Nine Florida candidates among DFA's Grassroots All-Stars

Democracy for America's 2008 Grassroots All-Stars vote is underway, and I was thrilled to find nine candidates from Florida in the running, including my personal favorite, Clint Curtis! You may already know Clint as the election integrity advocate who challenged Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) for the FL-24 seat in 2006. And there's great news - Clint just received the endorsement of the local Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) regularly honors Mr. Feeney as one of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress.

Clint is taking on Feeney again this year, and in addition, must defeat two other Democratic challengers in the primary: Suzanne Kosmas, a former Florida state representative and realtor in New Smyrna Beach, and Gaurav Bhola, a business development specialist with no public service experience.

Make no mistake - Clint is the true grassroots candidate, and his success in the DFA All-Star competition will provide a tremendous boost to his campaign and help him kick "Teflon Tom" Feeney to the curb.

Therefore, I humbly ask that you vote for Clint as one of DFA's 2008 All-Stars. And I'll totally be your best friend and everything!

Our friend Christine Jennings (FL-13) is also in the running. Ms. Jennings hardly needs an introduction here, as it's impossible to forget the debacle that was the 2006 FL-13 election, in which 18,000 votes went mysteriously unregistered. Ms. Jennings is not giving up, though, and she has been endorsed by EMILY'S List. FL-13 is currently held by Vern Buchanan, who was seated by the Florida legislature despite the lack of resolution on the vote irregularity issue.

As I reviewed the other Florida candidates, I was especially pleased that two of them put the environment high up on their priorities lists. Stephen Blythe (FL-15), is a lifelong environmentalist and Sierra Club member. Florida's natural bounties are increasingly under threat from overdevelopment, poor land use planning, and climate change, and we need representatives in Congress who will fight to protect them and all of America's environmental treasures. Dr. Blythe is also a physician, and must know firsthand the struggles uninsured patients contend with; he supports a national health care plan. Dr. Blythe is challenging Republican incumbent Dave Weldon.

Next up is Corbett Kroehler for FL-08, currently held by Ric Keller. Mr. Kroehler is a member of his local Nature Conservancy chapter, as well the local Sierra Club chapter, for which he serves as Chairman of Energy Issues on the Executive Committee. He's studied climate change thoroughly and understands the dangers faced by everyone on Earth if we don't act quickly to curb it. Mr. Kroehler has also been endorsed by the Greater Orlando PDA.

Other Florida DFA All-Star candidates include:

• Lawrence Byrnes in FL-14
• Bill Mitchell in FL-09
• Samm Simpson in FL-10
• Mike Smith and Quoc Van, both in FL-08. (Lots of folks sure seem to want to get rid of Ric Keller!)

Although I didn't elaborate on some of the candidates, this in no way means I don't think they're worthy. I just wanted to focus on the particular ones who matter most to me: Clint Curtis, because I live in FL-24; Christine Jennings, because of Kossacks' outrage over the FL-13 voting problem; Dr. Blythe and Mr. Kroehler due to their strong environmental focus, which is also my top concern. I trust all of you to research the other potential All-Stars and decide which three are most deserving.

As long as you make one of them Clint Curtis! ;-)

Intro; DFA Training Academy in Tampa

Hello fellow Sunshine State Kossacks. I'm PattyP (obviously, heh) and I've been a registered DailyKos user since around March 2005, smack in the middle of the nationwide Terri Schiavo tragedy and Pope John Paul II dying. What a time I picked to introduce myself to the blogosphere, I tell you what. I'd like to thank gatordem for adding me to the Florida Kossacks posting roll a few weeks ago. My own blog is called spacebawl; it doesn't have any specific focus at the moment, but I'm going to try to write more on local politics as well as post more frequently, both here and there.

I recently started attending some of the City Council and Board meetings of my relatively small central-east coast town of South Daytona and would like to report on them, assuming that's not too narrow a focus for this blog. No doubt it will include some Volusia County and Florida legislature stuff as well. I'm also supporting Clint Curtis for Congress in U.S. House District FL-24, home of the notoriously corrupt and all-around icky Tom Feeney, and will no doubt write about this race from time to time. My primary political concerns are environmental protection and separation of church and state, which is certainly not to say I don't care about other issues, but that I really need to focus on just a few due to time and brain cell constraints. ;-)

Other than that, as my DailyKos bio says, I'm a librarian living in Florida with four cats, many plants, and varying numbers of tropical fish - that about sums it up. For some time I've been pondering the best topic for my first post here, but have yet to come up with one, so I figured a brief introduction is as good as anything.

I also wanted to mention that I'l be attending the Democracy for America Training Academy to be held in Tampa, Florida at the end of June. I would imagine most everyone here is familiar with the DFA Training Academies, but just in case, please check out the link. They did one in Orlando a couple years ago and a friend of mine who attended was very happy with it and learned a lot. If any Florida Kossacks are also planning to attend the Tampa training, let's try to meet up and "introduce" ourselves in meatspace. If anyone has attended previous academies, I welcome your reviews as well as advice for getting the most out of them.

The recent Florida Progressive Coalition posts on what's wrong with the Florida progressive blogosphere were very enlightening and I'll keep those suggestions in mind when I write. One thing that will be difficult for me to do is post frequently due to my work schedule, but I will endeavour to post regularly. I welcome constructive criticism so don't hesitate to offer it. I will do my best to be a productive contributor and look forward to working with all of you to Blog Florida Blue!