For several months we have been hearing of the troubles in a few of the clubs and caucuses of the Florida Democratic Party. For sometime now many leading African-American and Caribbean-American activists have been complaining about the way the caucus and state party is handling its affairs. We’ve also heard from some people who have defended the state party’s stand claiming the caucuses needed to be reformed significantly.
This morning, we are hearing preliminary reports about a particularly argumentative meeting where multiple long-time activists walked out early in anger. We will be working to follow up on this story as it develops. Based on what we are hearing initially it is quite possible that more will be reported.
The Florida Squeeze 
If you are speaking of the DCCA meeting on April 12, it’s not rumor. The party is telling us in the DEC we can not endorse a candidate till after the primaries yet they are endorsing Charlie Crist now and have been since before he even declared to run. The inequality has been evident since former Senator Nan Rich was denied the opportunity to speak at the annual JJ Dinner a year ago. June 27, 2014 is again approaching, what will happen at this year’s dinner. One thing for sure, if the course continues in it’s present direction, it will not be unity, solidarity and victory on Nov 4th 2014. Look at one’s email inbox for the answer. There’re two types of emails, those like TFS with solutions and those stating more problems of the obvious and wanting more money to support candidates of the FDP’s choosing.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein
There is another litmus test coming up June 24, 2014 in FL-19. Will the FDP stay the course of unorganized and uncoordinated phone banking and spending millions of dollars that have missed the mark to GOTV or will they take all the help of volunteers that has been offered and canvas on foot and in person, and contact and engage the super voters. IMHO, do not ask or try to convince someone who is not a registered Democrat to vote Democrat, Politics 101 Stetson University. According to the DCCA meeting April 12 it will be more insanity.
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The Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida (DHCF) is equally in disarray and in a torrent of scandal at the state and local level.
You need to expose the scandal that had the FDP’s Christian Ulvert hijacking and taking over the elections and moving the scheduled election from Tampa to Orlando where the FDP’s hand picked cronies and Orlando puppets could be put in place over the leaders of the various county caucuses from around the state that had been organizing and campaigning for over a year to clean up the caucus mess.
But the former DHCF State Executive board, where the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer were all from Orlando, feared exposure, and therefore stormed the scheduled Tampa elections and caused such a ruckus that the elections were cancelled by the FDP and moved to Orlando.
Well guess what happened?
You had the FDP’s new DHCF hijacked election that took place a few months ago in Orlando, where you had the newly elected DHCF President (who was also Congressman Grayson’s District Director) and her cronies campaigning out of Congressman Grayson’s Congressional Office and using his staff to do their political work on federal taxpayer time, to keep all the power and scandal of all the newly elected officers in…you guessed it…Orlando.
You see a pattern here?
Even the new DHCF Orlando State Treasurer and Orlando State Secretary have subsequently resigned from their posts since they were elected in the Orlando election hijacking just a few months ago.
There is a lot of missing and misspent moneys for “travel” and “expenses” from the current and former Orlando DHCF Executive Board crooks and nobody is doing anything to stop it.
No Treasurers’ reports have been seen for years.
The only solution is for the entire State Hispanic Caucus and the Black Caucus charters be pulled and disbanded and started over after the elections in November when the new Governor (Charlie Crist or whoever) can clean house and start over.
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We have a party that is systematically committed itself to alienating those activists on the ground who work hard to elect Democrats. we have a party distancing itself from the elected officials who raise money and a party openly ostracizing those who have been in leadership before.
I know for a fact the party is taking sides in disputes among caucuses and I know for a fact there are so-called leaders and staff in the party getting involved in party primary elections. I also know that people in the party had been looking at the possibility of manufacturing primary elections between different Democratic legislators in both the House and the Senate. They talk about it too openly. They are far from discrete.
I am sure the editors and authors at this website know exactly what we are talking about here and appreciate the discretion you have shown not giving these wild schemes any credence. However in the case of the Black Caucus and the Hispanic caucus you probably should have written about it before today. This has been an open book for a couple months. I guess better late than never for you to cover it.
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http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/videos/news/charlie-crist-and-lt-governor-carlos-lopez-cantera/vCXg9x/
This governor’s race will be good.
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Charley wants to talk to Scott…yet, he’s unwilling to talk to NAN RICH !!!
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This is old news.
Just the first media outlet to report it.
The caucuses and clubs are a mess.
Partly punative due to the support these caucuses gave for Alan Clemdenin in the chair’s race.
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It is tax day! Almost!
Seriously, good post. Comments even better. Hispanic Caucus a MESS from top to bottom.
But to be perfectly honest while the party is inept all the infighting at this level makes matters worse.
If we cannot get along, how can we even think about working to elect Democrats?
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The comments are very accurate regarding the Democratic Black Caucus. We are not getting party support for our complaints or concerns and need I remind you that there is an election very soon. Many other matters (jumping through unnecessary hoops) are consuming our time and unfortunately our focus is not on GOTV.
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The FDP has a 25 year history of relegating African American voters and organizations into irrelevancy , they have always gave the DEC’s across the state with more support, more money, more political power, and access to all of the Democratic elected officials. The Black caucuses that are not conforming to the discriminatory practices of the DEC are being put in a position of having their charters being revoked by Henry Crespo a non elected caucus state president that is destroying all of the hard and dedicated work of black voters that have carried the fight for Democrats in the state of Florida. Crespo is a fraud and the FDP loves him for being that. Their theory is why give respect to a race of people respect that vote for our party to the tune of 93% and we give them nothing in return. DEC’s have automatic committee men and women, automatic delegates, money to support white candidates support to develop the VAN’s ant GOTV’s and are appointed to all of best committees , they are invited to all of the secret meetings to discuss how they can keep doing this, but there are 5 counties with Black caucuses that have had enough and see what the FDP had hoped we would never see, that we are the selected race to do as they say and say nothing, sit at the kiddie table and be served a kid’s meal while they sit at the big table, letters have been written to Allison taunt with no response as well as countless phone calls, that have been met with the same fate. This is why the Republicans are in control of the state of Florida and shaping our government to favor them and no one else. The FDP has spent no money with any Black owned media to create or maintain a link with black voters but sent Henry Crespo out on a speaking tour when in reality he has done nothing to speak about but spend the black caucus money on hotels and rent-a-cars and parties, he has not increased the county caucuses by not 1 new chapter but has attempted to take away charters from the bluest and most democratic counties in the state of Florida, Alachua county, Orange county, and Miami Dade county and several more with his treasurer actually running the state caucus and making executive decisions about what black caucuses to restrict to keep him from being opposed because of his incompetency as a leader of our state caucus. Everyday more people are seeing the reality of this political debacle orchestrated by those in charge of the party that are administering their rendition of southern injustice to all African Americans . The real democrats should wake up and stand up and stop this discrimination before election time. And by the way who is the democratic candidate for Attorney General ? I sure don’t know, is this another will kept democratic secret.
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