suburbanites liking Obama here like they did in NoVA, MD, etc. Is this it?
The FL Democratic party is simply not run very effectively. The party is often close to being broke (lately it’s been a little better), while the FL GOP is flush with cash. Although Obama had late starts in both Florida and Michigan, Michigan’s party infrastructure made recovery a lot easier. In Michigan Obama was able to rely on the Unions great voting list. Michigan has two of the nation’s 50 largest Universities, this group is especially tailored to online organization. Finally Michigan black population is among the most highly concentrated in the nation (when I was at U of M in the 90’s metro Detroit was the nation’s most segregated metro area). All these factors are not present in Florida.
Florida is not a big union state, so the states Democrats need better to develop their own BETTER voter list . Florida’s voters skew older, so online organizing is less effective.
As to FL blacks, Florida’s black population is more fragmented. There is a fragmented Miami area of different black ethnic groups (Haitian, Jamaican, and African-American). Then the southern African-Americans of Jacksonville. Many whites who instinctively “get” there are Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in NYC and Chicago, seem to glaze over this. It tends to frustrate effective ground games.
Now as to Latinos, Orlando as noted has a huge PR and also a Dominican population. Both groups tend to be quite “celebratory” towards a Black president. Sotomoyer’s nomination will be a big boon in central Florida (notice how few analysis noticed this?). This is Obama’s voter growth area.
Colorado and Virginia have great party organizations. Florida needs to totally rehash their party. They seem to be a gaggle of Blue Dogs, Minority, and white Liberals. Not a true party. Read up on how the DFA got all four wings of the Colorado party to think of themselves as a party not a coalition. Within 6 years of that famous meeting Democrats have dominated CO. Mark Warner got great leadership to run the VA Dems, witness their rise. The Florida GOP is so ruthlessly efficient I’m convinced they will outperform Dems by 1-3% (Nate Silver endorse this number when a great organization goes against “no” organization) until the Dems get their act together.
Sorry for the long forward but to fix FL Democrats need to:
1) Get the Miami area fundraising network to focus on state level party building (the blocking and tackling) not just the “sexy” candidate fundraising, which they do now.
2) Develop a better GOTV network, with an up to date voter list. Read on how Karl Rove learned to voter mine Republicans in Blue Areas by looking at their lifestyles and purchases.
3) Get some community organizers. Import then from NYC. To be honest not the young earnest do-gooders. But the streetwise ones who have worked in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. The type who can navigate south Florida’s ethnic stew pot.
4) Find a bunch of Mark Pryor clones for North Florida state level races. I mean evangelical social conservatives, who are economic populist. Stopping Florida’s obscene level of gerrymandering means first getting more annoying blue dogs elected. Only an operational majority can do this.
5) I would also be interested in seeing if the Obama Justice department comes out swinging against the racial packing of minorities. Look at the obscene gerrymandering of the Jacksonville VRA district. I have a funny feeling they will surprise some people by doing so… This would be a net plus for Democrats.