Farewell

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From the Blogs

The latest stories from the Florida blogs...

Rants of Rob: Back For Another Round?

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: REP. JOHN LUIGI MICA gets "worser" person in the world rating from Keith Olberman!

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: REP. JOHN LUIGI MICA Trash-talks "Critics" of Billion Dollar Boondoggle, With 100% Cost Overruns

Re/Creating Tampa: Big Government Mica

Re/Creating Tampa: Rep. Mica wants more

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: ORBITZ CEO Is Wrong About U.S. Rep. JOHN LUIGI MICA

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: Orbitz CEO's Propaganda Supporting Rep. JOHN LUIGII MICA Is A Figment of HIs Imagination -- See Quote in Context Below

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: ORBITZ CEO Propagandizes foi U.S. Rep. JOHN LUIGI MICA

Rants of Rob: Retire John Mica

Faye Armitage Supports the Public Option

Beaven Believes in Hospice Mission

US Congressional candidate Heather Beaven defended hospice providers today after her opponent, Congressman John Mica, referred to the caregivers as “death counselors” during a radio interview with WDBO radio talk show host Jim Turner in Orlando.

Beaven said she is appalled Mica would malign the work of those who bring peace to patients nearing the end of their lives and comfort to their families.

"Having both volunteered with Hospice and benefited from their devotion to dignity during the death of my grandmother, I'm stunned by Congressman Mica's outright deceit at the expense of a great organization,” Beaven said.

Mica, who is seeking his 10th term, referred to Hospice and similar organizations as “death counselors” and said Medicare reimbursements to such groups would create, “a whole new cottage industry.”

Beaven said Mica is trying to frighten the very people he was elected to serve and that his comments were misleading.

Some versions of the bill being debated in Congress provide funding for medical consultations about living wills and Hospice care, but none require it. Beaven said the issue is too important to reduce the debate to scare tactics.

“If he truly believes that his country is plotting to kill its elderly citizens then I would think he would be hosting town halls from one end of the district to the other warning us,” she said. "This is nothing more than an attempt to scoop up some of the health insurance lobbying money being tossed around right now for his own gain without regard to truth, honor or integrity.”

Seventh District Candidates' Forum

(originally posted on RantsOfRob.Com)

Tonight, in Daytona Beach, the three Democratic candidates for Congress in Florida's Seventh District spoke to a handful of Progressive Democrats. Well, two of them did.

Stephen Bacon entered the venue seemingly confused by the existence of other candidates for the nomination and it went downhill from there. Before the candidates were scheduled to speak, he was trying to speak over the PDA organizer who was running the meeting. He was asked to yield the floor and advised that he would have a chance to address the meeting along with the other candidates. Instead of ceding the point, he chose to argue. When the organizer's father confronted him for his rudeness, he chose to leave. "Bacon fried himself tonight," said Lisa Walker, Beaven's campaign manager.

First to speak was Heather Beaven, the Palm Coast education activist. She spoke for five minutes, covering her biography and making the case that her bio gave her a better grasp of the issues than the out-of-touch Washington crowd. She fielded questions about single-payer health care (she's for it) and tax policy (she has no litmus test for tax reform, but she's pro-unfunded-mandate reform and concerned that PAYGO could be abused by conservatives) She was coherent and concise.

Next to speak was Faye Armitage, the 2008 nominee for the Seventh District seat. Her message was more fragmented, blending a laundry list of policies with a half-formed argument that her background as an economist presented an alternative to the out-of-touch Washington crowd. (See a pattern?) Still, this was a clear improvement over her performances in the 2008 cycle, and her more Progressive issue positions were a better fit for the room than the somewhat more centrist Mrs. Beaven.

The room was well to the left of the majority of Primary voters, however, and the evening did nothing to reverse my impression that Beaven is the more likely choice to beat John Mica in 2010. She is Progressive enough to be a part of the Progressive Caucus on the hill, even if she doesn't march in lockstep with Kucinich Democrats like me.

Back For Another Round?

originally posted on rantsofrob.com

Faye Armitage, the 2008 Democratic US House nominee who raised $32,929 and suffered a twenty-four point defeat to Seventh District Congressman and all-around parasite John Mica, told me tonight that she is still “testing the waters” and that her decision would hinge on how successful her fund-raising efforts were. She did not choose to quantify her money test, nor to comment on the persistent rumors about her decision to drop out of the race.

No Democrat, however well-funded, has made a dent in John Mica since 1992, so Ms. Armitage is not to blame for the size of her defeat, but I fail to see what has changed since 2008 to change her fund-raising chances. John Mica will run a campaign specifically designed to deny an opponent the chance to confront him in public. He has the backing of the business community and of his Party and will point to the truckloads of pork he has shipped into the District. In the lower-turnout race likely to happen in 2010, there will be only a small number of votes on the table and DPI will be under 40%.

When the Florida Legislature redraws District boundaries for the 2012 cycle, Mica, if still in office, will have an opportunity to retire gracefully and hand a safe seat to another right-wing water-carrier for business interests. This is probably the best chance for a Democrat to poach the seat before 2016 or 2018. If Armitage can build a fund-raising and message team capable of closing the name-recognition, culture and ideological gaps that stand between her and the District’s swing voters, then I wish her well. But not yet seeing a difference in tactics between cycles, I’ll suspend judgment.

None of the Democrats that have run against Mica since 2002 have had any record of elected office, so they faced a name-recognition and credibility gap that made the already-difficult task of knocking off an incumbent almost impossible. We all want to see an insurgent, small-donor campaign beat a troglodyte like Mica, but a Party hack who’s paid her dues would have a real shot and not simply be fighting the good fight.

The one veteran politican to come anywhere this race was four-term former State Rep. Joyce Cusack, who rumor has it, had contemplated a run. I suspect that if the DCCC targets the seat for its Red-to-Blue project to flip poachable Republican seats, Cusack and other candidates would enter the race. Or maybe it would be the other way around.

There are, of course, three other Democrats running for the seat, two announced and filed and one testing the waters. But Peter Silva, Stephen Bacon and Heather Beaven are all political newcomers. Beaven seems most able to sell a compelling narrative, but even she could do everything right, get every available dollar, and still be defeated by low DPI, low turnout, the name recognition gap, a free-media drought, and good old-fashioned public apathy and ignorance. Meanwhile, of course, many local Republican State Legislators are going unopposed.

I’m continually amazed that anyone chooses to run in this kind of race, and I’ve been right there with a few insurgent candidates myself. I admire them, but I wish I could inject some of my hard-nosed perspective into their decision to run and for which office. I wish they could understand, as I do, that these races are less tests of ideology and character than numbers games.

Of course, if everybody were Party hacks, I wouldn’t be in the Party …

Retire John Mica

originally published on rantsofrob.com

John Mica, one of the most retrograde of the pay-to-play brigade, is running for reelection again. This is a man who believes that women should die rather than receiving abortions that could save their life. He pushed to get pork for his campaign contributors into the stimulus bill, then voted against it. He wants to cut taxes across the board and increase spending, as if we weren’t bleeding red ink catastrophically. He wants to increase the maximum allowable contribution to federal candidates in an age when working Americans can’t even get in the door to the legislative process. This oligarch is a living insult to the tens of millions of Americans struggling to survive in the wreckage of an economy rigged in favor of the special interests Mica loves so dearly.

Yet, inexplicably, in every one of the four campaigns I have worked on to defeat this man, multiple people have pulled me aside to explain in hushed tones, “you realize that Mica is unbeatable, right?” He is accorded magical properties. I’ve seen enough politics to know that it contains no magic. A strong candidate with a coherent and resonant message can beat this man. Barack Obama may have lost the district (by three points, a rain shower would have tipped it in his favor), but people are frightened now in a way in which most of them have never been scared before. The American way of life seems to be collapsing around our heads, and John Mica continues to whistle a happy tune.

The good news is that, unlike in 2004, Mica is not running unopposed. (Amended 6/29: Faye Armitage, the 2008 Democratic US House nominee who raised $32,929 and suffered a twenty-four point defeat to … Mica, told me tonight that she is still “testing the waters” and that her decision would hinge on how successful her fund-raising efforts were. She did not choose to quantify her money test, nor to comment on the persistent rumors about her decision to drop out of the race.)

Three declared and two filed candidates have come forward, all Democrats. Stephen Bacon, an accountant, originally filed as an Independent before amending his Statement of Candidacy to change his party affiliation to Democrat. His issue is education, an idiosyncratic choice for a Congresional candidate. He has done little or nothing to campaign. I breathe Seventh District Democratic politics, and I’ve never met the man. Not a good sign. (I met Stephen today at the Volusia County Women’s Democratic Club Picnic and he was not education-focused, instead offering a complex policy proposal involving accounting rules and a “For the People” tagline)

Peter Silva, a retail bank branch manager, is somewhat more promising. A former vice-chair of the St. Johns DEC, he has been knocking on doors in St. Johns County, trying to close off the home territory of Faye Armitage, 2008’s sacrificial lamb. He is intelligent and dedicated, but plodding, a poor quality for this race. He has yet to build a team, and his de facto campaign manager, formerly briefly of the Armitage campaign, lives in California. He is hesitant on personnel matters, which is a particular problem when viewed in light of the next candidate.

Set to file on July 1 and to announce on July 7, Heather Beaven is a non-profit CEO and Navy veteran who has made an interesting choice for her campaign manager.

(full disclosure: Beaven’s campaign manger is my girlfriend, but the candidate and I are not friendly at the moment, my having left her campaign.)

Lisa Walker is running the Beaven campaign after cutting her teeth on the grassroots Obama movement. In the course of that effort and her successful bid as an Obama delegate to the DNC last August, she built an extensive network of contacts throughout the district which she has plundered shamelessly for her candidate’s benefit. She has ransacked local schools, Stetson University in particular, for interns. Any candidate trying to build street teams is going to find the cupboard bare and a friendly note from Lisa. Fund-raising is going to be the rub as always, but this campaign will do better than the other two. If the campaign can build a coherent and appealing message, Beaven stands the best chance among the current candidates. She has an appealing personal story and an engaging retail style. She is energetic and dedicated.

The X factor is the body of persistent rumors concerning Joyce Cusack, the termed-out former 27th District State Rep. She would almost certainly win the nomination if she ran, but the demographics of the district do not favor her for the General. She seems more likely, absent an open seat, to run for State Senate.

I urge Progressives to support one of these candidates. Don’t send your money out of the district this cycle, folks. Mica needs to go down, and this our last crack before they re-Gerrymander the District.