Lake County's Bigoted History

I should have learned a long time ago that it never was good for Lake County to make national headlines. The possibility the school district may ban all school clubs to make sure a pro-gay club isn't allowed to operate at Carver Middle School leaves me hiding me head in shame once again.

I'm not sure where to start on the bad publicity surrounding this, but a good place is probably the sad history of the Lake County schools' brushes with national attention. I was in high school when the America First controversy garnered attention from across the nation. Those who did not grow up in Lake County can read that link to the New York Times (that's the New York FRIGGIN' Times) for background. The short version is that the School Board, after seeing the Christian Coalition get three members elected on the five-member board, voted to require history classes teach that America was morally superior to all other cultures in the world. It is hard to believe this whole episode happened in the early 1990s.

As someone who lived in the county at that time, I cannot overstate the extraordinary embarrassment foisted upon everybody living there by this utter nonsense. This should not be forgotten by School Board members considering taking a stand firmly on the side of homophobia in a world changing faster that street-front of 441.

As that Times article notes, a political solution was eventually found to the problem with the political ouster of these School Board members, in a Republican primary no less.

But something left unexplored in this article is the long list of specific embarrassments we suffered thanks to this crew. I myself testified in front of a School Board committee at one point because the district, which at the time beamed Channel 1 into classrooms each morning, was planning to censor a report on AIDS which discussed condoms. Because I attended hearings in Tavares, I was one of the only students in the district to see the full report—it did get censored—but I still cannot fathom the logic that mentioning sex in front of teenagers in the context of a terrible and fatal disease was going to be arousing, but going to school uneducated about the dangers of unsafe sex would keep youngsters on the path of the righteous.

If only this was the darkest part of history for education in Lake County. No, that distinction belongs to the entire 28-year reign of Sheriff Willis McCall.

The wickedness of McCall's time as a "law and order man" in Lake County could fill books, but his most notorious interaction with the learning of children likely came in 1954, when the sheriff ejected five Croation children out of a Mount Dora school because they appeared colored. This happened the same year that the Supreme Court declared desegregation illegal in the famous and surely-known-even-in-Lake-County verdict for Brown v. Board of Education. Yet in a public hearing, McCall said the children weren't allowed in white schools, even pointing directly at a 13-year-old girl and declaring he didn't "like the shape of that one's nose."

Right now, school officials in Lake County are concerned the actions of the School Board today will make the county appear out of step with the rest of America. Unfortunately, such action would be par for the course.

In an interesting historic twist, Lake County's Chistian Coalition majority was booted from office by voters the same year Willis McCall died. I naively hoped at a younger age that the county's days of discrimination and its philosophy of supremacy was sent to the hells of history in 1994. Sadly, that does not appear to be so.

It is important to note that a Gay-Straight Alliance, as students at Carver Middle School wish to start today, is devoted to promoting tolerance, not to recruiting homosexuals. It does not seek to "make" kids gay. Likewise, any fears one might have that sexual experimentation was going on within a middle school should want groups like this to be sanctioned and sponsored by professional faculty. That's the way to ensure student's conflict about their personal identity are dealt with in an appropriate setting, not through putting themselves in private, potentially predatory situations.

The issue of fairness should also be considered. The School Board never batted an eye about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (nor should it have). It also hasn't ever stopped clubs with no academic purpose whatsoever to form. At one point, Leesburg High School had a Dungeons and Dragons club.

But I hope above all that the School Board, the next time it meets, considers how their decision on this matter will be viewed in 20 or 60 years. Despite his political popularity at the time, the actions of Willis McCall are viewed universally as monstrous bigotry today. Lake County already looks behind the time on tolerance by entertaining a ban on student groups. If such a ruling is truly put into place now, will the decision in the future be viewed any differently than the actions of McCall?

My genuine fear is that history will see this ban as a continuation of hateful policies. After a few decades pass, there will be visible a clear line from banning Croatians to boasting superiority to banning gays. In every case, brave voices always stood up and said these policies were wrong. Will the Lake County School Board stand with the brave or the bigoted?

Bill McBride, 1945-2012

The news of the passing of Bill McBride took by sorrowful surprise today. Considering the man never was as successful in politics as many of us hoped he would be, I know his death will not be seen widely as a major event. But for so many reasons, I feel loss at the news.

Of course, I have always liked that McBride went to the same high school I did. The notion a Yellowjacket could have become governor of Florida was undeniably appealing from the moment I learned he was pondering entering the race in 2002. But I also appreciated how his small town heritage informed his politics, sometimes to his detriment in terms of strategy but always in a way that earned admiration on a personal level. I think back to how these powerful individuals who lived their lives sweeping the state end to end would always make sure there was never a day when one parent wasn't with their children, even if that meant rejiggering a high-stakes campaign. McBride's family came before his ambition, and I weep today for the now-grown children Bert and Lexi.

McBride, of course, was a remarkably successful lawyer before he tried his hand at statewide politics, so that loss should not be overlooked. In the end, Alex Sink was the more politically successful part of this power couple, something I would never have guessed a decade ago.

I recall when I first met McBride. He was campaigning at a Democratic banquet in Leesburg. His message at the time, that he was a better challenger to Jeb Bush's re-election than the baggage-laden Janet Reno, went over remarkably well with this hometown crowd. In the end, the fact McBride beat Reno and lost to Bush was a lesson to Florida Democrats on being overly cautious. (Could Bush have really bludgeoned Reno with Waco as the country was mounting up for a full-scale war with Iraq?) But for the Democrats at Silver Lake, the simple prospect of having a governor who knew what Lake Griffin looked like in the 1970s and could it to the polluted mess of modern times was enough reason to forgo any other options in the gubernatorial contest.

McBride spoke to me and told me he was already tracking what his hometown paper, The Daily Commercial, was writing about his own bid. He had read a recent article I wrote questioning if McBride, even if he won the nomination, could even carry Lake County in the end (he couldn't, it turned out). But he said he wanted me kept abreast of the race and gave me a direct cell phone number to reach him whenever I needed. Curses, I lost the number pretty quickly, but the campaign kept in touch to the bitter end.

The paper that year was the first in Florida to endorse McBride in the general, a risky move in a Republican County but one which still feels right. The guy was a hometown hero, even if he ended up being a bit politically naive. But I loved that someone growing up in the small town, conservative bastion of Leesburg had, just like myself, grown up realizing progressive policies would benefit the region more than free market-conservatism. The fact he was one of the most successful businessmen in Florida made him a good spokesperson for that message as well.

He wasn't perfect. I recall interviewing him about his longtime relationship with Gary Morse, the politically powerful owner of The Villages, and he simply said "I don't know what your problem with Gary is?" Oh, where to start... But even then, it struck me his failure to support oversight of explosive urban sprawl in the case of The Villages had more to do with misplaces personal loyalty than financial corruption.

I am saddened by news of McBride's death, though not entirely shocked. Even during the race, it was obvious the man was not the poster child for healthy living, and at the paper, we would get calls regularly from people talking about his dramatic shifts in weight. But I certainly wished for a long and happy life for McBride.

Going forward, I pray for Alex Sink and her family, and I hope still for the future McBride tried to achieve. I hope the days of the small town Democrat combining rural values with progressive sense haven't died with him.

RIP

Let The Consternation Begin

We saw it coming. Now the moment has arrived. Charlie Crist, whose early political stances earned him the nickname Chain Gang Charlie, is now a Democrat. From the Tampa Bay Times, which seems to have the fullest account: 
---
Crist... signed papers changing his party from independent to Democrat. He did so during a Christmas reception at the White House, where President Barack Obama greeted the news with a fist bump for the man who had a higher profile campaigning for Obama's re-election this year than any Florida Democrat.
---

The paper goes on to tell some of these reasons Democratic partisans should be happy about this. The man is almost certainly running for governor in two years, and quite frankly would be a slam dunk to kick Gov. Voldemort and his deatheaters back into hiding.

 But all I feel is dread. Why? Because Charlie Crist has done all the things I said last May that would make his worth our consideration as a viable Democratic candidate, and it all makes feel a little ill. Part of it is that the rank political opportunism emanating from the man's political soul smells more than ever precisely because he was willing to do all those things. But strong as well is the fact no politician in the country better exemplifies what is so wrong with the Republican Party post-2010, and what makes the Democratic Party the one which genuinely represents a cross-section of America.

A man who served as the standard bearer for conservative values in a hopeless Senate bid in Florida as recently as 1998 is now treated as an alien at Marco Rubio's tea party. That Democrats will consider a man who even with his rush to the left would be a moderate within our own ranks speaks to the open-minded of those on the left.

 Of course, that also opens our side up to being dragged rightward in the central positions of our party, and that is distressing. Great candidates like Pam Iorio look like moderates today but could be branded communists by the time a primary with Crist was completed. A candidate like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whom I have greatly admired since her days in the state Senate, will get lambasted as Marxists from the start should she enter the race.

But then again, Crist may have done as much as any Florida Democrat to help President Obama win Florida this year. That means a lot with party officials, and more with moderate voters.

So what's a good Democrat to do? I suppose we're back to basics. Fight hard for the candidates we want representing the party in primary season, then going to the general election with whoever comes out alive. I will refrain from attacking Crist with the vigor I did in 2010, but I have not forgotten his roots, even as he has done. And we'll see how the 2014 cycle shakes out.

But somehow, the man who almost single-handedly made the 2010 cycle in Florida the craziest of my lifetime seems poised outdo himself in 2014, and he's doing so with the blessing of my president. This is going to be fun.

This comment says so much about outgoing Rep. Allen "Wild Wild" West: --- “Why would anyone want to get rid of a person that is born and raised in the inner city, third of four generations in the military—just an American success story?” asks West, from the living room of his Palm Beach Gardens home overlooking a pool and golf course. “I’m not some guy that came from a rich political family or anything like that,” he says. “I’m just an everyday guy, but I have a passion for my country.” --- The rest of the Bloomberg BusinessWeek article is great, but that comment truly speaks for itself. I can't imagine anything else that would offer any more insight into this crazy man's outlook on the world and the way it revolves around him.

The Problem With Term Limits

A funny thing happened to a state representative in line for the Speakership. Voters in his own district appear to have fired him this week. From the Ocala Star-Banner: --- In a farewell email to his Republican colleagues on Friday, would-be Florida House Speaker Chris Dorworth says he expects to lose his close race for re-election after a recount. The Lake Mary lawmaker trailed Democrat Mike Clelland, a political newcomer, in central Florida's District 29 by 123 votes pending an automatic recount tentatively set for Sunday. --- This of course shows that the night Tuesday was better for Democrats than we ever dare dream, but it also highlights a little-discussed but very real problem with term limits in the state House. I know, there are so many, but the fact leadership gets decided years in advance is true folly. See, Dorworth was not set to become Speaker this month. He was expected to take House reins in 2014, after a whole 'nother election where all 120 members of the House were to stand for vote. If memory served, this is the first time someone is succession to be speaker has been voted out since term limits truly kicked in after the 2000 election. Since that time, the party caucuses in Tallahassee have early on decided not only the upcoming leader of the party for the next two years, as happens in the U.S. House, but pick leaders the next couple sessions as well. There are often leadership fights along the way to try and change course, and efforts have been made to change the makeup of both the House and Senate through primary challenges by people unhappy with succession plans. But that never works. It takes something like what happened with Dorworth to truly shake up the process. The voters have to do it. Many problems were predicted with term limits such as an outsourced influence of legislative staffs. Other problems have made themselves readily evident, like the too-easily-accepted influence of lobbyists. But this problem is one that comes from the legislators themselves. It makes no sense to plot out future sessions, but it has happened. This means anyone dreaming of leadership is fighting for it the minute they take get sworn in to their freshman term in the House or Senate. That places personal ambition over the higher good of serving your district. My guess, though I certainly haven't followed this one closely, is that voters in Dorworth's Lake Mary district had a problem with that. This problem is systemic. But voters have to realize the consequences of enforcing eight year term limits. Nobody likes politicians, and everyone wants them put in their place, but realize term limits enforce bad behavior and an obsession on Tallahassee politics ahead of what's happening at home.

Don't Let West Make Us Forget Recount Nightmares

One of the sweetest victories for Democrats in Florida this week was the ouster of Allen "Wild Wild" West from the U.S. House of Representatives. After watching West beat Ron Klein last year in the midst of a tea party wave, it felt good to know voters in South Florida wouldn't tolerate this man's insane antics. But the margin of defeat was narrow, and if anyone should be sympathetic to the agony that comes along with losing a close election, it is Florida Democrats.

That's why I think we should resist the temptation to belittle West's recent attempts at getting a hand recount. Now, I can appreciate the irony that after Republicans responded to the 200 election they made  it harder to justify a recount, not easier, West is finding himself a bit outside the margin for having a recount done automatically.

But I also feel strongly that recounts are a good thing. They strengthen democracy and erase hurt feelings, which often come coupled with denial.

Here's the facts: Patrick Murphy won this race by less than 3,000 votes. That's just a 0.66 percent victory, and against a wingnut opponent running in South Florida, Democrats should think twice about gloating with that type of total. In truth, Murphy had plenty of material to bury this guy. Instead, it was a squeaker.

West knows what its like to be on the opposite side of a squeaker too. When he got elected, it wasn't known until morning. But he did end up with a bigger margin than this.

So now he wants a hand count. Honestly, we shouldn't be afraid of that. The odds are statistically very low that a hand count would overturn the results of the election. More importantly, they would only do that if West had in fact won the race.

In the 12 years since Bush v. Gore, voting rights has become too partisan an issue. Democrats have been fighting for ballot access, for transparency in election management, against unaccountable electronic voting machines and against a Legislature that felt the only thing that went wrong with 2000 is that we spent so much time checking the math.

But the reason Democrats left 2000 so bitter is that they felt nobody ever did a full account of the election. Had that happened and Bush was still ahead, even it was by a margin even smaller than 537 votes, we would have licked out wounds and gone home, however unhappy.

The positive when we defeat someone like West by this close a margin is that it will show folks on the right the importance of maintaining integrity in the democratic process. Let West sit there and watch the manual count of more than 318,000 votes. Let Republicans take a close look. Let them wrestle with what to do when someone cast a write-in for Allen West just to have it thrown out because they should have bubbled in his name. Let them see the number of South Florida voters who learned from the Butterfly Ballot to never fill out a ballot incorrectly again.

Let West see more than 160,000 people who came to polls expressly for the purpose of firing him. Let that sink in.

This will be better for democracy. It will be better for disposing of poor feelings among Tea Party Republicans who just can't imagine how Allen West could lose. It will be better for Patrick Murphy to go to Washington with as few people questioning his credibility as possible.

Let Allen West win this one. We already won the round that mattered.

A Great Night in the Sunshine State

After suffering through the demoralizing 2010 cycle, I found myself walking into these elections more pessimistic than in the past, but the voters of Florida surprised me in a pleasant way. I'd love to congratulate such great Democrats as Bill Nelson, Joe Garcia, Patrick Murphy, Lois Frankel and—of course—President Barack Obama.

But Florida Democrats also need to understand a world exists tomorrow where Obama will never be on a ballot again and where liberals must find a way to incite minority voting during years when such an inspirational figure is no on the ballot. We can beat the economic inanity of Mitt Romney, the bigotry of Allen West and the pure corruption of Joe Garcia in a year like this, but we need to find out ways to do it in off years as well.

I know this blog has been largely dead this cycle, but I will try to get some port-mortem stuff up here in the next few days. The takeaway from this election, I hope, is a reminder that Democrats can do anything in Florida when mobilized, but we need to be prepared to defend our spoils in 2014 and beyond. That means prepping for battle now.