Small Biz Likes Hillary, But

Last Friday, masslib posted this diary titled "Hillary Favored by Small Business Leaders". masslib had picked up this story about MarketTools Inc.'s Zoomerang online survey of small business leaders. And the diary was quite right that Hillary Clinton was favored for President by 22% of the survey respondents with Rudy Giuliani coming in second at 17%. That diary drew quite a number of comments (90 as of this writing).

However, I found the press release on the Inc.-Zoomerang Entrepreneurial Report. And to my mind, there is much bigger news in this report than the fact that Hillary is first choice of 22% of the survey respondents.

How can that be, you say? Follow me below the jump...



Some of you of you may remember that I have advocated before that small business leaders are a constituency for the taking for Democratic candidates. In my diary last year, How to Talk to Small Business People , I wrote:

Small Business People also vote overwhelmingly Republican. They are mistaken in their understanding of what the Republican Party stands for (by its deeds, not by its words).

Well, this survey indicates that small business people are finally getting it! Here is the subtitle to the aforementioned Zoomerang press release:

Independent Voters and Health Care
Put Republicans at Risk of Losing Traditionally Loyal Constituency

In fact, the survey numbers show Republicans and Democrats in a dead heat for the votes of small business leaders. Considering that a US Chamber of Commerce survey taken in the lead-up to the 2004 election found that

77% of small businesses said that re-electing President George W. Bush would have a positive impact on their businesses

running neck and neck with the Republicans at this stage is huge.

But the news for Democrats gets better yet. This constituency is there for the taking. All they need is someone to talk to them. Again from the Inc.-Zoomerang Entrepreneurial Report:

85 percent believe that the current crop of presidential candidates do not focus enough on their issues.

and

80 percent of the business leaders surveyed feel that government doesn’t do enough to help growing business and is more focused on big business.

Small business people are finally getting it. They now are starting to understand that the Republican Party is and always has been the party of big business, not small business. Here's another tidbit from the survey that is very enlightening - 71% of small business leaders surveyed believe that aggressive corporate lobbying hurts competition.

Democratic candidates need to speak directly to the concerns of these small business leaders. Look at this from the Inc.-Zoomerang press release:

In another surprising turnaround, the report shows that this traditionally anti-tax and anti-regulatory constituency today chooses health care as the number one issue impacting their vote. A majority, 57 percent, say that a regulated health care system would be good for growing businesses.

Now there's an issue that belongs to the Democrats if there ever was one.

Gators - Noles - Voter Turnout?

Today is the day the Florida legislature wrought - the annual UF - FSU football game. Back in the day when FSU was recovering from its start in life as the Florida State College for Women, The University of Florida had no interest in engaging the FSU upstarts on the gridiron. It actually took the threat of a legislative mandate for the Gators to agree to play the girls school. But what a rivalry it has become!

Ok having got that out of the way, what in the heck does that have to do with voter turnout? Well, people are going to turn out in droves for the game today. Florida Field will be jammed to the rafters with well over 90,000 in the stands. The bars will be packed with Noles and Gator fans cheering for their teams. And the number of game day parties are literally too numerous to count. And all for a football game? Well, yeah.

The game will be played, one team will win and secure the bragging rights for the year. But other than that, will the game really affect your life all that much? Answer - no, not really.

But how about the impact of the next person to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Or the next Member of Congress from the _ _ District of Florida? Or the next state legislator or Governor? How do we get people as fired up for these things that truly make a difference in our lives as they do for the big game?

That may actually be the answer - convincing potential voters that they can make a difference. You would think that it wouldn't be that hard to do in Florida, of all places. After all, just seven years ago, 537 votes made all the difference in the world. Yet we still get elections like the recent special election for the state House where only 3.5% of the registered voters in Broward County bothered to vote. Or the recent City Council elections in St. Petersburg where we got a whopping 11% voter turnout. And those are just the registered voters. Who knows what a miserable number it would be if we were measuring all potentially eligible voters?

Well, I'll tell you it doesn't help when we get quotes like this:

"She's relentless and she knows Iowa," Davis said. "She's terrific at organizing volunteers and building grass roots. In a state like Iowa, that's important. Florida is more of a TV state where field operations don't matter as much."

That was Jim Davis talking about his campaign manager, Jennifer O'Malley, who is now John Edwards State Director in Iowa. Well, you know I love ya Jim, but those kind of quotes don't help us much. Field operations always matter. And to my way of thinking, they actually matter more in Florida than they do in Iowa. That's because everybody gets it in Iowa and they go all out on their ground game. Here, the team with the better ground game stands a much better chance of winning.

Even Joe Biden, who's campaign manager used to be the Executive Director of the FDP doesn't get it:

"You can't campaign like this in Florida," said Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. "What do you have, 17-million people? In the last two years, I will have probably met with 60,000 Iowans who plan to caucus. Only in a small state can you do that."

Well, sure you can, Joe. You just need to turn as many of those 60,000 folks as you can into volunteers for you. You don't do it because you don't try. And if you don't try, you don't win.

I assure you, those young men on the field in Gainesville today will be trying.

How to Run a Primary Campaign Without the Candidates

OK, it's Thanksgiving and football games haven't started yet, so I've got a couple minutes on my hands. Let me pose this question: How do we run presidential primary campaigns here in Florida without the candidates?

Florida's presidential preference primary will be held on January 29th. That's just 67 days away. And it will be one week before Super Duper Tuesday on February 5th when so many other states are going to vote. So Florida's voice will have influence this cycle.

The question becomes, how do we begin to make this a fair contest in Florida if the candidates can't campaign here?


This diary is not about all the silliness that has brought us to this point. This diary really is about how do supporters of the various candidates actually mount campaigns without the overt presence of the campaigns and the candidates?

Since we are going to go before Super Duper Tuesday, and our results will be all over the media for that week, what are we going to do to make sure that the voters get a chance to really know the candidates before they go into the voting booth?

You will notice that so far this diary is full of questions and not any answers. I really don't purport to have the answers and I want to hear from y'all. I do have the thought that as members of the Florida blogosphere community and with our commitment to Blog Florida Blue, that we ought to be thinking about how to make that happen.

And we better do it quickly.

Giving Thanks for a Wonderful Year

Yes, Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. I am thankful for many things, including the past year (almost) that Florida Kossacks has been in existence. So, I thought I'd get a jump start on the New Year's look back posts and do mine now at Thanksgiving and as we approach the one year anniversary of the Florida Kossacks blog.

It all started on November 28, 2006 my __th birthday. And as the first post said:

We can blame this whole thing on Susan S. She thought a Tampa Bay Kossack email list would be a good thing to put together after the election. I thought that was such a good idea that I have been trying to expand it across Florida.

Maybe that is why Susan S was named Netroots Activist of the Year? Well, probably not the only reason.

Before November 2006 was out, we went on to blog about the FL-13 Re-Vote Rally and the word on the street about Florida moving up it's Presidential Preference Primary. Have we been talking about that for a whole year?

Tally kicked off December 2006 with a couple of extremely thoughtful posts titled The Future and The Plan. Tally, where ya been buddy? We miss ya.

December went on the bring the start of my "How to Talk to" series. (I need to get back to that.) The series in December included How to Talk to Fear Mongers, How to Talk to the Main Stream Media and How to Talk to Small Business People. More on small business people in the very near future. Stay tuned.

December ended with a couple of very silly predictions posts here and here. At least I got the things about the Florida Gators winning national championships and Al Gore winning the Oscar right.

As this year started, I blogged about taking local action. We also had the special election in HD-3, which Tally blogged here and here. We lost that special election because we did not get our vote out. This caused me to write about one of my really pet peeves in What Every So Called Political Professional Needs to Know .

In March we got a significant victory as Mary Mulhern was elected to the Tampa City Council, defeating an incumbent Republican. And if you don't do anything else, check out the video of Mitch Kates at the Mulhern victory party. If that doesn't get you fired up, I don't know what will.

And of course in the spring we also had the regular session of the Florida Legislature. There was a lot of talk, but no action, on property taxes at this session. Seems this is something else we are still talking about. We did get paper ballots and the beginning of the messy debate about moving up the presidential preference primary.

It was in early May, however, that what I feel is the most significant piece of the year was posted on this blog. Blog Florida Blue starts out like this:

Last week, representatives from the Florida Progressive Coalition , Florida Netroots and Florida Kossacks held a conference call with staff from the Florida Democratic Party. The topic of the call was upcoming opportunities for bloggers to interact with the FDP, particularly at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in June and at the FDP Convention in October.

It wasn't the post, really, that was significant as it was the meeting and what came out of it. Meowmissy had gotten a ball rolling that resulted in the Bloggers / Netroots Luncheon at the FDP's Jefferson Jackson weekend in June, the Netroots Conference at the FDP Convention in October and the formation and official induction of the FDP Netroots Coalition as an official part of the Florida Democratic Party! And of course, we came up with this wonderful logo




for good measure.

We just came off local elections here in St. Petersburg (see, we're still talking about property taxes) and we are looking intently at the polls for the Florida Presidential Preference Primary on January 29th (still talking about that too.) But I just want to say that I am really thankful for all the new great Democrats I met this year, both online and off. I am really thankful for all the great Democrats I knew before this year as well. I am thankful that , together, we have the opportunity to make a real difference in the elections next year and if we do continue to work together, we will make that difference.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Latest Florida Mason-Dixon Poll

The latest Mason-Dixon poll has the top tier Republican presidential candidates beating Hillary Clinton in the Florida general ection.

Giuliani - 50
Clinton - 43

Romney - 46
Clinton - 45

Thompson - 48
Clinton - 44

The poll shows one in five voters will not vote for a Democrat because of the candidate boycott and the DNC stripping Florida of delegates. Ouch.

Capitol Idea

The Republican Presidential hopefuls are going to be at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petrsburg on Thursday, November 28th. They may alternatively make you mad, sad, glad (that this is the best the Gopers could come up with ) or sick. Who knows, they might even make you laugh.

But, if you want to be at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg and surely laugh, then the night you want to be there is December 3rd. That's when the Capitol Steps will be performing. This is the song and dance troupe made up of Capitol Hill staffers and they are a hoot! No subject is taboo for them and they take everybody and anybody on in a satirical, lyrical way.

Here's all the pertinent info:

People from Washington who actually mean to be funny!

Capitol StepsPolitical Satire at its Finest
presented by Suncoast Tiger Bay Club
Monday, December 3, 7:40 PM
Mahaffey Theater at Progress Energy Center for Performing Arts
400 First ST S, St. Petersburg
Tickets $25, $30 and $35
Charge by phone 727-898-2100, buy online at www.ticketmaster.com,
or available at the Box Office
For more info: www.tigerbay.org

Jeer on the GOP Presidential Hopefuls

This just in from the Pinellas DEC:

Protest Rally in St Peterburg's Pioneer Park - If you saw the St. Pete Times yesterday you would see that the local Republican Party will be hosting a 'pep rally' outside of the UTube Debates on November 28th. However, what you did not read is that many people who oppose the Republican party and its agenda will be rallying at Pioneer Park on this same day. Unlike our Repulican counterparts, you can vote in a straw poll and it WON'T cost you a penny. Many groups will be represented at this rally.

If you are interested in joining us, please let us know. office@pinellasdemocrats.com