Florida 2018 Gubernatorial

[Donerail]

I'll be voting for Gillum. Morgan's an anti-vaxxer and Graham is another instance of the FDP trying to squeeze votes out of north FL that just don't exist.

[Donerail]

Doesn't Morgan have multiple DUIs?

Yeah, but it's not really something that can be weaponized against him—they're a while ago, and led to a feel-good story of rehab and getting his life back on track. It's far enough back, and he recovered well enough, that I doubt it'll be a major drag on him.

[Donerail]

Graham is a Democrat In Name Only.
Dems wont be able to retake any majorities if they keep putting out crap centrist Dems like Graham. She wont win. That's not what the people, especially new/young Dems want.

Graham is a centrist Democrat, not real DINO (in fact - there are no single DINO even in whole Florida legislature anymore since about year 2000). She is much to the left of any possible republican candidate like Putnam. And "what new/young Dems want" is NOT what most of Florida citizens want - the state as a whole is much less liberal then that political group.

Yeah. I don't understand the whole "crap Democrat that socialist Democrats want" meme. It's not like she's as antithetical to their interests as the other candidates are, and besides Morgan (who I feel would implide), she's the best shot at winning a gubernatorial race for once. And she's young enough that she could be a Senator come 2024 or 2022 if little Marco's sweating profusely.

I'd vote for Graham if she became the nominee but there is little to suggest that the bolded portion of this post is true, and that's a major part of why I'm not supporting her in the primary.

[Donerail]

I'll be voting for Gillum. Morgan's an anti-vaxxer and Graham is another instance of the FDP trying to squeeze votes out of north FL that just don't exist.

Ask state Senator Montford or (still existing) a lot of locally elected local Democrats (visit Liberty county and talk with Democratic officeholders there if you can)))) about these votes. But i suppose that it's because of "bold progressism" of people like you there are less such people in north FL then 20-25 years ago. North Florida was the most Democratic part of the state for many years, but it never was "ultraprogressive". And mst of Florida people are not "ultraprogressive" now too.

Montford is elected and re-elected on the strength of "bold progressives" (specifically, university students and government employees) in Leon and African-American voters in the rural counties, not any appeal to blue dogs. As for Liberty County, folks there are perfectly willing to vote for local Democrats, but under no circumstances will they vote for a Democrat at any level above that. Buddy MacKay, Bill McBride, Jim Davis, and Alex Sink all tried to win those voters, and none of them became governor.

Blaming their failures on "bold progressivism" is odd—I know it's your schtick, but Florida Democrats simply haven't nominated anyone you could remotely consider "ultraprogressive." Our last Senate candidate was a Romney donor who switched his registration in 2012, while our most recent gubernatorial nominee was literally the former Republican governor. Florida Democrats have nominated "moderates" in virtually every election for the past two decades, and the FDP has won one statewide election in the last twenty years (and that candidate won in a heavily Democratic year and later blew a winnable gubernatorial race and a winnable Congressional election, so that was useless). There is no empirical evidence to back up the idea that the FDP can do better by running more moderate candidates, and as for running more liberal ones, well, I can't imagine they'll have a less successful track record.

Because she's the kind of candidate that can actually replicate Bill Nelson's usual strong showing in North Florida, and really anything north of I-4. Morgan might, but he seems too boldly progressive to have the same success with these voters, even if he's as crass as Trump. And she's well known in the Miami area given that's where her dad made a name for himself as a local entity.

Bill Nelson has been blessed with the opportunity of facing two of the weakest candidates the RPOF has ever nominated. Katherine Harris ran an utter mess of a campaign, while yeah, some folks in north Florida aren't gonna be particularly enthusiastic about voting for Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV. Adam Putnam is neither of those people, and there's no reason to believe he'll perform as poorly among those voters as those Senate candidates did. As for her name recognition in Miami, her dad hasn't been on the ballot in this century.

Only really in Leon, Jefferson and obviously Gadsden, but all the rest are pretty white. And Montford kinda shows that Democrats of Bill Nelson's and Gwen Graham's type can run extremely well up there. He outperformed Clinton by 30 net points, and won all but like two counties in the district. Many of the counties he won voted like 75%+ for Trump!

Wrong. Madison is 40% black, Hamilton 35%, Jackson 30%, Taylor and Liberty around 20%. The district itself is 31% black. As for his performance, Montford demonstrated how well Democrats can do when an incumbent drops a quarter-million on a some dude who raised $12k. If the FDP figures out a way to outraise the RPOF 33:1, I bet they'd do a lot better in North Florida too.

But then again, I guess that nominating Graham would be a waste of time on votes like those/snark. While I agree that they should focus more on maxing out/gaining new voters in places like Duval, Miami-Dade, Seminole, Orange, Hillsborough and Osceola, winning more of those Demosaurs in North Florida makes winning the state overall a helluva lot easier. Just look at Nelson's 2012 map.

No, it really doesn't. A 20% swing in north Florida is cancelled out by a 2% swing in the Miami metro. The FDP needs to invest its time in improving its performance in places like Volusia, St. Lucie, Pasco, Pinellas, Marion, Sarasota, and Brevard, not waste money and time going after voters that aren't coming back.

[Donerail]

Interesting. I heard a lot of people calling Montford himself a Blue Dog, and while he is slightly more liberal then a typical Blue Dog i imagine, he is still THE most moderate Democratic member of state Legislature i am aware of. And he won not ONLY Black and student vote in Leon and Gadsden, but a LOT of substantially more conservative white vote (for example - in the above mentioned Liberty (68% last time), Calhoun (almost 64%) and even Wakula (52%) and  Franklin (51%))

Montford himself is, yes, though the most conservative Democrat in the State Senate is probably Darryl Rouson. His performance was not a result of any particular appeal, just that he actually ran a functioning campaign and his Republican opponent did not contest the election.

[Donerail]

Morgan has too much baggage, Rs could run ads with drunk driving victims against him and paint him as an alcoholic. He also seems like he could be gaffe prone. And how rich is Chris King, he could be a dark horse.

There's not really a successful angle to attack Morgan on his DUIs. He had a DUI in '97, he stopped drinking for four years, and he successfully overcame that problem. What more can you ask him to do? "My opponent had a problem and successfully recovered from it" is not a line that gets people to vote for Adam Putnam. He is prone to speaking with little concern for consequences, but lord knows if that's "baggage" anymore.

As for Chris King, nah. He announced his candidacy for Governor on a Thursday night with no press conference, no video, and no social media. He didn't even have a website until a week after. He doesn't really seem to have a campaign operation, he has no name recognition, and while King is rich, if some of the people who are thinking about running actually do run (Greene, Morgan, Levine) he'd be the fourth richest person in the field, which means he wouldn't even have a money advantage—and without that, he's got nothing.

[Donerail]

^ Absolutely unwilling. Until you show me a "progressive" winning statewide in Florida after Claude Pepper.

Can you show me a "moderate" not named Bill Nelson winning statewide in Florida after 1994? The Florida Democratic Party has done what you wanted us to do. We've nominated moderates for statewide office in virtually every election—maybe the only candidate who doesn't fit that mold is Gelber for Attorney General in 2010. The rest of the time we've nominated a lot of moderates for every office in every cycle, and we've have failed to win anything. Why should we keep nominating moderate candidates when twenty years of doing so has won us nothing? Maybe there's not an example of a progressive candidate winning statewide, but if you want to talk facts, the evidence shows that moderates lose every time.

[Donerail]

Given Florida's death rate (higher than most as a result of the population's age) and in-migration rates (again, higher than almost any other state) there are precious few voters who remember Bob Graham. That Gwen "won a Republican district in a Republican year against a Republican incumbent" is impressive—but she's also only won one election in her life. Don't get me wrong, I think she would be miles better than Morgan, but I don't think she can bank on her name.

[Donerail]

Graham strikes me as another overhyped Patrick Murphy or Alex Sink... I could be wrong, of course, but I still think Morgan is the one the GOP should be afraid of.

Morgan would be a terrible governor as a result of his being mentally unhinged (I would consider voting for the GOP if he were the nominee). The GOP should fear his money, not his candidacy. The GOP should fear... idk, Graham I guess, though she is much closer to Sink than Murphy in her weaknesses (and strengths).

[Donerail]

Could someone give me a breakdown of the differences between Graham and Morgan? A lot of people are throwing a lot of labels around in this race and I'm curious to know the ideological differences between the two. I'm tempted to support Graham just because of her Blue Dog affiliation and her being from North Florida.

There are few meaningful ideological differences. Graham is the latest incarnation of the same formula the FDP has been relying on to win elections for the past twenty years: get a centrist-y candidate who can "appeal to North Florida" and just hope and pray that enough folks up there will vote your way. Historically, this has failed. Some people believe that because Graham is a Graham (her father Bob was the last non-Bill Nelson Democrat to do that with any consistency) she will be able to pull it off. I very much doubt that this is true, but that's the logic.

Morgan is less conventional. He has universal name recognition and the ability to bankroll his own campaign, two traits very attractive to the FDP. He's more of a "populist," I guess, if that's really a meaningful distinction (most of the Dem establishment is behind Graham). He would also be a genuinely terrible governor in a way that Graham would not, but maybe he's the alteration on the existing formula Dems need to win.

[Donerail]

On the impacts of Graham's name, since it just occurred to me: the past three "legacy candidates" were LeRoy Collins Jr., Bud Chiles, and Connie Mack IV, and none of them won their races (or really even came close). Only Mack has the political experience Graham does, but it's something worth noticing.

[Donerail]

On the impacts of Graham's name, since it just occurred to me: the past three "legacy candidates" were LeRoy Collins Jr., Bud Chiles, and Connie Mack IV, and none of them won their races (or really even came close). Only Mack has the political experience Graham does, but it's something worth noticing.

To be fair, not only was Mack the only one with the sort of experience Graham had, but even Mack was a pretty awful candidate.  Say what you will about Gwen Graham (and she's not some sort of perfect candidate or anything like that), but I think she's far stronger than Connie Mack and unlike him, she's actually won a very competitive race in a huge wave year for the other party.  Admittedly, Steve Southerland was a weak incumbent with a tendency to say really stupid things about women IIRC and Graham has only won one house race, but even so, I do think she's at least somewhat battle-tested in a way that Mack never was by virtue of his district.

Yeah definitely, not meant to be a brilliant piece of political insight. Just something I realized while bored on the CTA this morning.

I agree with your analysis of Graham's weaknesses, but I think you're overestimating Morgan—I think his implosion is almost a certainty, and though Putnam would probably be favored against Graham, the odds of Morgan imploding are so great that she would still be more likely to win.

[Donerail]

I agree with your analysis of Graham's weaknesses, but I think you're overestimating Morgan—I think his implosion is almost a certainty, and though Putnam would probably be favored against Graham, the odds of Morgan imploding are so great that she would still be more likely to win.

Why is Morgan's implosion a certainty in your opinion? I don't see it.

Hearsay from friends who've been interviewed for staff positions.

[Donerail]

I agree with your analysis of Graham's weaknesses, but I think you're overestimating Morgan—I think his implosion is almost a certainty, and though Putnam would probably be favored against Graham, the odds of Morgan imploding are so great that she would still be more likely to win.

Why is Morgan's implosion a certainty in your opinion? I don't see it.

Hearsay from friends who've been interviewed for staff positions.

Interesting. I've been out of the loop, I wasn't entirely convinced he'd run at all. That's good news (even if he implodes).

So what exactly makes you think that, without spilling any beans? Is he erratic or something like Jeff Greene?

Kinda erratic in the sense that Trump was erratic - just occasionally saying stuff that gives you the gut feeling that, were he to win, he may not be all that great at doing the job. The anti-vax comments to Politico are probably the best recent example of it from Morgan.

On a related note, the guy I know wasn't interested in the job after meeting Morgan, but mentioned that Morgan will probably be able to assemble the best team possible. Got flown in for the interview on a private jet and everything.