FL-Gov: Scott sees uptick in approvals, still trails Crist though

[greenforest32]

Why is our bench in Florida so weak that we have to resort to an ex-Republican to beat a crook?

A very long story beginning back when Florida was part of the Solid South and would never have Republicans in it, ever, or so they said, when the Democrats could spend their time focused on petty infighting within their party (it doesn't really matter, there won't be any Republicans or anything, right?) and not pay attention to outside forces, such as the very competent Republicans and their methodical and formidable political engines. Democratic infighting meant that no bench of new leaders was there, so when the Republicans took control of the Cabinet offices and the governor's mansion, there was no bench for the Democrats to take them back. 1992 Redistricting (when Republicans teamed up with minority Democrats to draw more majority-minority districts to pack Dems) sealed Democrats as the minority party, currently so irrelevant that we have no statewide office holders and control maybe 30% of each legislative chamber, and redistricting hasn't helped. Long-term demographics look good (we've got a 500,000 person registration edge already), and Democrats do well for the US Senate, but outside that, Florida Democrats are nobodies. That GOP redistricting means that the FL Dems are also now overwhelmingly made up of South Florida liberals, rather than Central/North Florida centrists who can win statewide elections. 2010 was what really killed us: Sink, Aronberg, Gelber, Heller, Long, Fitzgerald; those guys were our best hopes, and they all lost. Our entire bench is mayors (Dyer, Seiler, Iorio, Brown), South Florida liberals (Ring, Rich, Gelber, Seiler), and a few people who've lost gubernatorial races before (Sink, Smith). Charlie Crist and Bob Graham are really the only two competent candidates (there are some more on a local level (Rick Kriseman, Ken Welch) but they're more local politicians with no statewide appeal). Right now, it's an awful cycle: Democrats are a minority who can't get their message out, so special interests don't give to them and operatives don't work for them, so they lose even more. We aren't even gaining ground against a GOP that stopped fluoride. Florida Dems are pathetic, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

What about felony disenfranchisement? How would things change if it was done away with/dealt with in Florida?

http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/fd_State_Level_Estimates_of_Felon_Disen_2010.pdf

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