Mitch PerryThe Democratic Party of Florida’s nomination of former Republican Charlie Crist as its gubernatorial candidate last year was seen by most observers as a glaring example of the weakness of the party overall
If U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio were to declare sometime this year that he wasn’t running for re-election for the U.S. Senate next year, the group of potential Democrats who might vie for that seat might include Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kathy Castor, perhaps Ted Deutch.
But when it comes to a crop of potential Democratic Senate candidates, Florida Democrats can only look with envy at their counterparts in California.
Yesterday five-term Sen. Barbara Boxer announced that she will not run for a sixth term next year, setting off a frenzy of speculation about which Democrats might get into this race.
As a native of the Golden State who just spent 10 days there over the Christmas holidays, I can tell you that there’s no shortage of capable candidates. If anything, there’s too many.
California never became such a reliable blue state until 20 years ago. Some attribute that to former Gov. Pete Wilson’s advocacy for the anti-immigration legislation known as Prop 187, which appeared on the same ballot as Wilson’s re-election in 1994. In any event, with the exception of the Gray Davis debacle, which led to his recall and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 as governor, it’s been a huge boost to Democrats nationally, confident that they can win that state’s prodigious 55 electoral votes every presidential election year.
The majority of the state’s Democratic stars are based in the Bay Area — like Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome and Attorney General Kamela Harris. Political consultants who know the two insist they won’t run against each other, and that Newsom lusts for the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, which won’t be open until 2018.
Apparently former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa wants to run for governor as well. He was term-limited out of his previous office in 2013. His successor, Eric Garcetti, insists he doesn’t have any intention of running for higher office.
Jerry Brown also says he doesn’t intend to run for higher office. The recently re-elected governor, who was inaugurated this week, has been talked up among some national Democrats as a potential challenger to Hillary Clinton for the nomination for president. What’s amazing about that is that it’s some 40 years after he first ran for office.
Brown turns 77 in a few months, yet nobody says he’s too old for his current job, or serving in Washington.
Meanwhile, the way that things are working out for Rubio (i.e. Jeb Bush’s candidacy), such speculation about his successor is pretty academic at this point. But it’s still sort of fun anyway….
In other news…
Will Florida (GOP) legislators finally agree to a form of Medicaid expansion in 2015? It doesn’t look promising, but activists feel otherwise as they held an action at New Tampa GOP state Rep. Shawn Harrison’s office yesterday.
A coterie of Pinellas County Republicans trying to get elected last fall learned how unpopular Duke Energy Florida and the Public Service Commission are with their constituents. That’s led to that group, led by Clearwater state Sen. Jack Latvala, to introduce legislation that would try to regulate the regulators. But can they get their fellow Republicans in the Florida Legislature to follow their lead?
And the Tampa Police Department will soon be in possession of 60 body cameras for their officers, after the City Council approved funding yesterday.
