Florida held a primary election yesterday. Democrats overwhelming chose Charlie Crist, an elderly white man, as their candidate to challenge Ron DeSantis. The 66-year-old won by 60:35 (CNN) over the 44-year-old Nikki Fried. (Voting was suppressed by Florida’s ID check requirement, yet CNN reports that millions of Floridians managed to vote anyway.)
DeSantis desperately needs to win in November, simply to keep his family housed. He had a net worth of $319,000 at the end of 2021 (law.com), not enough to buy a 1BR condo in a decent neighborhood thanks to Florida Realtor of the Year 2020 Andrew Cuomo and Florida Realtor of the Year 2021 Charlie Baker (of Maskachusetts).
As with other Democrats, Nikki Fried says that Republicans are “a danger to democracy”. Now that the Democrats control both the White House and Congress and talk about “treason,” “insurrection,” and “democracy in peril,” why don’t they imprison and/or execute Republicans in order to save our fragile democracy? A couple of examples:
“Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our national security, but Ron DeSantis is the greatest threat to democracy.” A person who lacks even the power to collect income tax is the greatest threat to American democracy, in other words (most taxing power in Florida belongs to the counties).
If Democrats believe what they’re saying, why don’t they take real action to eliminate Republicans from the United States? If they don’t believe what they’re saying, why are they saying these things?
We know that she was against Ron DeSantis and his plan to end American democracy. What was Nikki Fried actually for? Abortion care and marriage for members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community:
CNN agrees that the most important question facing Florida voters is whether abortion care should be limited to 15 weeks into a pregnant person’s pregnancy (3 weeks more than in most European countries) or if abortion care should be available as part of reproductive health care at 34 weeks, as is legal in Maskachusetts (the law) or Colorado (Wikipedia).
(It’s the “abortion fight” and not the “abortion care fight”? Where are the copy editors at CNN?)
How about the old white guy who won? He promises “reproductive freedom” and is endorsed by Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest provider of pregnancy-ending reproductive health care (abortion care to more than 300,000 pregnant people every year):
Charlie Crist also promises to consider a state-wide governor-ordered mask mandate (source). This is against the spirit of Florida law, passed by the legislature and signed by Governor DeSantis, but maybe not against the letter of the law since it could be a state-level order instead of one imposed by counties or school districts.
The Feds had to force companies to hire those over 40 but even this law allowed putting anyone over 65 out to pasture if important decisions were being made in that position. Given how much prejudice there is against hiring old people for regular jobs, I am mystified by American voter behavior in favor of the elderly for seemingly much more important jobs (state governor, President of the US, etc.).
Who wants to forecast the Crist v. DeSantis result in November? It was 49.6:49.2 for Ron D. back in 2018, but Democrats were a majority of Florida’s registered voters then. If we go by simple party registration (source) DeSantis wins by 51:49. However, my bet is that DeSantis gets a boost of 2 points from young people who don’t want to be locked down and/or ordered to wear masks the next time a respiratory virus appears. And then he gets another 3-point boost from parents of K-12-age students who don’t want to see public schools (a.k.a. “free daycare”) shut down. So that would be a 56:44 victory for DeSantis. It is rare for Floridians to say much about politics beyond Palm Beach County, but the most common expression that I have heard is gratitude to Ron DeSantis for keeping schools open and preventing local Covidcrats from imposing their Science-guided will regarding masks, vaccine papers checks, lockdowns, etc. The second most common expression is from older Democrats who are transplants from the Lands of Science, cursing DeSantis for failing to follow Science. So the 2018-2022 result spread will be an interesting referendum on the voter-perceived appropriate level of coronapanic!
Related:
- “Most DeSantis-endorsed school board candidates win their Florida primaries” (Politico): “The majority of local school board candidates backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis — at least 21 out of 30 — won their elections Tuesday, results that underscore how the Republican governor’s stance on education has gained support throughout Florida. … DeSantis-backed candidates also scored big wins in Miami-Dade County, another school board that went against Republicans on masking students. In one race, Monica Colucci, an educator with GOP support, defeated Marta Perez, a 24-year school board member despite raising about $70,000 less than her opponent.”
“The second most common expression is from older Democrats who are transplants from the Lands of Science, cursing DeSantis for failing to follow Science” Since you (Phil our fine host) may be in this group how will you vote?
TS: Thank you for reminding me that I am, indeed, potentially ancient enough to benefit from a robust lockdown that ends COVID-19 (i.e., a Chinese-style lockdown, not a Maskachusetts-style one in which liquor and marijuana stores remain open while adults meet on Tinder and Grindr). And, of course, despite having been educated as a mere engineer, I have tremendous respect for Science and its followers. On the other hand, we have kids in K-12, which makes us three-issue voters: schools, schools, and schools. Sadly for the gerontocracy, therefore, I fear that we must vote for the 43-year-old tyrant Ron DeSantis (he’s a “dictator”, but somehow needs our votes?) due to his promise to keep the schools open. Crist’s “I would be open to doing what scientists advise” means that there is a high risk of school closure because that is Science’s first and best idea for controlling any virus that primarily afflicts the elderly.
One knock against DeSantis is that he has not arranged travel for any migrants to migrant-welcoming neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., NYC, Martha’s Vineyard, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. His stated excuse is that Joe Biden has not provided him with a sufficient supply of migrants (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/23/desantis-florida-immigration-biden-00053322 ). But it is tough to believe that in a state of 21+ million people there aren’t at least some migrants who would prefer to be receiving means-tested benefits in a more generous state. According to Table 4 in https://www.cato.org/white-paper/work-versus-welfare-trade-2013 , Florida is not one of the best states for enjoying the taxpayer-funded lifestyle.
News from the South-Alabama part of Florida: DeSantis’ chosen candidate for school board lost. In one 3-line ad, she had a misspelled word, but that may have been an intentional appeal to the snaggle-toothed MAGA crowd.
Factoid: Us independents (labelled “No Party Affiliation”) are the plurality in Florida, 30 percent.
So you’re saying NY & Greenspunchussets conspired to raise Fl* housing prices by making their states intolerable. Waiting for a blog post about how our next bosses are getting a $20,000 student loan bailout for their basket weaving degrees.
>> (abortion care to more than 300,000 pregnant people every year)
Priceless. I’m consistently amazed and entertained by your mastery of the woke dialect.
I don’t know enough about Florida recently to give an informed answer, but I accept your baseline prediciton. One big factor, I’d imagine, is the “October Surprise” phenomenon, in which DeSantis falls into an open manhole after being accused of bestiality with an 11 year old dog and firing a machine gun at an effigy of Gavin Newsom. You know something is coming: DeSantis has done much too good a job of dodging the incoming fire so far, and the big guns will be brought to bear. I’ve just about given up on this country, so we’ll see.
Next month’s reads:
Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China
I listend to one of the authors (Michael Beckley) today being interviewed by the guy who stands in for Terry Gross on NPR’s “fresh air” while she’s on vacation and he made a persuasive case that America may very well be at war with China – soon – for a wide variety of reasons. He thinks they may touch it off out of their own equivalent of “fear aggressiveness” if you will. If anyone can find a more conservative counterpoint to this book, I’m all ears, but I was impressed by a couple of his arguments.
https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Zone-Coming-Conflict-China/dp/1324021306
And this looks like a lot of fun:
“Politics of Control: Creating Red Culture in the Early People’s Republic of China”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824884574/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0
To explain more: > “So the 2018-2022 result spread will be an interesting referendum on the voter-perceived appropriate level of coronapanic!”
See, there’s ‘yer problem. If the election is that referendum, DeSantis will win – maybe by a larger majority than you think. The Donks know that, so they have to Change the Subject by roasting DeSantis in something nastier than hell in the next two months. And they are just the people to do it.
It seems to require being old to have had enough time to cultivate enough political favor within the party elite and with rich donors to be successful at that level of politics. Being white helps though Obama (and Florida’s last D candidate for governor) showed it is not strictly necessary.
The challenge for women is that they might be expected to take the Kamala strategy for obtaining political favor. And her strategy is only effective up to a certain age, at which point no one wants that type of favor from her anymore. And so if she hasn’t built up a strong enough base of power by then, it’s game over. In Kamala’s particular case, the fact that absolutely no one is talking about her as a viable Biden replacement in 2024 suggests that she has not.
Who wants to forecast the Crist v. DeSantis result in November?
DeSantis by 6%. Not to worry though he will go and throw his hat into the ring for the POTUS.
I can’t blame the Dem electorate for choosing the geriatric nobody over the brazenly moronic woke organism identifying as a human woman. Must be really hard to live while being THAT stupid.