Blog Focus on Florida

Praxis has a post up now titled We need more attention on state politics. Here is how the Praxis post describes "state politics":

State politics involves the state legislature, cabinet, governor, and state bureaucracy.

While I don't quarrel with the sentiment, I do have a little to say about the definition and the complaint itself.

First of all, I was a little taken aback that Praxis notes that Florida Kossacks had only 5 posts in October. Wow. For a guy who just stood up and told people that to build readership, one should post early and often, that's more than a little embarrassing. However, in my defense, I have noted that I have been consulting on City Council elections in my hometown of St. Petersburg. But only 5 posts? Oh my, I'll have to start doing better than that.

But Praxis says that by its definition, none of the 5 posts were about state politics. That's where I differ a little bit. I'd say that 2 of the 5 posts are on state politics. Just not by the definition in the Praxis post. In We're Official!: Florida Democratic Party Netroots Coalition, I am blogging about the Florida Democratic Party's decision to include the Netroots coalition in the official structure of the state party. That's pretty much state level, no?

And in From the White House to the Court House , I blogged about a possible rallying cry for campaigns all over the state in 2008. Neither of these meet the definition of state level politics as outlined by Praxis. I would argue that the Praxis definition is too narrow. State party level politics are state politics. So is talking about tactics and strategy in the state. There really is more to state politics than just the government.

I would also argue that people ought to blog about what people are moved to blog about. I don't want to get into a long discourse about why people might not be blogging about the state legislature as much as we would all like. I might suggest that a lot of us are commenting on the St. Pete Times Buzz blog, which covers state politics quite extensively, for one thing. But as it says on our masthead here, Florida Kossacks is:

A gathering spot for Florida Kossacks to keep in touch with issues of primary concerns to Floridians, or whatever else Florida Kossacks might think worthwhile.

I am looking forward to having a little more time to be blogging about state issues after our elections on Tuesday, but I really think it might be on Praxis and others to go out and maybe recruit some people into the blogosphere whose main interests are state politics.

Others of us may be moved to blog about issues at all levels of government.

Presidential Primary - Adam: Our Votes WILL Count

Well, Adam Smith is at it again. In a front page article in today's St. Petersburg Times, Adam again makes the assertion:

Florida Democrats stand to be the only voters in America whose votes won't count toward picking a presidential nominee.

This is just not true. Let me be perfectly clear about this, because Adam remains fixated on this. Adam is wrong. Florida's votes will count.

On January 29th, 2008, Florida Democrats will go to the polls and express their preference for the Democratic Presidential Nominee. We will do this before most of the other states have done so. After our votes are counted, and they will be counted, the rest of the country will hear and will be influenced by the Florida results.

That is exactly the goal all Floridians have had in mind when the whole discussion of moving the primary date up began. Floridians were sick and tired of having our nominees selected by small, non diverse states. We were getting stuck with candidates whose plan to win in the South was to win New Hampshire. My apologies to my friends in Massachusetts, but Democrats lost two presidential elections we might have won because these small non diverse states picked nominees who could not win in Florida. Now Floridians are going to have a real voice in who our Party's nominee is going to be.

Here is something else to keep in mind. The Presidential candidates do not go to Iowa and New Hampshire for the massive number of delegates they win by competing there. They go there because these states are first and thus have major influence on the entire process. Florida will now share in that influence.

Our voices will be heard and our votes will count.

The MSM Is Starting To Get It

The St. Petersburg Times has this story today on the Florida Primary and Hillary Clinton. And while it is harder to see in the web version, the Times is finally starting to get it about the January 29th Florida Primary.

Buried several paragraphs into the story about Clinton's visit to Florida yesterday is this little gem:

Scoring well in Florida is important, even if the votes technically don't count, given the state's size.

Finally! I have been saying exactly that for quite some time now. And in the print edition, the inside headline reads like this:

Even if the votes don't count, Winning Florida Important

They are still on the "votes don't count" meme, but at least they are starting to recognize the vast other benefits of winning in Florida.

So keep beating the drum, folks. You are having an impact!

This story is also on the Buzz here. Be sure to get over there and put in your 2 cents. :)

Susan S - On the Money Again

Susan S, whose courage to stand up for the truth translated into a Top of The Rec List Diary on DailyKos, has done it again. After the St. Petersburg Times mischaracterized her confrontation with Sen. Bill Nelson on FISA at Nelson's Pasco County Town Hall Meeting on Monday, Susan did not take it sitting down.

Susan wrote this excellent letter to the editor of the Times. The Times article characterized Susan's challenge to Nelson this way:

Why did he vote for a bill that allows expanded secret eavesdropping of foreign terrorists' phone calls?

Susan, in her letter, points out that her actual questions was:

why did he trust the Bush administration with expanded power to spy on American citizens without a warrant?

Susan's letter goes on to what, for me, is the money quote:

My outrage and that being expressed in editorials around the country is not about spying on foreign terrorists, it's about spying on American citizens.

This type of inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media (on the meaning of the FISA vote) is exactly the reason that an embarrassing number of American citizens still think Saddam was involved in the planning of 9/11. It might also explain why the public hasn't taken to the streets with pitchforks over the decimation of our Constitution by the Bush administration and its enablers in Congress.

I stopped writing this post to watch Kos and Harold Ford on Meet The Press. One of the points that stuck me in that "debate" was Markos saying that his biggest accomplishment was providing a forum where politicians and citizens could could converse without the mainstream "media filter". After MTP, I watched Harold Troxler on Brendan McLaughlin's excellent show, Flashpoint. At the end of their discussion McLuaghlin asked Troxler about the future of the printed newspaper. Troxler was quite right in describing the need amongst the public for good journalistic information. Maybe the newspaper poohbahs ought to be thinking more about the filters they put on that information.

Thank you, Susan, for exposing that MSM filter. I also want to thank you for giving credit where credit is due. You rightly pointed out that Congresswoman Kathy Castor voted against the FISA bill, as did the vast majority of the Democrats in Congress. Now we just need to keep working on our recalcitrant minority Dems.