My column entitled Gelber = Edwards (FL-Sen) received a very long and thoughtful comment that I promised to answer in a separate diary.
First, mdmslle’s comment:
I worked my ass off in florida for Obama and there isnt a single street in my town of 15,000 that I didnt visit in the months from August to November.
And what I'm suggesting to you is that when you advocate for someone the way you did in this diary it has the unintended effect of causing people to be turned off. Look at the comments here. No one is Pro-Gelber per se, but your presentation is off putting and is doing more harm to you candidate of choice than help.
I'm still very active in my community and as a matter of fact our grassroots groups in Polk (currently about 600 strong) have formed on organization to continue voter education and political action. So i'm no mere observer.
I'm just saying you're making some dangerous assumptions about Meek's potential support base and failing to acknowledge what challenges he will face in a statewide election doesnt make you or by extension him or his campaign look credible. I'm glad they're taking nothing for granted. That would be the only way to run a winning campaign. I would encourage you, if youre going to advocate for him, to try to do it in a way that doesnt ask people to throw reason and logic out the window.
You literally wrote Gelber has NOTHING to bring to the table? Wow. Amazing. NOTHING that makes him stand out? Wow. (I guess Meek's "standing out" is his race? The act that he could be the first AA senator from FL? God, I hope he doesnt run on THAT...That's a losing angle there. Obama didnt use it (smartly) and it wont work for Meek.)
The job of any campaign is to decide what special things their candidate brings. I'll leave that to Schale for Gelber and to whomever Meek is using for his run. But both these dudes have some positives and some challenges.
Why cant you just be honest? Obama only won FL by 250,000 or so. That's razor thin in a state with 16-17 million people. Meek's challenge is winning the I-4. He'll lose other parts of the state. He's strong in the south. That's the truth. Obama LOST a lot of voters in my district because of his race. Democrats who voted for Kerry. I know. I canvassed them, I phone banked them. Meek could face AA "candidate fatigue". Fortunately Obama made up for the "i cant vote for him Dems" with AA and Latino new registers and youth. You seem to assume Meek will pull the same numbers of those constituencies to the polls. I wouldn't be so confident of that. NO state race is going to garner the same turnout as a presidential election. That's a fact. So someone in his campaign better be crunching some numbers to figure out if what he loses in I-4 can reasonably be expected to be compensated for in a lower turnout election by constituencies that typically dont turn out for senatorial races. These are honest assessments you should be willing to discuss in your diaries if you want people to actually consider your candidate.
Gelber has a different set of issues and challenges. He's got a resume that will look good to some folks. (as does Meek) and in many ways they are evenly matched. He's not well known in the south and would need to overcome Meek's popularity in his home turf.
I'm not here to defend either one.I need to do more research. But you trash Gebler so unmercifully in you diary it makes one wonder WTF? You seem to sneer at him and try to belittle him b/c Schale is working his campaign when, if you're honest, Schale is a damn good name to have working your campaign. Theres nothing wrong with admitting that. Obama trusted him to run the campaign in this hugely important state. He's probably pretty good. That's a challenge for Meek but so what? Instead you try to belittle it. You belittle Gelber's website when Meek doesnt even have a senatorial website up and running (at least not that I found). Dont you see how this makes you look? I looks like you feel threatened and so are attacking the other guy's
strengths. You even assume that you know "better" where his (Gelber's) talents would be more useful. Wow. That's some Hubris (with a capital H).
But didnt Meek just host Bill Clinton a week or so ago? THATS big. Meek has his merits. But I wouldnt know it from reading your diary AT ALL.
I'm apologize for the length of this post but as a progressive Floridian, I think we're all on the same page: we want more progressive representation all around - from the Federal level on down to the state and local levels. But this diary is just inappropriate.
Here is my response.
First, thank you SOO much for such an in-depth, thoughtful, constructive response. I applaud your activism and the enormous amount of energy you have put into building a base for progressive voters in Polk County. You have my heartfelt admiration.
Your actions are typical of Obama supporters throughout the country. I went to a reunion meeting of my Obama canvassing group Sunday and our Sector Leader mentioned that a majority of the volunteers in the Obama campaign had never volunteered in a campaign before. That power to inspire has been transformative for all of us. I think we are all just beginning to find out the full extent of how much our Obama experiences have changed us.
That point right there is what has been motivating me since the election. I have posted 27 diaries here on Daily Kos (and a few more than that over at FlaPolitics.com) starting on November 11. That’s an average of about one every three days.
What was pushing all that content out of me was probably the same thing that caused you to start your citizens’ group and build your website. We got a taste of Hope and Change and wanted more. I don’t know about you, but I’m completely hooked.
With that intro, let me try to address your various remarks.
It’s great that you have such a large grassroots group. Your website is very well laid out and easy to use. But, to me, it has a fatal flaw.
Who are you? Where is the money coming from that supports this effort?
If we are going to actually walk the walk of progressivism we have to PRACTICE transparency and openness, not just preach about it. That is why I got a little carried away for a while about pushing people to identify themselves when engaged in candidate advocacy. But, I realized that was my growth point and backed off and now just always try to identify myself in the comments as an example to others.
I looked up the email you posted in your profile on Facebook and was pleasantly surprised to find that you are a member. I have sent a friend request that I hope you accept. That will allow me and others to see who you are and who your friends are. This will also allow you to network with people throughout the state, thereby leveraging everything you are trying to do.
As always, you can find me on Facebook by searching for Michael Tally Murphree or the email floridanetroots (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.
You mention that advocating in the way I do will turn people off. I have to admit here that my target audience for these past few diaries is NOT Daily Kos posters. There is where I PUBLISH my diaries, but they are DISTRIBUTED on Facebook.
This is something a lot of people here aren’t up to speed on. Daily Kos posters are a rather in-bred, self-selected group of folks. I started blogging here after the 2006 elections and tried to build a coalition of Florida based bloggers. I was pretty much a complete flop, even though I showed some early success.
The experience was VERY dispiriting and I withdrew from politics. I decided that the world’s problems were spiritual, rather than political, and change within that sphere had to be done on a retail, not wholesale, basis.
But, with the Obama campaign, I EXPERIENCED how the political and spiritual could be combined, and done on a wholesale basis. As I’ve said, that was transformative.
I wrote about this before, in Blessed Are the Meek. This is a problem with someone only reading one or two diaries and not being aware of your body of work. Everything you bring up I have addressed somewhere before.
Not because I’m so smart (or f***ing brilliant as one commenter ironically put it) but rather because we are all surfing on the cresting wave of the zeitgeist and experiencing the same feelings and events.
For example:
Obama only won FL by 250,000 or so. That's razor thin in a state with 16-17 million people.
The first diary I wrote after the election was entitled "Did Obama Turn Florida Blue?" And then later, when I was in a deep funk, there was "FL Dem Disaster in 2010" and "Republican Resurgence Begins in FL in 2010". So, I think I’ve got you covered on that one.
But, my major insight on how to approach the 2010 elections is fully laid out in my rescued diary "Rebranding the FL Dem Party in 2010". This is a coherent STRATEGY for how the party can continue the gains made by Obama and consolidate these gains through an extension of the campaign work for a UNITED SLATE of Democratic candidates working under the rubric of Taking Back Democracy from the lobbyists and an unresponsive legislature.
Now, when I wrote that, I was just playing fantasy politics and having fun. A lot of times I write diaries sort of for the same reason people write journals, to discover and clarify my thoughts. But, the funk set in after that when I came up against the reality of our impotence at effecting deep change within the political system.
I mean, who cares what no-name bloggers think?
However, I did persevere with my fantasies and tried to send links of what I was writing to politicians I mentioned in my posts using emails from their websites. I even signed up at Kendrick Meek’s congressional website.
Then something truly amazing happened. Adam Sharon of Kendrick Meek’s staff wrote me a personal email and said they liked the stuff I was writing.
Now I had known that Florida Democratic Party staff, especially the younger ones, read posts on Daily Kos and FlaPolitics.com. I became aware of that phenomenon back from my work in 2006 and early 2007. But to have an actual staff member of a real congressman say they read my blogs pretty much floored me.
When I expressed disbelief they pointed to the wording in their statement when Alex Sink decided not to run for US Senate. It was right out of the Rebranding post! Now, I’ve discussed all of this before in Blessed Are the Meek.
But, the point I wish to make is that if Rep. Meek was taking me seriously, then I had to take myself seriously.
So what’s with all the foolishness, you ask.
Some of it’s about finding a voice. Some of it’s about not wanting to just be someone who drones on. And some of it’s how I happen to feel right now, which is very playful.
But, over the weekend I had an epiphany and realized I, (along with everyone else who can establish credibility with a candidate), am now in a position to act like a REAL reporter. That means I can ask questions of my contacts and have them respond ON THE RECORD. This is what I intend to start doing.
Now, as for inappropriateness, I addressed the use of political satire (a la Stephen Colbert) in my white privilege bias post. But, I acknowledge, that to some extent, satire is a tool of the powerless. It is also somewhat adolescent. Which is fine if you are appealing to a certain audience, but I think you are right in saying it’s time to step up and be grown-ups. That certainly is what I have been talking about with Real Name blogging and joining Facebook.
So, while I might still use some satire, I will be moving on to more substantive, in-depth interactions with the candidates (hopefully).
While I’m on the issue of satire I need to go back and address who I thought was the audience for those diaries. I definitely wasn’t pitching them to the general public and knew that only a few Daily Kos readers would see them. My real target audience is what I would describe as the political elite of the Florida Democratic Party.
My goal was to create frames by which Dan Gelber’s candidacy would be viewed using various metaphors employed in a satiric mode. I was trying to get his peers to laugh at him, thereby undercutting his effectiveness within the party.
As many pointed out, if this is done wrongly, it will generate sympathy for the candidate, which it seems to have done among some DKos posters who were probably predisposed to like Gelber. But, I don’t think DKos posters are representative of the FDP hierarchy. That’s a tough bunch of folks who are used to playing hardball and throwing elbows with the best of them.
They know that politics ain’t beanbag, it’s about raising and spending money to get power so that you can spend other people’s money (our taxes). They don’t have any illusions about playing nice. That’s the milieu I pictured myself working in.
But, I’m ready to move on.
One of the things that happened this weekend was my hearing a pithy comment from a young man at my Obama canvassing group reunion. He’s the son of a neighborhood acquaintance and a recent graduate of Warren Wilson College near Ashville.
What he said was, "Isn’t it kind of strange that we’re waiting for instructions to tell our grassroots organization what to do?" I cracked up, because I had been thinking the same thing about all of this keeping the Obama network together. (BTW, wrote a diary on that too).
During the writing of these 27 (now 28) diaries I developed a list of items that defined what I have been calling The New Political Paradigm. I originally sent them to the Meek campaign as input for what I thought they should do, but then printed them in my post called Political Lessons of the Movie Milk (FL-Sen).
Let me lay them out again:
It is about voters no longer being passive consumers of politics, but rather active participants in the process of governance.
It is about politicians who LISTEN rather than PONTIFICATE.
It is about getting past identity politics and a culture of victimization, and instead claiming our rightful God-given gifts and using them to make this a better world.
It is about Transparency, Openness, Honesty, Integrity, Authenticity.
It is about bringing EVERYONE into the body politic. People helping people to vote in ALL elections, not just for president every four years.
It is about becoming our True Best Selves as individuals and collectively as a nation.
It is about restoring greatness and prosperity to America through the active engagement of its diverse and creative citizenry.
It is about healing old wounds from the culture wars and reclaiming and rejoicing over the meaningful values we share in common.
It is about taking the reins of government out of the hands of lobbyists and putting them into the hands of ordinary citizens like you.
These are my idea of what progressive politics is all about, the true empowerment of the citizenry. It was Obama’s transformative leadership which has made this possible. But, it was the very real efforts of people like us that ALSO made it possible. We made ourselves available to be transformed by his vision:
"I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I’m asking you to believe in yours."
Cripes, I still tear up just from typing those words.
What makes Obama so transformative is his very real desire to empower the entire citizenry. I want to continue that also. This is why I wrote out what I considered an important strategy for building the party over the next two years by utilizing the statewide campaigns in 2010.
This is what I need to lift up to you. Your comments all refer to candidates. You mention being a progressive, but what is your VISION, what is your STRATEGY for achieving that vision? This is where we need to go if we want to be serious about what we do.
What I’m talking about is having a different relationship to governance. Like the first bullet point, being actively engaged, not passive consumers. What does this mean?
When I look at how you discuss doing research it reminds me of how my first wife used to go about deciding which product to buy through endlessly seeming analysis of Consumer Reports and other resource guides. I’m sure you’d respond, but that’s how you become a knowledgeable consumer!
Maybe, but politicians aren’t products, they’re people. If we don’t like what they are doing we can demand that they change. Let’s be clear here, THEY WORK FOR US, not the other way round.
The reason Charlie Crist is so popular is that he presents himself in just that way. As citizens, we must start DEMANDING that ALL politicians start acting that way. You accuse me of hubris for suggesting that I know better where Dan Gelber’s skills would be applied.
My point is that DAN GELBER NEEDS TO BE ASKING US WHERE WE THINK HIS SKILLS ARE BEST APPLIED. All politicians should WELCOME such input.
This is also what I want to lift up to you. WE need to find our voices as engaged citizens. Look, politicians are human. Power corrupts (see every Obama appointee who didn’t pay their taxes). IT IS UP TO US TO DEMAND TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. That’s what progressive politics is all about.
You bring up Obama and Clinton. My God, I have written SOOO much about THAT connection I don’t see how you missed it That’s a real frustrating point that I tried to address in my white privilege bias diary. IF ANY POLITICIAN OTHER THAN KENDRICK MEEK WAS ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT CLINTON IT WOULD BE BIG NEWS.
You mention Steve Schale. Before the candidates announced I wrote a diary (I don’t remember which one, it was probably more than one) where I said that if no one was hiring Schale to work on their senate campaign then there was some serious incompetence going around. I am QUITE familiar with him and his abilities. Little did I know that even as I wrote those words Dan had already corralled Schale. It was GatorDem who broke the news to me in a comment to some early diary.
You mention the lack of a Meek website. Now THAT is something we can BOTH agree on. Meek’s staff told me LONG ago that they were rolling it out right after the announcement. WELL, WHERE IS IT?
As I responded to another comment of yours in that diary:
Supposedly Meek has a new website in the works.
But, they've been promising it for a while.
My fear is that Meek doesn't have a lot of experience running a state-wide campaign and there are going to be a lot of bumps along the way. But that doesn't mean I would necessarily stop supporting him.
My other fear is the bane of the Clinton campaign, dysfunctional personal interactions. But, that is just a fear and I have absolutely no knowledge about any of that.
Again, if I thought that existed, I would call out to Meek to deal with it, not stop supporting him.
This is the type of thing I want to be doing with BOTH candidates. Calling them out on their "stuff". Actually pushing them to comment on these issues ON THE RECORD so that I (or others) can then write blogs about their answers.
That’s what I want to promote: an authentic PEOPLE’S JOURNALISM.
In closing I want to address your comments about whether or not Meek (or any candidate) can repeat the Obama success here in Florida. We can’t operate out of a FEAR mentality. We need a much more positive view of the electorate and how to go about engaging it. This is what all my talk of CANDIDACIES and MOVEMENTS is all about. This is what I see as my mission right now, to convince people that the FDP CAN do it, IF WE ALL WORK TOGETHER ON A COHERENT STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS.
The party seems to be recognizing that the KEY to it all is redistricting reform (something I’ve been flogging for a LONG time). But, that’s just the beginning. That’s where Dan’s skills come in. That’s what I’ll be talking about in many future posts.
Thank you again for sparking this wonderful exchange. Please come by Facebook and say Hi. I would love to work together with you to implement our mutual vision of progressive politics.
Take care. God Bless. (Please understand I’m a Unitarian-Universalist, so it’s not really clear what is meant when I say that, but you get the idea).
And let's have fun saving the world!