Jacksonville -– Florida has learned to wear its new responsibilities lightly. The other 49 states may be encouraged to stage rallies, drag parades down Main Street, befoul the air with campaign spots, and simulate the tension of last-minute GOTV drives, but when it comes to really deciding elections, Florida is prepared to do the heavy lifting. Over the last four presidential cycles, it’s been Clinton, Bush, Bush, and Obama, with Florida voters serving in each case as proxies for the rest of the country. The old saw should thus be retrofitted: As goes Florida, so goes the nation.
Well then, how goes Florida these days? Just as it was elsewhere, Florida in 2010 was an annus mirabilis for Republicans. Almost everything that could go right went right.Last year was different — much different.
It was only 15 months ago that the GOP elected a new governor, Rick Scott, a wealthy businessman bristling with resolve as a no-nonsense reformer. Florida sent to the U.S. Senate the estimable Marco Rubio, who glows with national possibility as a demographic game-changer. Republicans also elected a firecracker of an attorney general named Pam Bondi, picked up four new congressional seats, and retained large majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. The state GOP then installed as chairman David Bitner, a driven executive with a charter to crank up the party following the decay — or, as some would say, corruption — of his predecessor-but-one, Jim Greer. Finally, to make a great year insanely great, Florida was awarded two additional congressional seats following the 2010 census, both of them likely to be planted in Republican-friendly soil. To be a Florida Republican in 2010 ’twas perfect heav’n.
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That was then. The problems began to pile up quickly in 2011. The trouble started with Governor Scott. He proved to be everything his tidal wave of campaign ads had said he was. Upright, smart, principled. But those ads, to nobody’s real surprise, were less than comprehensively informative.
Scott’s predecessor, the legendary Charlie Crist, had left large, well-disguised holes in the budget, and the new governor was soon presented with shortfalls that the press described inevitably but accurately as “yawning.” (Depending on your perspective, Crist was either legendarily wily or legendarily duplicitous.) Scott sized up the situation quickly and charged into the fray, CEO-style. He made crisp decisions and issued crisper directives, an approach drawn from the standard business-school manual. That approach might have worked back at his hospital company, where managers were trained to bark “Yes, sir” when informed of C-suite decisions. But Scott was in politics now, which the good old boys in Tallahassee liked to think of as a team sport (though many of them acted like pouty wide receivers not getting enough touches).
In the early weeks of his tenure, Scott would issue a bold pronouncement each day, and the legislative barons would gaze around the room and roll their eyes. Virtually none of them had supported Scott in the GOP primary, and they weren’t about to stir themselves to his defense now that he was slaughtering sacred cows worshipped by their constituents. Those constituents, who had voted offhandedly for the newcomer Scott in a lesser-of-two-evils election, then began to pick up on the disconnect between Scott and his heavily Republican legislature. The voters seemed to understand both the basic terms of the fiscal crisis and the operational corollary that the making of omelets involves necessarily the breaking of eggs. What turned them against Scott was the impression that the governor seemed to enjoy smashing the eggs a lot more than he enjoyed fluffing the omelets. As the opinion hardened that he was a bloodless, numbers-driven, front-office type, Scott’s public support began to erode, and his approval ratings slid steadily before settling in the 30s, where they remain. Pollsters recently deemed him America’s least popular governor, a distinction of sorts.
The next setback for the GOP occurred, implausibly, in Jacksonville. After three strong Republicans carved each other up in a fratricidal frenzy last spring, a nimble Democrat, Alvin Brown, slipped through to victory in the race for mayor. The loss of Jacksonville’s city hall may sound like small potatoes to readers, but in Florida political terms, the mayor’s office is a strategic asset. Here’s a metric that will help you win bar bets: Jacksonville is not only the largest city in Florida, but is larger by population than Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Denver, and San Francisco. More pertinent to the current discussion, Jacksonville is the only reliably Republican big city in the country, now that Phoenix and Indianapolis have drifted into political androgyny. How “reliable” are we talking here? The McCain-Palin ticket, not generally remembered as an electoral juggernaut, rolled up almost 70 percent here against Obama-Biden. Or, to put the proposition in its immediate context: If you removed Jacksonville’s votes from the statewide totals in 2010, Rick Scott would have lost his race for governor. The point I’m making is that Jacksonville is a Republican bastion in state politics, and the Republicans just lost it.
Worse still, they didn’t lose the mayoralty race to just any old Democrat. A protégé of Bill Clinton, and a veteran of his administration, Alvin Brown is wise in the ways of D.C. politics. He is a bright, engaging African American with what appears to be a big future. Do you suppose, if he were to help Obama suppress GOP margins in Jacksonville this year, that Brown’s future in national politics might arrive just a little sooner and a little bigger? The mayor seems to think so, too.
"Virtually none of them had supported Scott in the GOP primary, and they weren’t about to stir themselves to his defense now that he was slaughtering sacred cows worshipped by their constituents."
Which is why we are $15 trillion in debt. Like Walter Williams has said, if any of the founding fathers came back to life today, he would be run out of town by voters who prefer that politicians give them their neighbor's money. This republic is going down just like all of the rest in history.
As a fellow Jacksonvillian, I'm pretty shocked at Alvin Brown. It is surprising that Corrine Brown is still speaking to him (if she is). He's cut the budget, brought the public sector unions in line and could be to the right of Mitt Romney.
However, the rest of this missive is right on. The establishment R's here suffer from the arrogance disease. You can't get more "establishment" than Thrasher and both of the Wileses. They'd cut Marco Rubio's throat with a plastic knife it they could.
The R's had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with no one out and have grounded into a double play on the first pitch, and now the pitcher is at the plate. It ain't over, but better start fishing your car keys out of your pocket.
Really, why because Rubio was Florida speaker of the house? Clearly he is not party of that establishment. What a joke.
The problem with the Republican party in Florida - and elsewhere - is that the people are so easy to sucker into believing that the candidates are not just establishment hacks come to twist the government to fill their pockets. Too many people are looking for a messiah - you won't find him in politics.
Every Winter hundreds of thousands or Northerners Winter in sunny Florida. This ultimately gives the Leftists an advantage in our Winter election process. The left needs little help in getting leftists elected in the Northern States so they go to the Southern States and vote for leftist candidates...
Finally what seems like a truthful observation of a state in disarray for conservative politics. Then again who in the right mind thought that the gov elect had any experience in consensus building with his own party.
He only became a governor becasue of the anti incumbent sentiment and people voted for him fully well realizing his business paid the then largest amount of civil penalty for defrauding the medicare system. Lest any one forget!!!
The really rabid R business persons who become candidates tend to run for office with a dependable portion of every speech railing against government as an institution.
They tend to get out the blowtorch when dealing rhetorically with the state of governance wherever they are running, apparently oblivious to the fact that if they win they will be rookies within a powerful system that they have just spent months trashing, and next to no time learning how to manage. It is no wonder that businessmen hate politicians and politicians hate businessmen. Neither one can understand the other's realm of activity and they are usually linked only by money.
Governing is difficult, tedious work that takes pros to do well, just like every other modern endeavor. Budgets are brain wracking exercises and the balancing act of making government work to provide basic services (forget pork or waste, how about cops, schools, and roads) is intellectually demanding.
Observe any state legislature and observe the folks who can manage process well and get things done. Whatever their political party they usually have a capacity for negotiation, compromise, and timing that rookies like Scott do not have.
For 2012 the drill is not to elect ideologues from either the D's or the R's. We need some number crunchin' technocrats who can manage the huge workout that we are in the midst of and still keep the wheels on basic social services.
This is actually why we should make Government much smaller and less important. Rather than attempt to "think" for all of the various and sundry actors in our market economy, Government should be restricted to perhaps 10% what it currently perceives as its mission. Centralized Government simply does not have sufficient information to do what it's attempting and never will.
Whatever the core group left after you boil down a bloated civil service sector, whether state or federal, still needs to be a core of trained and experienced pros who know their stuff. Governance is still an exacting endeavor and not for dilletante amateurs, regardless of the size of an agency. Government service should be a meritocracy instead of the sloppy waste we have now.
The article overplays the negatives on Rick Scott. He had alot of them last year, but the hyperbole has gone down. If he is polling just as bad now it is certainly with less fervor.
The opinions expressed in regards to Charlie Crist were too even handed. I know people of all political stripes and nobody has anything good to say about Charlie Crist.
In regards to Marco Rubio and the credit card thing. That came up during his Senate election. He charged a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff for gifts for his staff. It was later repaid by him personally.
Other politicians don't like this Scott guy and he slashes stuff?
Outstanding!
Why doesn't HE run for president?
I don't people to "get along" and "forge relationships" or "work together" or "reach across the aisle." In this age of greater respect for the wisdom of other cultures, I would prefer to replace the complacency (and corruption) of the American RINO with the more direct style of Genghis Khan.
I don't want to find middle ground, I crush the opponents and salt their fields.
Well then by all means kick Rick Scott out of office and elect another slick talking reprobate who will tell the people what they want to hear! I mean God forbid the man actually does his job rather than finding the nearest camera to show off his new orange glow.
This is a great and informative article; thank you. I knew something was going sour in Florida since conservatives' great 2010 victory there; but I had no idea what.
Sadly, this is what happens all too often (see also Illinois, New York State), when self-serving Establishment hacks control the party apparatus instead of grass-roots activists. It's a very worrisome trend.
Some of the western states used to be great models for effective grass-roots conservative victories, New Mexico was that way when I went to grad school there. In Arizona, they used to have tremendous battles between the more moderate 'Goldwater faction,' and the hard-right 'Mecham faction.' Sometimes one side would win, sometimes the other, but that would not stop the GOP from winning in the fall.
True democracy by its nature is untidy; that is the way it's supposed to be. For what it is worth, I am much more likely to vote for Nominee Romney (if that actually happens) after a hard, fair fight that goes to many states (and perhaps the convention), than I am if the whole process is once again pre-empted by the media and the the GOP Establishment after 3 or 4 states.
It surprises me Mr Freeman missed a very important fact. The RPOF is currently led by a fine young man and leader in Lenny Curry. As a Duval GOP grassroots activist, I have been very impressed with his leadership and I have no doubt he will lead the state to a great Republican victory in 2012. Past problems aside, Curry is at the helm and that bodes well for the GOP in the Sunshine state.
Lenny Curry was the captain of the GOP ship in Jacksonville when a Democrat was elected mayor. Standard operating procedure for the GOP, you find an incompatant and promote him to the highest level.
I'm not sure there's anybody down here that'll take Jim Greer's word over Sen. Rubio's but that may not be enough to preclude some local prosecutor from blowing their own horn to benefit themselves or to play some slimeball politics. It happens nationally (Fitzpatrick's pursuit of the leaker whose name he already knew comes to mind) and it happens here in Florida (take a look at the failed prosecutor of Casey Anthony's pathetic attempts to keep his name in the media). One may take the measure of Charlie Crist and find him lacking but I'd bet the average DA (I mean that in BOTH of the typical acronyms) will think twice about accusing Marco Rubio on the basis of anything other than some solid evidence. It's one thing to sling mud in an electoral campaign but an altogether different thing to make criminal charges stick.
Regarding Gov. Scott, many think he's going through his "Gov. Walker" phase where the imagined disasters we face imminently are expected to give way to better approval ratings once that danged sky doesn't actually fall on us and the result of fiscal sanity become obvious.
Sen. Nelson's a species of reptile known as the Eastern Diamond Back Mealy Mouth; with a combover that conceals the knob on the back of its head to stretch the skin across his face so tight the venom leaks out of every pore. Sadly, this snake can slither into any House of Congress despite the best efforts of so many to erradicate his kind.
In the meantime, however, I think I'll drop in on Planet Gore to lift my spirits because I'm not convinced that there aren't already enough dead people and illegal aliens who've already filled out enough Florida ballots for our current President to carry our state. We're not Chicago, where there's a "way" named for us or anything, but our Democrats are enthusiastic about their kool-ade.
While I agree with some of Mr. Freeman's assessment, especially the entire tone that Republican's can't count on Florida, I really can't believe how wrong he got his assessment of Jacksonville. Yes, Jacksonville has been a Republican bastion for quite some time, but trends over the past two election cycles have showed drastic changes in partisan performance.
Mr. Freeman's statistic that McCain-Palin "rolled up almost 70%" is flat wrong. In 2008 Obama/Biden got 49% of the vote in Duval (Jax) and lost by less than 8K votes. That represented a 16pt swing from four years earlier. In addition, there are about 30K more Democrats registered than Republicans.
Democrats poor performance in this region hasn't been a lack of Democratically leaning voters, it's been a lack of investment and infrastructure - which is changing as evident by Mayor Brown's recent victory. With most major metropolitan areas in Florida having already started solidly performing for Dems (think Orlando and Tampa), Jacksonville is likely to be the last, most important battleground in the state.
