Rep. Frost is absolutely right. This is why we need more organizers in positions of leadership in our party. Former lobbyists and corporate consultants have no real understanding of the sheer volume of voter contacts that go into building a successful organization. It’s not enough to drop a few million on TV-Ads, then call it a day. We saw what happened with that in FL in 2022- the rest of the country had record Dem turnout. We… did not.
Both Rep. Frost and myself got our start in Gun Violence Prevention organizing. We’ve bumped into each other a few times along the way. He’s always been an impressive powerhouse, but it’s nice to see him and his causes getting the recognition they deserve.
I think nowhere is Max’s point more accurate than the panhandle. Most of our people live here because of the beaches and the beautiful environment. Many are military, and just had their incomes threatened by the Republican party’s shutdown. So why does the panhandle vote so cherry red? Two reasons- it’s under-organized, and doesn’t have any unbiased news.
We can start with the obvious: Matt Gaetz and his merry band of Trumpkins are bending our government until it breaks. What I think gets misunderstood in the rest of the country is that most people in this district have no idea whats happening.
Here in Northwest Florida we have one local news affiliate that is actually in Florida. The other 2 local stations are out of Mobile, so it is primarily Alabama news. Our local station only tells half the truth to avoid controversy. For instance, after the Democrats saved the American people and economy by reaching across the aisle to work with the Republican speaker, the local news simply said “we avoided a shutdown.” They completely left out the part that Matt Gaetz was the instigator of the whole shutdown debacle! Furthermore, when McCarthy was ousted because of Gaetz, they reported that he was unhappy at McCarthy for working with Democrats.
So, voters in my district aren’t getting the whole truth of the situation, or rather, any situation. When there’s no media outlet set up that’s actually interested in engaging with all sides of the story, we can’t count on people to actually know what's going on, and vote based on that.
Here’s how we are going to fix all that in 2024.
We are going to recruit democrats to run, all the way down the ballot, so that they can directly community organize, and message to their neighborhood.
Step one is getting every dem to the ballot boxes.
Step two is building lasting communications infrastructure. In South FL the GOP long ago set up Spanish speaking radio stations to blast their propaganda 24/7. It took a little while, but the investment in consistent messaging worked- SFL is redder than it has ever been, and it’s because the Spanish speaking population is leaning more conservative than ever. It’s not a coincidence. We need to do the same thing here. We need radio and local news that will consistently tell the truth, and the whole story regarding how the GOP is playing games with people’s lives.
The way I’m going to do this campaign is different than anyone else has ever done it here, and I need your help. If you are on board with this experiment and can afford to throw a few bucks my way, I’d appreciate it. But I know times are tough, so if you could just share my website and video with a few folks, that would be great: secure.actblue.com/...
It’s going to take a new way of campaigning to #GetGaetzGone, but we are going to get it done.
Grateful as always,
Gay Valimont
@gayforcongress
Candidate for Congress FL-1