ObamOcala Tue Apr 05, 2011 Original Article
( The following is brought to you by another Florida resident who gets to watch the state get turned into shit by Rick Scott and his Florida Taliban cartel. This could happen to you if you let your states residents continue to stay in the “ low information voter “ class of people. )
I am becoming increasingly disturbed - strike that, downright angry - at the number of people here at Daily Kos who learned nothing from the "enthusiasm gap"-related disaster we suffered in 2010, when "principled" Democrats stayed home and allowed Republicans to win back the U.S. House of Representatives, and handed the keys to several state houses not just to Republicans, but Tea Party Republicans.
It was this comment which finally set me off and made me decide to write this diary. The pertinent part follows:
Obama lied his way into power and if I support him irregardless of his lies and his Repub-lite governance, then I have walked away from my principles. That isn't going to happen. If Obama governs like a progressive until the next election, I'll reconsider. Otherwise, I'm prepared to have batshit insane in the WH.
May[be] batshit insane is the only way the American people wake up.
My response to that comment was so angry I mispelled "principles" (I wrote "principals") - then mispelled it again (leaving out an "i") in a correction. I've calmed down a bit since, but if you want to know why this attitude angers, disgusts and frightens me, follow below the fold.
I was born in Ocala, Florida in 1960, and though I've lived in other parts of the state for a few years at a time, I'm now back in Ocala, living in the house I grew up in. I've seen a lot of changes here, few for the better. But I've never been as frightened for the future of my state as I am now. All because a bunch of "principled" progressives decided to stay home in November, 2010.
Okay, it wasn't all progressives. There were a lot of frustrated, disenchanted Democrats and Independents who stayed home nationwide, and a lot of motivated Tea Party voters who turned out. But the numbers are stark:
Population of Florida (2009 Estimate): 18,537,969 Registered Voters (2010 General Election): 11,217,384
(60.5% of Population)
Votes Cast in 2010 Gubernatorial Election: 5,359,735
(47.8% of Registered Voters, 28.9% of Population)
Votes Cast for Rick Scott: 2,619,335
(48.9% of Votes Cast, 23.4% of Registered Voters, 14.1% of Population)
Bottom line: Rick Scott was elected by less than 50% of those who voted in Florida in 2010, by less than 25% of all registered voters, and less than 15% of the total population of Florida.
Scott's margin of victory was a mere 61,550 votes out of more than 5 million cast.
And there is no doubt a lot of Democrats stayed home. I'm not laying the blame on the Daily Kos community - support for Alex Sink was strong here, and on those occasions when an anti-Sink diary or comment was posted, the writer got smacked down.
But there was anti-Sink sentiment expressed, most centering around her stint as an executive with Bank of America in Florida and what at least one Kossack saw as her dismissive attitude towards the black community. And again, there's no question a lot of Democrats stayed home in Florida last November, giving Rick Scott just enough of a margin - a bit over 1% of votes cast - to win the election.
The result is a developing nightmare for Floridians. The right-wingers had already taken over the legislature before Rick Scott was elected, but had been held in check by the moderate stances of our previous Republican governor, Charlie Crist. Now. with a criminal corporatist hack in the executive branch, all their Tea Party fetishes are coming to pass:
• They're working on wholesale de-regulation of numerous business sectors in Florida, including auto mechanics and moving companies, just to name two... auto mechanics, for example, will no longer have to give customers a written estimate, contact customers for permission to perform extra work or turn over the replaced parts to customers. Moving companies will no longer be forbidden from raising their rates in the middle of a move, or holding your possessions hostage until you pay.
• They're preparing to dismantle the Department of Community Affairs, the angency which coordinated growth management in our state. Builders will no longer be restrained from destroying wetlands, and local communities will not be allowed to pass growth management, anti-pollution or environmental protection laws which are tougher than the state's (and the at the state level, those laws are being eviscerated).
• As Rachel Maddow reported last night, there are no fewer than 18 anti-abortion laws proceeding through the legislature.
• As in Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine and New Jersey, anti-union measures are moving through the legislature, including one which would end the practice of public workers having union dues deducted directly from their paychecks, requiring the union to collect those dues directly from the members.
• A bill removing teacher tenure and evaluating teachers solely on the basis of standardized test results has already passed the legislature and been signed by Scott. Plans are also in the works to expand the state's voucher program to funnel more taxpayer dollars away from public schools and towards private religious and for-profit charter schools.
• The legislature has already established "Leadership Funds," essentially legalized bribery, in which corporate special interests will be able to donate cash directly to legislative leaders, who will be able to disburse those funds to individual campaigns as they see fit.
• Rick Scott claimed a mandate after receiving less than 50% of the vote. Yet he's stalling implementation of two "fair districts" constitutional amendments which would take re-districting out of the hands of the governor and legislature and make it more non-partisan. Those amendments were both approved by well over 60% of those voting in 2010.
• A move is on to pack the courts with political appointees. Currently, a judicial nominating commission chooses nominees for the Supreme Court and state courts. Under the new plan, the JNC would be disbanded, and the governor would have sole authority to nominate state judges and Supreme Court justices. Further, the current seven-member Supreme Court would be split into two five-member courts, one overseeing civil cases and the other overseeing criminal cases. This would give Scott three immediate Supreme Court picks, meaning he could pack both courts - especially the criminal one - with judges sympathetic to views and willing to look the other way when faced with his looting of the state treasury for his own private gain.
Many of these actions tear at the very fabric of democracy itself. Florida already had a severe problem with voting districts so badly gerrymandered that a large majority of our legislature - mostly Republican - had no challengers in their races, and thus never had to face voters. Several of the policies documented above will make that situation even worse. The voters have little enough say as it is. In four years, it's likely that Florida voters - especially those in traditionally Democratic constituency groups such as women, the LGBT community, blacks, hispanics, union members, college students and the poor will have no say. Florida is well and truly screwed.
And the above is by no means a complete list of the horrors about to be visited upon my state by our so-called "leaders."
There are many diaries and comments being posted claiming Obama is no better than Republicans. To be sure, Obama has been a disappointment to progressives who were hoping for significant, transformative change. Many fantasize about primarying Obama, or believe that, as one diarist wrote in a diary published overnight:
If Obama loses, so be it. Maybe the American people need to suffer at the hands of the Corporate Republican hatchet-men to wake up and put an end to the corrupt corporate-funded two-party system we now have.
That might well be what was going through the minds of more than 61,550 Florida voters last November. Now Florida is suffering, and is about to suffer much more, at the hands of the Corporate Republican hatchet-men. Yeah, we woke up: a recent PPP poll showed that if we had it to do over, Florida voters would elect Alex Sink by a 62-37% margin. But we don't get to do it over, and by the time 2014 rolls around, much of Florida's environmentally-sensitive land will be destroyed, many more Floridians will be unemployed or underemployed, many more Floridians will be out on the street, and yes, some Floridians will actually die as a direct result of Tea Party-approved Republican policies. All because just 62,000 Floridians - less than one-half of one percent of our population - decided Alex Sink was no different than Rick Scott.
I've droned on long enough. Perhaps in another diary I'll have space to document, despite all the ways Obama has disappointed us, that his administration has been better for the country than a McCain/Palin administration and a Republican Congress would have been (for now, just four words: Justices Kagan and Sotomayor).
The bottom line is, we've got to wake up. We can't allow our disappointment in Obama to lull us into allowing a truly dangerous strain of conservative philosophy to gain any more traction than it already has.
The choice is Obama or a Tea Party Republican. There is no other alternative. Neither Alan Grayson or Dennis Kucinich or any other progressive Democrat, nor any Green Party or Socialist Party candidate, is going to be the knight in shining armor on a white horse who will save us from another lackluster four years of Obama. Obama or the Tea Party - it's a crappy choice, but it's the only choice we've got. And we'd better get it right.
Because if you honsetly believe it can't get any worse, you need to talk to someone in Florida, or Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Ohio, or New Jersey, or Maine. It can get worse. If Republicans hold the House, regain the Senate and re-take the White House, it will get much, much worse. You will feel "buyer's remorse" almost instantly. But you will not be able to do anything about it. And in four years, you may no longer have the right to do anything about it.
No, I'm not crazy about Obama. But I'm in. Because there's no other choice.
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