Category Florida History
Flashback Friday: Apollo 11 and the Moon Landing
Sunday marks the 45th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing. The Apollo 11 mission was launched from atop a Saturn V rocket on July 16, 1969 from Cape Canaveral. The world watched as Florida became the focal point of everybody’s thoughts. As someone who grew up in a NASA family, I spent lots of time […]
How Florida Democrats Avoid Another 2010-like Armageddon
One of the things that made me exceptionally proud in the early months of 1995 was that Florida, unlike much of the country had resisted the Republican tide that swept the nation in November 1994. Sure, 1994 was a bad year relatively speaking for Florida Democrats losing eight State House seats, two Congressional seats and […]
Flashback Friday: When the 1992 Florida Congressional Map was thrown out
The news late yesterday that the 2012 Congressional Districts had been invalidated drew me back to 1996, when we had a similar happening with Congressional Districts. Ironically, the district that caused the problems then as it has now is Corrine Brown’s seat, then numbered the third, now numbered the fifth. Brown’s original district in 1992 […]
Thursday Bookshelf: Robert Wexler’s Fire-Breathing Liberal
Robert Wexler who was my Congressman for almost 13 years joined the ranks of politician authors in 2008. Like most political memoirs the book is largely self-serving and self-promoting. Nonetheless, Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress has some interesting nuggets which certainly make it worth reading. Having […]
The Changing Democratic Base from 1994 to 2012
Continuing our recent look at small counties, rural voters and the Democratic vote, I thought it might be instructive to look at a comparison between two Democratic victories. The Democrats last won a Governor’s race in 1994 which was before the current era of Democratic dominance of Presidential elections in the state began (The Democrats […]
Looking at the Democrats decline in rural vote share – Comparing 1996 to 2008
Continuing with a theme we’ve developed over the past few weeks regarding the loss of rural voters by Florida Democrats, I thought today would be a good day to compare the 1996 Presidential Race where Bill Clinton as an incumbent won the state overwhelmingly (keep in mind Clinton lost Florida in 1992 by under two […]
What Independence Day should mean to Progressives
Conservatives have long claimed ownership of the term “patriotism”. By shaping the debate they have made it virtually impossible for liberals to call themselves patriotic without being mocked. On Independence day we remember the patriotic heritage of the Democratic Party and progressive politics. This can serve as a history lesson for Florida’s Republican Party dominated […]
Thursday Bookshelf: Celebrating 50 Years of the Civil Rights Act
In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we combine two previous book reviews that have run on this site for this week’s Thursday Bookshelf. Review of When Freedom Would Triumph: The Civil Rights Struggle in Congress, 1954-1968 and Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the […]
Money, Money, Money – The FDP Shopping List
With all the fanfare and Clinton selfies and fortune cookies, this weekend’s Leadership Blue’s biggest achievement was clearly the big fund-raising numbers. The announcement that $1.1 million dollars was raised in one day energized the room and everybody in the festivities was very excited. While the FDP has not released the exact number for their […]
Rethinking Rural Campaign Strategies for Progressives
I spent Wednesday afternoon driving through rural counties on the way to Tallahassee and I noticed the different types of political advertisements on the way which made me once again begin to ponder rural Florida politics. There were several colorful anti-Obama signs, lots of local election signs in various colors and forms, and even a […]
The Florida Squeeze 