Brief History:
- Florida moved primary up to Jan 29 violating the DNC rules.
- DNC took away Florida primary delegates (meaning our votes don't count)
- 4 early states asked Dem Presidential candidates not to campaign (but still fundraise)in Florida
- Most candidates said ok (Clinton, Edwards, Obama all signed it)
So here we are now without a vote for the primary and watching the candidates only come here for fundraisers (brilliant plan and by brilliant I mean not brilliant). Obviously the Repubs are very happy about it - like a gift from up above. Even if they aren't necessarliy rejoicing in public so much. Our Republican Governor said "my heart bleeds for the Democrats in the state of Florida." Of course, he also said he wouldn't sign any legislation moving the date back to comply with DNC rules so obviously its not a vital amount of blood.
They Repubs have wasted no time in using this issue to try to court Dems over to the Repub party.
First came the mailers (PDF from St. Pete Times) suggesting Dems switch parties.
Then came the Fundraising tracking on their website. It looks like that might be formatted to be a mailer later on.
And now here comes the Dean ad:
As far as I've seen it is just an internet ad. I haven't seen it on TV or seen any indication they will be running it on TV. But I would be surprised if they didn't run something. Officially we've only been under sanctions since Saturday so we have a long way to go before the primary and more importantly before the general. How many ways will they find to beat the party of the head for these decisions?