The political media is on fire today with arguments and explanations for Sink’s loss to Jolly in the special election to fill a vacant Congressional seat in FL-13.
But there is only one reason why the Democrat lost this election.
There is only one reason why ANY Democrat EVER loses an election, and that is:
Democrats – who are already registered to vote – Do. Not. Vote.
So, Alex Sink (D) lost to David Jolly (R) by less than 3,500 votes.
140,000 registered Democrats didn’t bother to vote.
That’s all you need to know. And that’s all the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party need to learn from this defeat. Will they? Debbie Wasserman-Schultz @DCCC… are you listening? Harry Reid… Nancy Pelosi… are you listening? President Obama… do you really want your last two years in office to include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joining Speaker Boehner?! Where is your vaunted OFA get-out-the-vote ground game?! They could get a black-Muslim-Kenyan-communist-community-organizer elected – TWICE! – but they can’t win with a well-known Dem in Florida running against yet-another-moronic Republican? In a district that YOU carried in 2012? WTF?!
22% of the electorate in FL-13 is 65-and-older. That equates to potentially 100,000+ voters. How many of them are registered Democrats? How many of those registered Democratic seniors had mail-in ballots for this election? All of them? No? Why not? It’s not like you don’t know their names and addresses! They are r-e-g-i-s-t-e-r-e-d D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-s.
Democrats left thousands, tens of thousands of votes laying on the table in this FL-13 election. The media is already calling the November midterm elections for the GOP.
Here’s the good news. You get a REDO in FL-13 in November. That’s right. Rep. Jolly has to defend his newly won seat in the fall. (Along with every other member of Congress and 1/3 of the Senate.)
And let’s not forget Wendy Davis in Texas. She’s got a tough road ahead of her, eh? That’s what we hear. Gee, if only we had the actual results of the last two elections in Texas… Oh! Here they are now:
Texas has a non-partisan voter registration system, so we don’t know how many TX registered voters are (D) vs (R). But what is obvious from this graphic is that there were plenty of non-voting registered Dems in 2010 to swamp Perry’s margin of victory… if only they had turned out to vote. Wendy Davis… are you listening?
We hear so much about the Republicans gaming the system with gerrymandering districts, blah blah blah. That’s just an excuse used by lazy Democrats! If (already registered) Democrats actually voted in the November 2014 midterms, we would EASILY keep the Senate and take back the House.
So, what are we waiting for? This country has been gravely wounded by the do-nothing, know-nothing, “I’ve got mine!” Republicans. But the GOP has been gravely wounded by its do-nothing, know-nothing, racist, sexist, bigoted teabagger faction. The time for the Democrats to strike is now. The President’s economic, military/foreign policy and healthcare initiatives have been remarkably successful – in spite of the GOP’s constant sabotage.
Democrats: Stop talking about Hillary and 2016. Stop talking about what an uphill climb 2014 is. Stop talking, period. Start doing. We have seven months until voters will start casting ballots in early voting in the fall. How many mail-in ballots can we get in the hands of registered Democrats? How badly do we want to turn Congress blue in November? And the governorship in TX? And GA? And MI, OH, PA, WI?
What are we waiting for?
The End 
I thought about a future with a Republican controlled Senate and Congress and started to get sick. If only because the far, far, far right is in control of things now. I would suggest a simple app to prove the problem with Republican control: the app would be a constituent translator. On one side you would input what you want your representative Government to work on: jobs, the economy, foreign policy, whatever you want them to focus on. The translator would work and the output would be: transvaginal ultrasounds, trap laws for women’s healthcare units, the reinstate of DOMA, the dissolution of Unions (to help Republicans win future elections) and repealing the ACA with no replacement. No matter what you put in one side, only these several things would come out the other end. The Lost in Translation Translator would make sure that the electorate, including Republicans and Independents, know what they are voting in: NOTHING that will create jobs and NOTHING that will help the economy.
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I love this. There was an app for this. It was called “journalism”. Tragically, that was rendered almost useless in the flood of money into politics and the corporate takeover of news. (The two most trusted and effective tv news shows in America can now be found on the Comedy Channel.)
The other app, an experimental organic information processor called GrayMatter, once showed great promise as a decision-making tool… but that has been badly damaged by the near collapse of our education system.
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Wow – the passion in your tone! We need an army like you! Or maybe just one of you: can we import you at all…? 😉
And yes, it’s exactly the same problem we’re facing here in the UK: people on the (so-called, who knows why) ‘left’ of the spectrum are too d**n lazy to get off their bums and go vote. Also, it’s where disillusion is hitting deeper, while the Gop-type discourses curated by the Murdoch media seem to appeal to the least informed and educated. In Portugal the problem is marginally the same, plus a toxic (historical) division amongst the rank-and-file of the ‘left’ (and pls, I know how toxic the concept of ‘left’ can be in USA, but on our side of the pond the spectrum and terminology does still – for the time being at least – apply.)
[oh, and btw, the Basque but especially the Catalán are cool, it’d’ve been quite all right to share equal footing with them, poor ‘hermanos’ equally stomped on by Castille’s heavy boot… you see, there’s this quality of elephant memory in what I call the Portuguese historical-mythical popular consciousness which, strangely enough, doesn’t quite stretch back to Burgundian times, but stays strangely anchored to the Spanish Rule of the 16th century… :-)]
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Let the record show that on this 12th day of March in the year 2014, Nina did say to me: “We need an army like you!” GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAL!
Usually, people are scheming how to muzzle me. I do occasionally receive a smattering of applause… but I don’t think anyone has ever advocated cloning me. 🙂 Made my day, ameninaluz!
I do like aspects of Britain’s flavour of democracy: campaigns that last weeks, not years; the ‘speaking of minds’ in the House of Commons – decorum is overrated; and the option of dissolving Parliament. Oh, to be able to dissolve the American Congress! Weekly!
I am passionate about politics, and I wish more – most – Americans felt the same. The ability to cast a vote is the only possibility people have to wield real power against the gargantuan forces (economic + societal) arrayed against them.
Time was, unhappy villagers marched up to the castle with pitchforks and torches. Now, we can vote for those who will represent our own best interests. But… so many of us, most of us, don’t vote. And so many who do cast a vote, choose the very politicians who will try to destroy them.
I believe America is at a tipping point, with the oligarchs and massive corporate entities on the verge of permanently grabbing political power. And that will be the end of us, and a very tragic turn of events for the whole world.
So, yeah: vote people. Just vote for the party and the politicians who will not chop you up and feed you to the wolves.
(Still want more than one of me?)
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Do you think the two of us (and our majestic gobs!) are enough against the gargantuan powers of the TTPs and the such? The whole world is at that tipping point, Steve. I think that actually the Trans-Pacific and the Trans-Atlantic *will* be that tipping point, in that nations and their political powers will be subjugated to corporations, and unable to confront them if ever they decide it might be a good idea to defend the rights (and lives) of their citizens. What is being done (to Southern Europe by foreign intervention, in the UK at the hands of this disgraceful toff government) under the cloak of “austerity” is tremendous and horrifying – and only a few people really understand the depth and breadth of the thing. It was, however, just the beginning, an exercise in global pillaging and positioning. Ever seen a group of tom cats playing a strategy game…? It’s like this: there’s no posturing that does not lead to substantial gains of whatever nature. The one who reveals himself a poorer strategist, is jumped on by all the others – and the play resumes.
I do not know whether our faith in voting and in the system as is – is still justified. I vote, but in a way I understand the disenchantment that have led to turnouts of 30%. These things we’re living in, they’re no longer democracy, not as we once knew and dreamt it, but an insidious and hideous travesty. How long do you think it’ll be sustained by the principle of “the lesser evil”? When will any gradations become redundant? Will we still have pitchforks, and will the castles still be assailable? Look for an essay by a certain Nina Power (no, not me!) in the Guardian – it’s happening, it’s not sci-fi or “anarcho-babble”. (if I’ll find it I’ll post the link here for you)
And no, I’m not a conspiracy theorist as such, just a very well informed citizen who, as a former political scientist, knows the value of a) an occasional macro overview and b) trustworthy sustaining evidence.
But we could go on for hours… (And yes, as many as possible, to set the world to rights – and besides I never get tired of yapping politics away!) 😀
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I’d kind of written it off to it being “Florida”.Your stats certainly are eye opening. Good post.
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It’s the same story in Congressional districts all across the country. Red state, blue state, purple state… huge numbers of registered Democrats just don’t bother to vote. (Ditto Republicans – but I don’t consider that a problem.)
I don’t recall the exact numbers in Kentucky, but I believe Mitch McConnell won reelection in 2008 by 100,000 votes – in a state where Democrats have 600,000 more registered voters than the GOP. If Alison Grimes doesn’t clean McConnell’s clock in November, it will be a crime. And the national DEM party will be guilty of political malpractice.
AAARRRGGGHHH!
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Hey Steve….I’ve missed these on Facebook this year! That being said, I hate to disagree with you, even if I’m disagreeing in ways that actually are optimistic for Democratic prospects. Looking at this election, Alex Sink is kind of a serial cruddy campaigner, David Jolly worked for Bill Young, the 21-term Congressman who died, and it was still a close race in a pretty Republican district. I’d say the takeaway from this race was actually pretty favorable to Democrats, rather than the opposite. Looking at the bigger picture, I would suggest McConnell is more likely to lose his seat than to become Majority Leader, but that when next January rolls around, he’s probably still wearing the Minority Leader beanie. Keep up the great work!
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John, good to hear from you! I do miss the Book of Face… When are you taking the plunge into the blogosphere?
Your analysis is spot on. But your glass is half-full, while mine is half-empty. Yes, “the takeaway from this race (FL-13) was actually pretty favorable to Democrats” – right up until the Democrat was making her effing concession speech! If we’re going to win, we have to… win.
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