| The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is definitely trying to preempt the will of the voters in the State of Florida. Ignoring past election results and polls, the DCCC Chair, Rahm Emanuel, is trying to force conservative candidates - several in the nature of "pale imitation Republicans" -- on Congressional districts around the state. Are these "Trojan Horse" ("Trojan House"?) tactics on the part of Republican "wannnabe's"?
The currently best-known instance is the Florida 13th. Congressman Emanuel is pushing Christine Jennings, a retired President of a small bank with a high school education, over Jan Schneider, the Democratic nominee who ran better than any Democrat in decades in the district. Congressman Emanuel has given $2,000 to Jennings and has also persuaded House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senator John Kerry to donate (although Kerry insists he was told that this was "a targeted race with no primary") and Senator Barbara Boxer to host a fundraiser for Jennings.
Schneider won the 2004 Democratic primary over Jennings by a margin of approximately 25%, spending less than one-third of what Jennings spent. |
| While Jennings was a registered Republican her entire time in Manatee County (having taken eight years even to register to vote), she did change her registration to Democrat on moving to Sarasota nine years ago; the bankers' PAC she headed, however, reportedly gave only to Republican candidates. Schneider, on the other hand, is a life-long Democrat, a Yale-educated lawyer (Clinton classmate) with a Ph.D in political science from Yale, who twice won 45% of the vote against Katherine Harris in a district with 52% Republicans to 32% Democrats; the 2004 Harris/Schneider contest was the closest Congressional race in Florida. How particularly ironic for a Congressman from Illinois to try to preempt the will of the voters in the district represented by Katherine Harris!
Another egregious example is the Florida 16th, where Emanuel recruited a wealthy Republican to change parties and run against two progressive Democrats. After Emanuel selected Tim Mahoney, a Republican venture capitalist reportedly willing to self-finance, Democrats Carol McLean and David Lutrin were reportedly asked to get out of the race to avoid a primary.
You already know about Phyllis Busansky in the Florida 9th, for whom Emanuel appeared at a fundraiser and to whom he donated $5,000. While Busansky, a former Hillsborough County Commissioner, is a great candidate, she is also 68 years old. Further, such blatant favoritism from afar in anointing one Democrat, in spreading rancor, may well kill any chance she may have of winning the general. There were already three candidates in the primary: Greg Rublee of Oldsmar, a former Defense Department official; Fred Taylor of New Port Richey, a real estate broker and veterans affairs activist; and Tampa lawyer Bill Mitchell.
The case of Ron Klein, Minority Leader of the Florida Senate, running for the Florida 22nd is also well known. Although there is a Democratic primary with two other candidates, John Glassie and Robert Watson, among other things, Emanuel gave him $2,000. The story is much the same with Charlie Stuart in the Florida 8th, to whom Emanuel also gave $2,000 despite a primary. There are also strong rumors that the DCCC is favoring Kathy Castor in the Florida 11th, whose primary opponents include Florida Senate Minority Leader Les Miller, as well as Scot Farrell, Albert Fox and Michael Steinberg. Similar rumors relate to John Russell in the 5th, against primary opponents Richard Penberthy and H. David Werder, but so far all that is known is that Russell was sent for candidate training.
The bottom line is that the DCCC is trying to buy off every single Democratic Congressional primary in Florida. Apart from angering good candidates and their supporters, this whole strategy is counterproductive. Florida has a very late primary, this election cycle on September 5, 2006. Typically, if there is a Republican primary and no Democratic counterpart to capture the attention of the media and the voters, there is simply not enough time to mount a viable campaign before early voting starts in mid-October.
Around the country, of course, there are quite a number of other cases where the DCCC seeks to preempt democratic processes. The most famous, at least on the blogs, is Emanuel recruiting a candidate to run against Christine Cegelis, who won 45% of the vote against Congressman Henry Hyde in 2004.
To help her fight the DCCC, please click here:
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/Friends+of+Jan+Schneider+(FL-13)
Thank you for reading this far.
Bullwinkle
To learn more about Jan Schneider, visit www.VoteJan.com.
Please also see: http://fl-13.blogspot.com/ |
