Alex Sink may have been a mediocre candidate but Republican David Jolly wasn't any better. And Sink had the advantage of running in a blue-leaning district that Obama won against McCain in 2008 and against Romney in 2012… and that Bill Nelson won against Connie Mack in the 2012 Senate race. On top of that, Sink spent way more money-- $3,195,638 to his $1,616,137.
Steve Israel to 25 DCCC field organizers in Florida: "Get out of Dodge, STAT!"I was surprised to wake up the morning after the FL-13 debacle and find a comment by an Alex Sink field volunteer on our election night coverage post. She started by asserting that the field director "was a pompous drunk, who held no-one anymore accountable than he did himself.
Last night a dull, uninspiring centrist advocating the politics of Beltway centrism-- despite the focus-group-tested message in the ad above (the last one run by the doomed Alex Sink campaign)-- was defeated by a weak and generic Republican lobbyist. Sink was defeated on election day by poorer-than-expected turnout among Democrats and left-leaning independents, after a surprisingly decent showing in early voting. Lots of TV ads do not make up for a weak message (Chained CPI, for example) and a weaker ground game.
)Earlier this evening David Jolly beat Alex Sink 88,294 (48.43%) to 84,877 (46.56%), with Libertarian Lucas Overby taking 8,799 (4.83%).This morning, PPP reported that the Democrats reclaimed the lead in the generic 2014 congressional ballot, 43-40% after being down below generic Republicans by 2 points in the last survey. "Congressional Democrats have poor approval numbers, at a 35/56 spread, but that puts them far ahead of Congressional Republicans who come in at 23/67.
A week from tomorrow there's a crucial primary in central Illinois' swingy 13th congressional district. It pits progressive physics professor George Gollin against a Machine-backed run-of-the-mill hack, Ann Callis. Tomorrow, however, there's a special election in the 13th congressional district of another state, Florida.
Sad when cowardly Democrats bend over backwards to play the dipshit bipartisan game with always ill-intentioned Republicans. And it never pays off… at least not for Democrats. In the video above, Alan Grayson explains the "misconception that the best way to elect more Democrats is to have them run as Republicans." It's Steve Israel's basic philosophy as DCCC chairman. And Grayson, wisely, warns, "that's just wrong… Voters deserve a choice. They deserve an honest answer to their questions and they deserve an actual choice on the ballot.
Because the Cook Report is slightly skewered towards conservatives, their PVIs are generally a full point or two more Republican. Or, pout another way, the PVI are as much as 12-18 months behind demographic changes in districts. Always a rearview mirror operation rather than a forward-looking predictor, Cook rarely gets anything right-- until the day after an election. FL-13, entirely within Pinellas County, was gerrymandered in 2010 to make it safer for Republicans by taking out the African-American areas of south St Petersburg and dumping them into FL-14 (D+13).
The DCCC and NRCC have already spent over half a million dollars in FL-13 smearing, respectively, NRCC candidate David Jolly and DCCC candidate Alex Sink. The DCCC spent $288,151 last week and the NRCC put in , $220,049 last week (bringing their total to $353,419). Two other especially sleazy outfits have jumped in, one on behalf of Jolly, (the Allen West Guardian Fund- $36,930) and one on behalf of Sink (EMILY's List- $15,264).
Sink, Bircher, Jolly, Peters, some other guyOnce Bill Young announced his retirement October 9 and then quickly died on October 18, we've written about the campaign to replace him in FL-13 a few times (here and
Becerra, Grayson, Ellison-- actual leaders, not money-grubbersI'm never really comfortable with a corrupt out-of-touch Beltway committee parachuting into an American congressional district and telling the Democrats there who their candidate for Congress should be. In the old days, even the worst DCCC chairmen-- think Rahm Emanuel-- used to tip-toe, at least publicy, around interfering in primaries.
