--- Clemenza, resident of Boca Raton (1990-1994) and Miami (1999-2002)
"Thanks for all of the info. Just one question: What happened to Penallas County? Did conservatives just pack up and leave?"
"Damn, you are a wealth of information about Florida poltics. What I would like to know is, what happened to the conservatives who used to live in Broward County before the Condo Communists took over in the early 1970s? Did they like disappear into a canal near the Turnpike or something?"
Pinellas County, along with the counties that make up the Gold Coast (centered on Broward & Palm Beach Cos.) initially attracted a lot of older, white-collar, midwestern (think IL suburbanites) and northeastern (think NJ suburbanites) folks (some with wealth, though many middle class) who brought their voting habits down with them and made these areas (Pinellas was about the earliest) Republican in the '50s and early '60s (initially replacing the old rural Conservative Democrats that had been there since time immemorial). However, within 20 years, a lot of the old Yankee Republicans started dying off, and began to become outnumbered by more blue-collar and service-industry types (in Pinellas) and hardcore New Yorker Jewish Democrats in the condos (almost as if all of the NY Congressional districts that were lost since the '50s in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens just packed up and moved to the Gold Coast). If those New Yorkers had stayed put, people like Wexler and Deutsch would be Congressmen from Brooklyn. Add to that a lot of immigrants (aside from the Cubans) who haven't been entirely hospitable to the GOP. While the Pinellas County Congressional district remains largely within its boundaries in the past few decades, the Gold Coast districts increased in number (where there were once only about 2 or 3 Congressional districts in the early '60s, now has about 8 or 9 in the area from Dade up to Palm Beach). If it wasn't for the Cubans, who replaced the near-vanished old-timer GOP voter or the personal appeal of Clay Shaw or Mark Foley (who has more links to the old-time 'Rat Paul Rogers) to 'Rat voters, there would be no GOP Congressmembers in that area of the state at all. It must be noted, though, that even as the old timers were being replaced, some of those 'Rat-trending districts still kept voting GOP at the Presidential level (a lot of disgruntled Jews in the '80 election, for example, gave Reagan percentages that made the districts look as though they had returned to their previous heavy-GOP voting patterns despite the gigantic demographic shift). By the '90s, though, the seats pretty much voted at the Presidential level the same as their Congressmembers' party (with some exceptions, like in Clay Shaw's pre-2002 seat). We're definitely going to have a tough time holding Bill Young's seat when he retires, that is almost certain, after 50 years next year, to go to the 'Rats (although it isn't utterly impossible for us to hold it). As to the descendents of those initial GOP "settlers", I might add, many are still Republican today, but that they have moved to other places in the state (take a look at how Republican the West Coast of FL is exclusive of St. Pete !). Orlando, BTW, is the next victim. That was a heavily GOP enclave, but with non-Cuban Hispanics coming in en masse to work in the service industry, the I-4 corridor is becoming uncomfortably "competitive" after being in the bag for us since the '60s. The GOP legislature had to draw a 'few Rat seats there (succeeding formerly GOP ones) in the most recent reapportionment. That area demonstrates why we've got to continue to have outreach to non-Cuban Hispanics (we were successful with a Mexican 'Rat legislator who switched parties and almost held a GOP-to-redrawn 'Rat seat for us). If the Jewish alignment ever really does occur, it will be very interesting to see who sits in those Gold Coast districts 15 years from now, it might be like the '50s for the GOP all over again... Hope this answers your questions !