Posted on 02/15/2018 11:51:14 AM PST by Liberty7732
Rod Thomson
Republicans lost a seat big in the Florida Legislature Tuesday that carries ridiculously outsized implications — because everything since November 2016 is DefCon 1 Armageddon for Democrats.
In this era of The Woman and #MeToo, the race pitted a female Democrat against a male Republican in a fairly even district. Republican James Buchanan, son of Congressman Vern Buchanan lost to liberal Democrat lawyer Margaret Good. The House District covers northern Sarasota County, including the Democrat-dominated City of Sarasota, and has flipped between Republican and Democrat over the years. Most recently it was held by a Republican who chose to resign half-way through her two-year term, setting up this election.
The Florida Legislature boasts a veto-proof Republican majority and a Republican governor, so this race had no meaningful impact on Tallahassee politics or state governance. It was viewed by desperate Democrats nationally the opportunity to prove a mid-term “wave” coming.
So Democrats, mostly from outside Florida, poured well north of $1 million into the Democrat’s campaign for a seat that will be up for election again in just nine months. Further, former Vice President Joe Biden made robocalls for the Democrat, who raised $541,000 in her campaign, but more than $500,000 more was spent on PACs. Most of this money was from around the country, particularly California.
At the end of the day, with record turnout and gaining most of the No Party Affiliation votes and a small percentage of Republican crossovers, the Democrat won by a substantial 8 percentage points.
This is not a panic moment. But it is one to take seriously and learn from.
Here are five lessons Republicans should take from this loss.
→ 1. Everything is nationalized for Democrats. Therefore Republicans need to continue to get solid, conservative wins in Washington, such as the tax reform package, originalist federal judge appointments and immigration. And President Trump needs to continue leading in the fashion of his home-run State of the Union address. Holding the House, and maybe several state houses, may depend on it
→ 2. This race is not repeatable in November. And this is true with some other special elections recently. Because the entire U.S. House is up for election, one-third of the U.S. Senate and literally thousands of officeholders at the state and local levels. Leading national Democrats cannot make robocalls for each of these and Democrats will not be able to spend enormously out-sized amounts on every race.
→ 3. Maintain the deregulation train. Trump and Republicans need to continue the de-regulation that has been ongoing and that started helping the economy in 2017. A strong economy where American voters feel prosperous and secure can go a long way toward blunting the traditional knockdown of the party in power during a midterm election.
→ 4. The woman thing is real. Numbers don’t lie. The Florida House race saw the highest percentage ever in a special election of women from both parties voting. And it is clear analyzing the numbers that most of the independent women voters and too high a percentage of the Republican women voters filled in the oval for the female Democrat.
→ 5. The scandal wildcard. The growing Obama-FBI-DOJ scandal and diminishing Trump-Russia collusion scandal remain a wildcard. While the public evidence shows the shift in the balance of evidence now pointing at the Obama-Clinton camp, we don’t know what Special Counsel Robert Mueller will do. If he finds more indictments within the Trump camp to hand down in late summer or early fall, that could have a huge impact on the investigation. If Trump appoints a Special Counsel to investigate the Obama-FBI-DOJ scandal, it could have an opposite impact. Or not. Too much unknown and therefore a wildcard.
What is for certain is that the GOP better not take anything for granted in November. Currently improving poll numbers can turn around any time.
The Dems will go to great lengths for even a nominal “propaganda win” and we need to be willing to go to even greater lengths to stop them - the lesson that has been taught for so long is that Republicans tend to get lazy and cheap until things get really bad and then they go into a flurry which they fail to sustain.
Uh, how about don't run a carpet bagging son of a Rhine @real car salesman.
spell-check = RINO.
Something else to consider in this race...
By accounts of other Freepers, the GOP candidate was not a particularly good one. He didn’t live in the district and carpetbagged his way in. His dad, a member of Congress, cleared the path for him to run. The candidate was not a particularly good one out on the campaign field.
To some degree, those flaws helped make the final results appear larger than they were.
Women are a majority in this country. If most of them become convinced to pull the lever for a candidate just because they have a vagina we’re screwed.
Sounds like this district has a lot of stupid women.
The gop candidate was a disaster .
But the district has been flooded with Yankees invaders from the NE and especially NYC and NJ are damn Demrats .
This was a midwestern retiree town but now the NE invaders who ruined
Palm Beach and Martin are heading this way .
I’ve head that about all of the GOP loses since Trump took office. At some point, republicans better get out and vote in these elections or we’re in trouble.
Let me know when the idiot dems come close to picking up a thousand seats(in state legislatures, in governorships, and in the Congress).
They need to average over 100 a yr over
Trump’s 8 years to even get remotely close to what we picked up during Obama’s 8 yrs of incompetency.
While I agree with the article I see it as a simple matter. Democrats are pissed off and want to vote against Trump. Republicans are happy with Trump but they are complacent because he’s in office and so they aren’t running out for these little elections. We’d better reverse that.
Bingo.
“Democrats will not be able to spend enormously out-sized amounts on every race.”
I suspect that the Democratic party funders will break every record in financing these coming elections. They have enormous wealth, beyond ordinary human conception at this point, beyond even their own I think. They have been humiliated and will spend massively to feel better.
Never disscount voting fraud. Those electronic voting machines, electronic scanners and electronic tabulators gotta go. We have to back to paper ballots and manual counts. Hanging chads be damned. We’re gonna loose our country.
The RNC and GOPe will gladly surrender in the 2018 midterms.
Governing is a bore and they dislike Trump as much as the Democrats.
People don’t realize the change that took place with the Obama win...
..The grand total: a net loss of 1,042 state and federal Democratic
posts, including congressional and state legislative seats, governorships
and the presidency.
Democratic U.S. Senate seats fell from 55 to 46. Their share of the House
plummeted from 256 seats to 194. Republicans still control both chambers
going into the next session.
Democratic governerships also became a rarity during this eight-year
period, slipping from 28 to 16.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/27/democrats-lost-over-1000-seats-under-obama.html
Yup. That’s the dynamic in most of these mid-terms after a new president is elected.
Democrats, mostly from outside Florida, poured well north of $1 million into the Democrat’s campaign for a seat that will be up for election again in just nine months. Further, former Vice President Joe Biden made robocalls for the Democrat, who raised $541,000 in her campaign, but more than $500,000 more was spent on PACs. Most of this money was from around the country, particularly California.
I bet we take the seat in November
Thompson is a party brat.
He doesn’t mention that the Republicans ran a piss-poor candidate.
Call me a “broken glass” Trump voter, and my anger/angst to vote is far stronger than all the pu$$hatters across the country — most of whom are concentrated in D/ leftist districts anyway.
Yes, the Ds have a motivated base, but they’re assuming that the Trump base is not motivated — after all this Russia bullcrap and the ongoing hyperbolic sexist, racist, homophobe MSM parade, believe me, we’re angry and we’re going to vote.
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