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.

The Silliness of Questioning Unemployment

The amount of paranoia and a widespread belief in nonsensical conspiracy theories has reached a level unseen in years with this presidential race. The recent questioning of unemployment figures is just the most recent chapter, but one which in many ways shows how intellectual rationalization has overtaken common sense even among the sensible right wing.

Darrell Issa right now is publicly toying with whether the Bureau of Labor and Statistics should be fact-checked by Congress. And what better agency to depoliticize facts than Congress, right? Of course, plenty of folks by now have explained how the BLS is insulated from politics, and others have discussed the social ramifications of questioning every bit of data that they don't like.

What I have heard few discuss in the last week is the futility of this theory in the first place. In other words, there is nothing to gain—NOTHING—from faking unemployment numbers. The Obama administration would not only be acting criminally if they did such a thing, but they would gain nothing from it.

Why? Because people don't really give a shit how many people in this country are unemployed. They care if THEY are unemployed.

To be a little more fair, they care if they and the people they know and love are out of work or under threat of losing their jobs. Statistics from the BLS help economists determine the general election of the economy, but individuals base their own thoughts on the state of the nation based on the anecdotal evidence around them.

For example, I four years ago had just been laid off, along with a couple dozen other people at the newspaper where I was working. Weeks after that, my wife was very nearly laid off from the same paper. I got a new job, but within a few months, my employer did across-the-board salary cuts and laid off a couple of co-workers in my new place of business. I don't know exactly what the unemployment rate for the country or the state of Florida was at the time, but I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, the economy was in the tank, and no positive jobs report at the time could convince me otherwise.

But since then, I have had my salary restored and earned a promotion at work. My wife is happier at her job, and does not fear a sweeping round of layoffs the likes of which were happening every few months at her company not so long ago. The professional colleagues I've kept up with for years, most working in that lucrative field of print media, hold jobs now, often in different places than they worked four years ago, and do not live in fear of their positions being consolidated. Honestly, the ones I know who are looking for work are doing so because they see job openings appearing on classified sites for the first time in many years.

Additionally, I see cranes and bulldozing on commercial lots which sat empty for years. I hear of business expansions and grant openings. I think the economy is doing astoundingly better than four years ago, and it's not because of any jobs report. It is what I see with my own eyes.

Is it possible things are only better in my corner of the world? That the country as a whole is worse off? Of course that's a possibility. But if that's the case, a majority of voters will see those circumstances and vote with a different perception of the world informing them. They won't be swayed by a jobs report any more than I would.

This gets me to where I see some real dishonesty being perpetuated in a truly nefarious way. Because I don't think the people complaining about this jobs report being fixed actually see things too differently than I do. Does anyone believe Jack Welch is feeling any pain in this economy? Is he worse off than four years ago? Are his friends in economic trouble? Ha!

If there is any legitimate reason for him to question the jobs numbers, it may because he isn't being the job creator he promises he could be and that Republicans suggest we worship. Maybe he doesn't believe the report because neither he nor his corporate colleagues is creating any new jobs. But then small businesses are being opened all across the country right now, undeterred by health care reform, estate tax returns or any of the supposed job-killing measures employed by Obama.

The real reason Republicans are pissed about these job numbers isn't that they see more unemployed people in their circle of friends. It is that they have trumpeted for months now that Obama is in a bad spot for re-election because no president gets re-elected with unemployment north of 8 percent because no one has since FDR. It is an article of faith that America will vote out incumbents if the unemployment is 8.1, but may not if it is 7.9 percent.

I always thought this argument was ridiculous for a number of reasons. First, only two presidents—Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush—lost re-election with employment above 8. Obama, unlike either of them but like FDR, has seen unemployment go down, not up, during his time in office, and I think that makes more difference. The other reason I thought this reasoning was stupid is that no one knew what the unemployment level would by come November. I got my I-told-you-so moment last Friday, and the right responded with this conspiratorial nonsense.

Bottom line is this. Jack Welch doesn't live in my world, and he sees things differently than I do. He will vote based on what he sees. So will all of us.

If Republicans are scared of an improving economy, that's sad. But the reason they are scared is not that a BLS report suggested a 0.3 reduction in unemployment. It's that they can see things are getting better, and they hate that.

Poisoning The Judiciary

The new inexplicable Republican fever today is the push to repeal three members of the Florida Supreme Court: R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince. These justices are guilty of that crime-in-Republican-eyes of existing at all.

Not to say we shouldn't take this seriously, but I have to say this is most likely a matter of Republicans throwing a lot of money uphill. In that sense, I am thrilled! While this plot to poison our courts and give reactionary Gov. Rick Scott the right to pack the bench is certainly insidious and wrong, it is also absolute folly.

First off, let's touch on the real motives. The state GOP officials who endorsed the repeal effort today sourced some insignificant ruling on a death penalty case six years ago, but the deep feelings run further. Most notably, the state Supreme Court was the legal force pushing us to count votes in an election in 2000, and Republicans have never forgiven them.

The irony in both cases, of course, is that conservatives won out in the end and got their way. But never mind that. Any vote against the wishes of conservatives is "judicial activism" so these justices are awful.

The good news? This has been tried before and never, ever worked. Not even in the highly partisan atmosphere post-Bush v. Gore when Lewis and Quince survived a similar repeal effort the next election cycle. Not when pro-life nuts and racists went after Justice Leander Shaw in 1990. Not ever.

To date, in fact, no Florida justice has ever failed a vote for merit retention in the state of Florida. And I don't think an issue as not-sexy as judicial merit retention will draw anyone but the most basal of base voters to turn up at polls. By the way, they are there anyway thanks to their vitriolic and irrational fear of President Obama.

Nevertheless, the Koch brothers funded ads airing on Florida stations today calling for a no vote on merit retention.

Our best response, though, is to just laugh. Yes, I know we should stay vigilant and make sure to keep these voices of rationality on the bench, especially when such reactionary people control the legislative process in Tallahassee. But mocking the billionaires funding this effort helps too.

Consider that this money could be spent on helping Mitt Romney win Florida (and he's losing badly right now). It could fund Connie Mack's efforts to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson (an effort which is going even worse).

No, instead those dollars are being spent to fight judicial activism by vetoing the decision of thoughtful justices through a purely political process. This isn't just hypocrisy on display. It is sweet entertainment dripped with schadenfreude.

This effort is scrupulous and wrong. But it is also bound to fail. To have at it.

Don't Be So Surprised

I'm not going to say the implosion of Mitt Romney in the past few weeks has been anything short of shocking. Between the exploitation of a foreign tragedy, the leak of an embarrassingly frank talk to Boca donors, the proclaiming of the $200k-$250k earners as "middle class and the delayed tax return release, this has been a spectacular parade of unforced errors like I have never seen.

But there has been a cry among flustered Republicans that this was a year the GOP could not lose. Not that they care what I think, but rubbish.

That last link goes a widely-quoted piece by Peggy Noonan essentially blaming Romney's poor polling on a sloppy campaign. But if nobody noticed in the clown show that was the 2012 Republican primary, Mitt was the best they got.

Does anyone really think this election would be closer had Republicans nominated Newt Gingrich? Or Rick Santorum? Or laughably Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain? Of course not. But that was the choice presented to voters.

Now, that's not to say this list of Republicans from the shallow end of the cestpool are truly the most attractive candidates for president. But the greatest sign last year that the tide, whatever you think of jobs reports, was in our favor was the number of folks who stayed on the sidelines. Mike Huckabee. Sarah Palin. Mitch Daniels. Jeb Bush. Really, Romney and Rick Perry were the only major contenders any realistic Republican was dreaming about who actually threw a hat in the ring. Perry, it turned out, was not ready for primetime, so we ended up where we are today.

Actually, I laid out more than two years ago the reasons that while Jeb may well harbor White House ambitions, 2012 wasn't the year to pursue them. My top reason:

---
Jeb Bush won't run unless he can win. He knows that, unlike governor, there are no second chances at the White House. 
---

Barack Obama at no point in the last four years has seemed like a loser for re-election. That gets forgotten by Republicans so blinded by hatred of his liberal principles that cannot see the broader view of the president. Let's just check out some conventional GOP wisdom.

Republicans believe Obama is ruining this country by taking it far to the left, yet he has pushed tax structures well to the right of uber-moderate Bill Clinton. Indeed, most liberals have been starkly disappointed that he failed even to go that far. The same goes for the hardly-ambitious ObamaCare reforms which look more like DoleCare even than RomneyCare.

While Republicans believe Obama has done way too much, most liberals, and I believe moderates, feel he has actually done too little.

In that sense, it seems no surprise that the Romney campaign has floundered so. The message of the GOP, after all, is that intervention is the wrong medicine, but Romney as a challenger to an incumbent has to make the case this president has not done enough to fix the economy. Those messages simply don't jive.

So Obama was always a favorite. And in their hearts, Jeb and Huck and Sarah and Mitch and Marco and Fred and everybody viable candidate with some base instinct for the lay of the land knew it. The polls have born that out too, with Romney failing to hold a lead in the polls since cinching the nominations and finally having to share broadcast time with a Democrat.

The growing conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney with his recent gaffes has lost the election. But the truth is he was never winning in the first place.