while i think it would be great for someone to write a history of southern progressives in florida, and especially about the yeoman's work done by askew, chiles and others in working to resolve racial and social injustice here, i'm not at all surprised that you didn't found something on the web about events that took place in the early 90s.
this is not the first time i've mentioned this. clinton refused funding for the florida democratic party at various times in his first few years -- resulting in the considerable loss of stature for the party and the loss of the state headquarters building it owned in tally. southern progressives were shunned by the white house, and two of them were refused credentials at the 1996 convention ("we have replaced you," they were told). local parties were told that they would only be supported by the dnc "once they were rid of the troublemakers (the experienced activists who elected askew and chiles)."
numerous meetings were held where national party officials remmed out florida democratic party leaders because they wouldn't denounce reubin askew (especially). there was only one way -- the dlc/centrist approach of bill clinton and his people. i know that i can specifically remember the chair of the dnc telling us "we were not southerners" (which is true for some of the state) and that we needed to start acting like south'ners (iow, much more conservative) in order to support the president. most floridians didn't realize that they couldn't do both.
bill clinton himself admitted to telling his contributors that they weren't supposed to contribute to the florida democratic party. i remember raising this specifically with al gore in the summer of 2000, when he came to florida to prepare for his debate with bush. i told him specifically that he couldn't count on florida because clinton had destroyed the party here. "i know," is the response i recall (sarah, his health care advisor, might remember more specifically).
this is not news. it is only relevant when you want to put florida in the blue column. catfish isn't interested in that at all. he's trying to divide democrats, and using hero worship in this particular instance as his mechanism. the fact is that anyone trying to organize this state for democrats understands the challenges left behind by clinton's destructive behavior more than a decade ago. basically, the obama campaign is starting from square one here in florida. pretty much outside the clinton favorites of dade, broward, west palm and hillsborough, there is no real organization to speak of on the democratic side. the county i'm in (brevard) has barely a third of the number of precinct captains that it had a decade ago. the same is true of polk and volusia counties.
for those of us in florida, it's time to pick up the load and deliver. sitting in front of the computer -- especially in the attempt to divide democrats, like catfish does -- doesn't cut it. obama has no voter id's, no volunteer lists, no ground game to graft onto. all it has, from what i can tell, are the people who have expressed interest in electing democrats online. florida is the state were the netroots has to step up and step into the vacuum.
trying to sustain one's hero worship of a long-gone president just because they don't want to know about the bad things he did doesn't help. it only makes democrats weaker. but i am quite certain that is catfish's goal. i'm just not playing along...
do you have any idea why Clinton did this? Was it personal animosity between him and Askew/Chiles?
i don't know of any animosity between clinton and the florida southern progressives. but jimmy carter is also in the same category (although not nearly as successful as reubin askew was in using education to resolve problems of segregation and racial/social injustice), and some people felt that we (florida) took the brunt of clinton's strong feelings about carter...
Brilliant comment. Some of the most interesting insider stuff I've read here. Thanks.
But then I moved to Florida in '99, after all of the stuff described here. I did talk to Lawton Chiles at the '96 convention, but in that context there was no way he would have brought up what you describe.
I will say that I am amazed at the state of the FDP. It was when I moved here, and still seems to me, horribly underfunded and undermanned. Now my perception may be wrong (I moved to Florida from Vermont where there is a strong Democratic Party) but every race I have seen has featured underfunded Democrats.
Example: everyday I drive thorough the heart of the African American community in Tampa. I seldom see any signs or evidence of organization. Even in 2000 I recall precisely 1 person doing visability on election day in the African American Community in Tampa.
but it also used to be based out of central florida (before there was really an i-4, let alone i-4 corridor). chiles was from lakeland, mckay from deland (askew came from somewhere in the panhandle, where democratic infrastructure was also decimated in the 1990s). in the 1970s, the local county democratic parties (again, volusia over to polk, excepting seminole and osceola) had full slates of precinct leadership and monthly party meetings were mandatory. it was a vibrant party, with its own internal squabbles, and in many places, the primary determined everything.
the thing that president clinton did that was really destructive was openly taking sides in the internal battles (that pitted southern progressives against more conservative dems, usually aligned with the developers and major property owners). our loose confederation, where primary battles were fierce -- and for all the marbles -- were suddenly open wounds with profound resentments. the fact is, clinton choose the wrong side, not just on the issues of desegregation and education, because republicans had been taking the mainstays of the more conservative democrats away from the florida democratic party since the mid-1980s. not too many developers, grove owners or ranchers who are democrats anymore (and even the environmentally conscious developers, like jim swann, are still republicans).
african-american leadership not specifically loyal to clinton got purged. all of the florida civil rights leadership here when i was growing up was. the clinton administration denied federal funds to urban leagues in central florida whose leadership were not chosen by the clintons. welfare reform was not the only place where african americans got shafted by the clinton administration. while there are black dems who are extremely grateful to the clintons, i know more than a few who have long resented the interference of the clintons in the florida democratic party, not because they dislike the clintons per se but because they choose the side of the dying (or departing) elements inside the party. which is not to say that those clintonians who remained and came to lead the florida dems represent the centrist/conservative lines that the clintons choose in the 90s. but by then, the southern progressive tradition of askew and chiles had been pretty much purged inside the party. moderates grew more conservative because there was no "left wing" elements inside the party to counterbalance the centrists who remained. i personally consider florida democrats profoundly conservative by national ideological standards because of this...
