Next week, one of the recent exciting story lines for Florida Democrats (and, truth be told, national Democrats) will culminate when St. Petersburg voters go to the polls and choose their next mayor. If polling is to be believed, challenger Rick Kriseman holds an edge over incumbent Bill Foster. A Kriseman win would be, on the heels of the Amanda Murphy upset in Pasco County, another disappointment for Florida Republicans.
We should not lose the signal importance of a Kriseman win in St. Petersburg to the noise of the imminent Charlie Crist candidacy for governor — to be announced the day before the election — or the new candidacy of Alex Sink, seeking a U.S. House seat here in District 13.
While the Crist and Sink campaigns have assuredly taken notes from the campaign for St. Petersburg mayor, it is Florida Democrats who might do well to pay attention.
For Florida Democrats — and, disclosure: I am one, proudly — are at a crossroads of historic proportions.
Florida Democrats are hungry for a win. As hungry, as eager as I’ve ever seen a group of people who care about politics. It is understandable. There hasn’t been a Democratic governor since Buddy McKay, 1998 — fifteen years. Republicans have controlled the legislature even longer, even enjoying super-majority power more recently.
With some shining exceptions — Senator Bob Graham in the U.S. Senate until 2005, Senator Bill Nelson currently, progressive Congressman Alan Grayson, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz leading Democrats nationally, and others — Democrats in Florida have been in the wilderness.
The first hints we were moving towards progressive political change in Florida came in 2008, when Obama took the state in the national election. But that was the difference: Obama was a national candidate with an unprecedented organizing machine.
He also had a winning message.
And this is where I would offer counsel to my Democratic friends, neighbors, and colleagues: message matters. Yes, as Democratic consultant Steve Schale, who lead the charge in Florida for Obama in ’08, said in a blog post about the Amanda Murphy win, “candidates matter.”
I don’t think there is anyone out there who could reasonably say that either Alex Sink or Charlie Crist are “weak” candidates. They both have state-wide fundraising networks, and will assuredly tap into those quite effectively. They have both run for state-wide office before. They both know what it means to be a candidate — a good candidate.
Steve didn’t say this, but I would hope he might agree: message matters, too.
I thought the first “Pink Slip Rick” bumper sticker I ever saw was funny.
But that cannot be the whole of the candidacy of Charlie Crist for Governor. Charlie needs to run for something. So does Alex.
By nature of campaigning, you are running against someone, but that’s not your message. In an ideal world, that message comes from your party. Yet I fear the party has yet to articulate a clear, bright message for the future on which to run. Yes, the Crist and Sink campaigns need to develop their own messages, but those messages should be grounded in the foundation of what the state-wide party stands for. It is incredibly early in the Sink campaign, so maybe she can be given a pass — for now. And Charlie hasn’t even technically announced yet, so we’ll give him a pass, too.
But Florida Democrats had a chance to talk about this at their conference last week. What did they come up with?
According to their “About” page, “Florida Democrats stand for Florida values.” I confess I do not know what that means.
To be fair to the Florida Democrats, you can find the platform under the “We Believe” link — but here’s your PDF warning in advance. I’m not sure three pages of PDF get us where we want to be. To be more fair, the Florida GOP website is equally unhelpful — but that’s the point: this is the first time in a long time Florida Democrats have a chance to gain political advantage, to make real public policy gains for our state.
We need to, because there are two candidates getting an awful lot of attention right now. You might call them the Democratic standard-bearers. They are Alex Sink, who ran for governor slamming the Affordable Care Act every chance she got, and Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor.
Where do Democrats want to go? Who do we want to be? We need to take control, get in the driver’s seat and help Charlie and Alex steer. Believe it or not, I actually suspect they’re looking for that kind of guidance. If they want to be successful, they will. Because they’re good candidates, they will want to run on a message that works.
What is that message?
And if the Florida Democratic Party can’t provide that guidance, maybe they should come to St. Petersburg and talk to the new mayor about how it’s done.
