The author argues that Florida is struggling in many ways recently. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the COVID pandemic led to many preventable deaths in Florida, contradicting early articles praising his response. Now DeSantis is known more for his anti-gay and anti-science stances rather than effective governance. His campaign for president seems doomed to fail due to his lack of charisma and poor performance as governor. The author expresses sympathy for Florida residents dealing with the fallout of climate change, disasters, and poor leadership.
How Florida dems got their teeth kicked in when this is their competition is simply astounding
The Florida Dems just never stand for anything. They pick compromise candidates under the assumption that a compromise candidate will automatically equal votes, and then they don’t actually promote them because having a platform means the Republicans will call you a socialist.
2022 was a textbook example. The guy running against DeSantis was Charlie Christ, a former Republican governor that nobody liked because he was in charge during the Recession and did nothing to fix it. They got him to switch parties and made a big deal out of him being a moderate who switched parties, and then were shocked by the fact that moderate doesn’t automatically equal popular.
Meatballs opposition was former republican governor Charlie Crist. The dem candidate was about as lackluster as possible, to the point that I think it was almost intentional. At least on Crists’ part. We had Nikki Fried running for the seat too and she got pushed out in a similar fashion as Bernie did back in '16. I kind of get why many people weren’t racing to the polls last year but it still sucks and desantis was clearly an existential threat to the state. The FL Dems need to engage their younger base because this “lesser of two evils” crap is killing the country
Jacksonville recently ran an actual progressive candidate and won, so I agree.
Progressives would overwhelmingly win almost everywhere, I feel, which is why they aren’t allowed to run normally.
No one shows up to primaries
A progressive candidate for the Mayor of Buffalo who had won the Democratic primary lost to the moderate incumbent who was literally a write-in candidate.
Progressive candidates work well in some locations, but it’s simply false to say that they “overwhelmingly win almost everywhere”. Have you ever lived in a rural community, or the south?