Florida Democrats supported the early primary as early as March 2006

[madfloridian]

Time to hang it up with all the lawsuits and pretense. Time to be honest indeed. Both Rubio and the Democratic spokesperson agreed Florida Democrats were on board as early as March 2006.

There should be no more pretending they were caught off guard. No more lawsuits like Nelson's pretending it is a racial issue. It should just stop. It was all apparently planned.

Florida's Primary Problem

Nobody realized it, but the storm began gathering in late March 2006. New Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican, visited Washington-based Florida reporters and touted a plan to boost Florida's influence in picking presidential nominees by moving the primary earlier than March.

"With all due respect to New Hampshire and Iowa, nowhere are you going to be on a national stage like Florida," Rubio said at the time. "You're going to get questions about Israel, Latin America, immigration. It's the old South, it's Latin, it's Midwestern, it's rural and urban."

Rubio already had Democrats on board.

"Florida Democrats are all for it," Mark Bubriski, spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party, said at the time.

Nobody sued McAuliffe when he threatened Michigan.

"Expletives were flying. The head of the Democratic National Committee was having it out with Sen. Carl Levin because Michigan wanted to crash the rarefied club of early presidential primary states.

Move your primary too early, Terry McAuliffe warned, and Michigan will lose half its delegates to the 2004 Democratic convention.

"The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television," McAuliffe vowed. "I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules."

Could it be no one sued Terry because Carl Levin and Terry McAuliffe made a deal about primaries in 2004.

[madfloridian]

1. And as soon as the vote to move it was taken...they started threatening Dean

and the DNC, even though they had been on board from March 2006 at least.

I can not tell you how it angers me. I believe this was almost the first post I made on the subject. How dare they do this.

Enough of this. Florida Democrats now threaten Dean and the DNC with a "voting rights probe".

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1453

[flyarm]

2. this was always about busting the progressives and Dean..i have posted along with you madfloridian..

how the DLC fucked our candidates ..our great dem candidates in the Nov 2006 election in Fla..it was the Rahm show all the way and the DLC..it was a set up to get Fla for Hillary..

i feel like we have been "ROVED" by our own party.

fly

[madfloridian]

4. The worst part to me is the way hubby and I have been hurt here...

by people we trusted and to whom we thought truth mattered. They are caught up in the "me first" feeling with no thought to what really happened.

[flyarm]

9. it will come back on them..just saw it happen to a lady in may area..

she put up all kinds of money for the dlc ppl..and karen thurman thinking she would be put into a high ranking spot and she just got fooked..royally...this lady did luncheon for karen and did all the Hillary stuff..while screwing the great dems in the area..and now she just got it up the backside..

some need to get screwed royally by these folks before they "get it"..

but it will come back on all of them..just not on our timetable..be patient..i know that is hard to do..this is going to backfire..this whole DLC scheme...and the whole Hillary scheme..in FLA..they have fucked too many of the great dem worker bee's..they will find themselves with warehouses of stuff and no one to work..or knock on doors..or give a rats ass!!

fly

[madfloridian]

12. And they coordinated with the GOP here since March 2006..

far earlier than I ever thought.

[mitchtv]

3. Everyone in California

is going to hold their breath until we have the first primary, and when we all start jumping up and down, watch out!

Think of it this way, CA will suck up every campaign dollar they have, and we'll have defacto campaign spending limits on the rest!

[madfloridian]

5. My anger is because Florida lied and made their own party and chairman a target...

of propaganda. It was all planned from the getgo. They worked with the Republicans to get the bill through, and then they blamed it on the DNC. They threatened Dean with lawsuits from the start.

I know no one at DU really cares anymore, but they should. It will hurt the 50 state plan by taking funds away for the lawsuits, and because the state DEC chairs said to withhold money.

One of Dean's earlier warnings was in Dec. 2006:

"If they move it into January, their delegates won't count in the Democratic convention, so I wouldn't advise that," Howard Dean had warned in the St. Petersburg Times in December 2006"

The SC Dem chair put it quite well:

"South Carolina's Fowler, like other veteran Democratic politicos across the country, acknowledges the controversy could help Republicans win Florida's 27 electoral votes in the general election.

But rules are rules.

"I'm sorry to be the one to say," she said, "Florida is not the center of the universe."

We are not, she is right.

[AZ Criminal JD]

32. If it is a choice between California and Iowa

California would be just fine with me.

[slick8790]

6. Acting like spoiled brats...

I'm certainly no fan of the disproportionate influence Iowa and NH have on the cycle. But Florida, you voted for the rules, now deal with it. This whole "me first" bullshit this cycle from every state is getting on my nerves.

[mitchtv]

7. You said it slick

enough already. spoiled f'n babies. I favor regional roatating primaries

[madfloridian]

8. Acting like brats and suing the party.

We all know the primary needs to change. In fact they did add two more diverse states this year but small enough to make lesser candidates able to campaign.

They lied, they flat out lied. They worked with the GOP here, and then said the DNC stole their votes.

[flyarm]

10. its not the dems in fla it is the dlc powers who have taken over fla!!

in my county we had a wonderful dem candidate who was unopposed..Rahm and his DLC honchos came in and got someone to run against her,..and who would that have been ..well it just happened to be a repig who changed his party affiliation 6 weeks before the primary..and ran a primary against this wonderful dem lady

and who got the FDP money for the campaign? why the guy who changed his voting registration 6 weeks before the primary.. and ran against this dem lady...

all sponsored and run by the DLC and Rahm..

what Rahm has planned is to screw Howard Dean..and all Fl progressives..and ram rod Hillary to the forefront in Fl...

it was planned and has been executed.

fly

[madfloridian]

11. That would be this guy whom Karen and Rahm went to visit

when he was a Republican, and a good Democrat was pushed out of the race. He was actually offered help to run against someone in another district.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/904

[slick8790]

13. Then why did only one Dem in the state legislature vote against moving the primary up?

Sorry, they're as much to blame as the republicans in the legislature.

[madfloridian]

I think you two are saying the same thing.

fly is speaking of the mindset here that allowed our state party to coordinate with the GOP for over a year. And then blame the DNC and Dean.

It is a very centrist mindset in the party here among the leaders. Many of the people in the party like me see it, but we don't have the power yet to do anything.

[flyarm]

16. why we are being shut up...in fact..just like they shut us up about the voting machines for so long.

and we are losing great dems daily in FLA..

fly

[Dr.Phool]

21. Centrist? I could think of a few better words to describe them.

Just curious. Is anyone going to the state Dem convention?

I was a delegate the last few times, but didn't even bother filing this time around. I'm not even planning on being anywhere near Orlando that week-end. They have a really lousy list of speakers this year.

Hillary should go back to being a repuke. Nelson should join her. And Thurman should just go away. This state party should be torn down to the ground, and rebuilt from scratch.

[flyarm]

22. Thank you Dr Phool..and you can verify what mad floridian and i have been saying..

we have no dem party in Fla..it has been infiltraited by repukes,..and the DLC has recruited those repukes..

and this was planned and executed by the DLC to favor Hillary..and i believe it is going to backfire..i keep getting emails from peolle all over Fla..who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

So if we don't have the repukes stealing elections in FLA we have the DLC doing it now.

Well i will not be silenced.

nor will the great dems we have who have had it with the powers that think they be..



fly..2004 elected Dem Delegate fla.

[Dr.Phool]

25. I just got off the phone with a guy I've worked a few campaigns with.

We were talking about the sad state of affairs at our DEC. Nobody is allowed to voice any criticism of Karen Thurman. Repukes are invited to speak at events. DEC members have donated money to repukes, and supported them in elections.

One guy who ran for county office in 2004 and lost, switched to Republican. They wouldn't support him for the same office next year, so 3 weeks ago he switched back to Dem, and they're going to support him again. Another guy won a non-partisan seat on City Council, and my friend tried to recruit him to join the Dems. He refused, and later tried to get appointed as a repuke to an open statehouse seat. He didn't get it, now, all of a sudden he's a Democrat and wants support for another Statehouse seat.

Infiltrated? Infested is more like it. And they wonder why they can't win any elections around here.

[flyarm]

27. yes you are right ..infested is more like it..i have lived in many states

and worked in 9nstates dem parties..and i have never seen anything like it is in Fla..we need to remove Karen Thurman..and we need to take the party back..and we need to start by educating people how the DLC..not the DNC is destroying our party in Fla!!

we need to kick the damn outsiders out..and ban Rahm from ever coming into our state again!

thanks for all you do Dr Phool!!

fly

[flyarm]

15. oh absolutely!!..but look who is running our party now ..and looky looky

she has gotten $35,000.00 smackers from a rethug lobbyist..all while on the dem payroll!!

fly

[rucky]

14. We need a BCS Bowl for the Primaries.

and public financing.

[madfloridian]

18. I give up..what's BCS bowl.

:hi:

[rucky]

20. College Football National Championship

Some Floridian you are.

[madfloridian]

24. Ha Ha

Well, my family are all very good Gators, but I just watch the games and cheer them on.

[madfloridian]

17. A little more.

A little more:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/07/State/Florida_faces_a_prima.shtml

"As Rubio was selling his early primary, the DNC commission was inviting state parties to apply to hold one of the early caucuses or primaries. Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina alone were given permission to choose their nominee before Feb. 5. Florida Democrats didn't apply."

"Jim Roosevelt, co-chairman of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, said he spent hours on the phone with members of Congress and other Florida Democrats, including Thurman. But none of the options suggested by the national party were acceptable to Florida Democrats.

"There was a point where realism was called for and it didn't prevail," said Roosevelt. "You've got to accept reality that the rules will stay in place, and that you've got to come up with a plan that works."

And forgotten in all this is the $880,000 offer from the DNC to help Florida defray expenses. No other state had such an offer.

[Coexist]

19. can you send this as a LTTE to every major Florida newspaper?

it really pisses me off that people have no idea that it is not Dean's fault.

[madfloridian]

23. It was planned as an attack on the strategy for the 50 states.

That is my opinion. Florida admittedly doesn't like it, as it takes atteniion away from them. They are mostly DLC here anyway, and just plain don't like DFA, Dean, or anyone associated with him.

[Dr.Phool]

26. Playing with the DLC gets you campaign cash.

Look at this list of contributors for this lard-ass in a statehouse race last year. It includes over $20,000 from the FDP. He got trounced in the general election. They didn't have any money for a lot of candidates, but they found a lot for this guy. Last name is kinda familiar.

He's Karen Thurman's son.


http://election.dos.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/TreFin.exe

[madfloridian]

28. Could you fix the link? Who was the guy who interviewed Thurman?

He ran for office here...his name just escapes me right now yet we met him before. Just drawing a blank. He mentioned those donations in the interview.

[Dr.Phool]

30. That was John Russell who did the interview.

The link doesn't cut and paste very well.

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/cand/CanList.asp

Under general election, bring up 2006 General, scroll down to State Rep. 22, click on Mackey Thurman and from there you can view his campaign finance reports.

[flyarm]

29. last yr before election..at a DEC meeting..money from the FDP for candidates was brought up

someone from FDP was there to explain how money would be doled out to candidates..and it was stated that whatever candidates brought in the most money would get the most help..

well i stood up and said that was not fair to candidates who were in poor precincts..i used where i lived as an expample..i said the beach property is $$$ realestate and peopke could afford to give more..

well our dec chair tried to be smarmy with me by saying..yes we know you live in a weatlhy area..blah blah..well it was not about that..it was about equality..how could a candidate who represents a poor area compete???????

well that asshole thought she was makeing me look like a fool..by being smarmy ..but it backfired on her..because people were offended by her comments..i was standing tall with candidates who were trying to represent the poorer districts..the DLC came in and killed the candidates from smaller less affluent areas in my county..and it was a disgrace..

i was about to quit the DEC because of it..and then decided..f that..i will stay and help run these bastards out..

now i just found out this same person was just royally screwed by karen and her junta..

ahhh what goes around somehow has a way of coming around ..now doesn't it????

fly

[Dr.Phool]

31. Karen will be at a fundraiser for the Pasco DEC this week.

Along with Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. All the usual DLC suspects. I'm not going. I'd be in handcuffs halfway through the evening.