You call this a presidential election?

I was having coffee with a friend yesterday who was down in Florida from Massachusetts and he mentioned that he had been to a local Democratic club meeting the night before. He related that it was the strangest thing he had ever seen; a presidential election year and absolutely no pins, buttons, signs, enthusiasm or even talking about presidential candidates.

He's right. I was at our county DEC meeting the week before and except for a "rah rah" speech from the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, you wouldn't even know it was a presidential year.

Add to that the total media saturation for the Republican candidates, who are all living here for the next few days and it makes for a very strange environment.

I don't think I've ever seen or will ever see again a political race that is run in a total media vacuum. Unfortunately, I can't help but think that this will cement Florida in Republican presidential column come November.

Florida has been trending more and more Republican in it's presidential vote (537 margin in the infamous 2000 and over 350,000 margin in 2004) and I would expect this will exacerbate the situation.

I'm certain that we will see a lot of the fervor that will go into the nominating process from here until August and then with the ramp up to the final campaign, but I can't help but wonder if any enthusiasm towards the eventual Democratic nominee has been sucked right out of Florida. It seems that way.

It has been a masterful bit of negative branding on the part of the Florida Republican Party as a result of moving the primary date to January 29 and then watching the Democrats self immolate as a result. And this negative impact can only have a serious impact upon all of the down ticket races on the November ballot and will make it even more difficult to overcome the Republican machine that controls almost every aspect of Florida political life.

Hell the Republican legistlature has even managed to steal the thunder away from the national convention in August by moving our general primary to the Tuesday of that week!

So what's an activist supposed to do? If I'm feeling this way, I can only imagine the apathy of the typical Democratic voter come November.

•  Schedule a Florida Caucus in June

  Why let the legislature tell Florida democrats how to select delegates?  Lets select our own.  If we can't hold an election with state support, lets have a caucus. The irony is that Florida would have more impact on the outcome then than it would ever have now in any event.  As it turned out, no one is going to win on February 5 or soon thereafter.  Florida could grab the spotlight when it counts.  Sort of like those WWII pilots at Midway who got lost before the battle started and, when they finally found the Japanese fleet, annhiliated it in 15 minutes.

  by Wally in Miami on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 04:54:26 AM PDT

•  Move. And let Florida secede.

  I'm not over 2000, as you may have guessed.

  by dcrolg on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 06:01:22 AM PDT

•  The national party did not force Florida

  to play one-upmanship with its calendar.  That was the decision of the Florida Democratic Party, which had plenty of warning of the consequences, in time to avert the result we see now.

  I agree it didn't help Florida's Dem chances.  But it wasn't the national party's fault.

  by Kevvboy on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 06:18:59 AM PDT

  •  You are absolutely correct. They were warned.nt

    by phrogge prince on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 06:37:09 AM PDT

•  An interesting adjunct to your diary here:

  Speaking of Electoral Votes...

  The do-it-yourself Activescript Electoral Vote Counter is here.

  by valion on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 08:02:20 AM PDT