Florida's 10th congressional district is represented by C.W. "Bill" Young -- the Republican without the nerve or backbone to stand up when he saw disgraceful and disgusting conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. Party loyalty mattered more than whistle blowing and who was hurting but the very soldiers that Young claims to love so dearly.
I won't question Bill Young's troop support in the past. I will, however, question Democratic focus on challenging Young head on in a district that sits deeply purple and has a mixed political population.
FL-10 is St. Petersburg and a good swath of Suburban Pinellas County including the beaches, Palm Harbor, Dunedin and more. Bill Young has represented this seat for decades and challenges to him have been lackluster at best. While Young didn't get desperate support from the President (like Gus Bilirakis did in neighboring FL-09), he didn't really need it. In part because he is looked at as a local institution and in part because his challenger last cycle focused too broadly on dissatisfaction with George W. Bush and dropped the ball entirely in campaigning against Bill Young's record.
Samm Simpson is running again (presumably) for Florida's 10th district and I'm a bit upset going into this. I am not a FL-10 resident and not involved in her campaign but I can't help but voice my desperation that Simpson will focus on her opponent and not on literary allusions that blasts the president. Focus on the issues facing the local populous and not on the conspiracy theories behind 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq. Those two issues might win over the base in the district, but it alienates and ignores the concerns of the majority of the voters whose day to day lives do not revolve around such issues.
Simpson hurt her own credibility in April of this year by forwarding an email to supporters (and to the media, as well as to politicians including Bill Young and Florida state senator Bill Nelson) an April Fools day joke that suggested George W. Bush would run for a third term. This obvious joke story had a byline with a joke author and was posted broadly on spoof sites across the Internet. To send it out as fact sullied the view of Simpson as an intelligent, informed challenger to Young and turned her into a loony-left candidate who grasped at the improbable with fear and loathing of the current.
There is reason to fear and loath the current, but a political canidate grasping at straws to bank on dissatisfaction does not work in their favor.
Months ago, myself and Kos posted stories regarding the DCCC searching for additional candidates to field against Young in the 2008 election cycle. While Samm Simpson remains the only challenger at current, one has to wonder how far she can go if she continues with a "by the seat of my pants" campaign style. Fundraising was poor in 2006 and reaching out to the netroots ended up being a challenge only answered by diarists like myself (won't link to every diary and comment I posted for Samm). I was told by a Simpson backer in private that no one would give a shit about Samm's campaign (for a national office to help Democrats regain control of Congress) and appealing to the netroots and blogosphere was a moot point and a list of email addresses was a more faithful source to hit up for funds... It unnerved me. How so? Because my own asking for funds and talking about Samm's race at late in the summer of 2006 earned her several hundred dollars over a three day timespan here on Kos... Which was about a fourth of the money earned online for her at the time (or so Act Blue records for Samm showed at the time).
I complain, I worry and I vent because FL-10 is a pickup opportunity with or without Rep. Young retiring (which is a possibility). The status quo from the left -- Simpson running her campaign the same way as in the past and/or lacking another Democratic challenger who can fundraise against Young -- is just blowing this chance.
I urge Kossacks both nationally and locally to try to get involved with Samm Simpson and help give her the proper direction to victory. If there is another voice, another possibility for the district -- I also urge Kossacks to speak up. We must be pro-active if we have a shot -- waiting in the wings until 2008 will not turn a purple district blue. We needed to start months ago.