Jimmy Patronis re: Gay Valimont on Saturday's Fox and Friends Weekend

[pat_k]

U.S. House Florida District 1 Special Election for Gaetz seat

Patronis (article link below):

She’s even chasing Republican potential voters depicting herself as being tough on China, standing up for Social Security … helping people with their gun rights. They’ve got so much money that this is what they’re doing in order to change the balance of power in Congress.

Gee, how dare she!!

Actually, the saddest commentary is that Democratic candidates rarely "chase" Republican votes.

We can no longer just focus on turning out our vote at election time. Local Democratic Party organizations need to be active and "chasing" Republicans everywhere all year round.

One story I will never forget was told by a former Democrat who had switched and was running as a Republican somewhere in TX. I don't recall the name, but when the interviewer asked why she had switched, it was simple. She has been invited to a Republican event. They were interested in her concerns and seemed to care about what she had to say -- something she said the local Democrats had never done. She was invited to other events and got more involved. With the Democratic Party, she had felt taken for granted, hearing from the party only at election time.

We are social creatures. We need to figure out how to revitalize local party organizations to be present and engaged in every county and district, no matter how "red."

A few years ago, I recall my mother-in-law reminiscing about the Democratic Club in her town in NJ in the 60's and 70's. It was more a social club, but they were engaged in the community. She recalled weekend events. They was also a local German club. She talked about them in similar terms -- things that were just part of the social fabric. I wondered how many other towns once had such clubs and if there were any still around.

Perhaps what is old needs to become new again. So many people I meet in this age of isolation are looking for ways to connect in their community. The time may be ripe for the return of Democratic social clubs. If Republicans have captured the social media space, perhaps it is time the Democrats went all out to get local and capture the Real World.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/728949-patronis-valimont/

https://gayforcongress.com/

[SheltieLover]

1. Who the hell would want to chase any repuke anywhere for any reason?

[pat_k]

3. A lot of people vote Republican simply because "everybody" in their ...

... community seems to be a Republican.

We are social creatures. The most effective way to counter the Republican caricature of what a "Democrat" is for them to actually MEET and become aware of the existence of Democrats in their communities.

I've occassionally talked about my experiences with braverangels and livingroomconversations here. Both organizations provide opportunities to practice skills -- listening and asking questions in a way that enables connection, even as you express your own experiences and views with honesty and integrity. Both attract people who are actually interested in reaching out, so it offers great opportunities to hone skills you can take into the more difficult "real world."

A while back I posted a New Yorker Radio Hour interview with Sarah McBride (1st trans U.S. Congressperson). The whole interview is worthwhile, but here are a few bits I would love to see more of us take to heart.

This country is still at a trans 101 spot... Leaders should always be out front of public opinion, but in order to foster change in public opinion we've got to be within arms distance of the public, so we can pull the along with us. If we get too out ahead of it we lose our grip and are unable to pull the public along with us...

There is a space for diversity of messengers, and a diversity of message... What we do know is that as the movement for marriage equality moved forward, the most effective messengers for marriage were not same sex couples, were not parents of same sex couples or kids of same sex couples, the most effective messengers for marriage equality were those that evolved. They were effective because they gave a permission structure for people who had not yet gotten there that it was ok to be uncomfortable, it was ok to be on the other side of the issue. You were not a bad person, you weren't wrong. And by giving people permission to be wrong, it created the space and grace for people to grow. We need more grace in our politics if we want people to actually grow...

We are shooting ourselves in the foot as people who believe in progress when we create no incentive for people to grow because they perceive they will be permanently guilty for having been wrong. We create no space for them to grow by extending no grace for them to walk there...

One of the reasons you see people pushed into their respective corners -- you say something that's deemed problematic. And you are immediately hounded by one side and immediately embraced by the other side. Human nature is -- when faced with that degree of extreme binary reactions is to go to the people who are validating you instantaneously. So we unintentionally push people further and further into their own corners and into their negative opinion by responding with a degree of condemnation and vitriol that creates no incentive or space for them to grow.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/sarah-mcbride-on-the-fight-for-trans-rights

The thing is, the people who are likely to be the most effective at reaching MAGA World are recovered MAGA people. But if we don't create space for that recovery -- if we don't seek to make connections to even find such people in our communities -- we will just keep going down the vicious raging and shaming "them vs. us" whirlpool of death while Christian Nationalist, Racist, Misogynist, and Xenophobic zealots and their billionaire sugar daddies capture and destroy the last vestiges of the institutions of our government capable of measuring and implementing our collective will.

[MagickMuffin]

6. I think candidates who go door to door and engage the voters

The better our chances in changing minds.


I remember reading about a candidate who recently just won a special election seat with this action. He went door to door to ask for their vote and engage with them.

Here’s an observation of campaign events.

The Democratic Party will work the rope lines. They are always willing to go into the audience to shake hands with the people there to see them.

Has anyone ever seen Krasnov/trump touch anyone’s hand. Nope, me either. He enters late, keeps them waiting, drones on forever, or “dances his two handed jackoff dance” and then heads for the exit as soon as he’s had enough adulation.


At some point we will have to engage. It won’t be easy because it is just so infuriating.

[allegorical oracle]

2. Patronis has been a "colorful" character and he's tight with Rick $cott. Here's a few of

the escapades he's been involved with (from Wikipedia -- company names have been omitted):

-- In response to former president Donald Trump's indictments, Patronis promoted a plan to provide up to $5 million in taxpayer funds to Trump to pay his legal bills. A bill was filed to enact this proposal by state senator Ileana Garcia, but was withdrawn after a veto threat by Governor Ron DeSantis.

-- Between 2017-2018, Patronis’ Political Action Committee, Treasure Florida, accepted tens of thousands in political contributions from two Florida-based insurance companies that were legally accused of fraud earlier that year. Patronis’s own state Division of Financial Services has been investigating both insurance operation for years for allegedly fleecing consumers.

-- In 2019, Florida’s top financial regulator, Ronald Rubin, filed a lawsuit accusing CFO Jimmy Patronis and lobbyist R. Paul Mitchell of orchestrating a “pay-to-play” scheme to solicit $1 million in campaign contributions from Rubin’s father, a wealthy New York investor.

[pat_k]

5. So, he has the bona fides needed to be invited into 47's criminal clown posse. (nt)

[allegorical oracle]

7. Indeed he has. Always figured that Jimmy's plan to have Fla taxpayers pony up for djt's

legal bills -- the one scuttled by DeSantis -- cooled Don and Ron's love affair.

[MagickMuffin]

4. The Tarrant County Democratic Party is very active

We have various umbrella groups as well. I counted 24 groups.

https://tarrantdemocrats.org/club-directory/


Perhaps Democrats need to engage themselves as well. In Tarrant County there was a group of Democrats who were motivated by Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention that they formed Tarrant for Obama long before Obama’s decision to run.

Barack encouraged boots on the ground. They held meetings (manuals on how to engage voters), which was mostly talking a bit about their self their life experiences and then engaging the voters to relay their life stories. Make a connection. Barack’s experience with organizing paid off.
Tarrant Democrats still hold meetings, they cannot be expected to always be the ones to reach out, we all should be taking an active role within the party. I was encouraged enough in 2007 to become a precinct chair which I loved working the elections. However, after 2016 I just couldn’t do it anymore. Something that happened while I was working the election that day, I was checking in to DU at the very moment DU got hacked, my mate also checked in, he got to see the fascist video before DU went dark. I knew at that very moment this was bad, my whole body knew. When I got home there was a small ever so small a sliver of hope. But as the night wore on I feared what I felt at the polling station.

The voters that day made me never want to work the elections again. It was devastating to say the least. My mate worked early voting and well the dumbest of the dumbest turned out to vote. They had no idea what they were doing. There was an older man who threw a tantrum because the polling place ran out of I voted stickers.


Sorry for the long response, but apparently I needed to get it out!

[pat_k]

8. I didn't mean to put it on party apparatus alone.

I think people across the country are trying to figure out how the hell we find a way out of the shocking culmination of the horror show we are witnessing -- an horror show that has been unfolding before us for decades. As the destructionists move forward at warp speed, people are experimenting. Looking for what others are doing. Creativity in civic action and party politics seems to work best when there is energy from both the bottom up and the top down. More often than not, it is connections and idea generating among people within a community that kicks things off. Seeing so many things happening in so many places gives me hope. Things are building in a way that is different from the bigger more organized protests seen after the 2016 election. I think it is a sign of something more powerful and sustainable brewing. And as people committed to values like the four freedoms connect and act in their own communities, it could move things along if the Democratic Party provided some top down material support for bottom up efforts. I hope we see more people in their communities connecting with each other to organize and fund raise to build community infrastructure, and more support for efforts that get off the ground from the state and national parties.

2016 was devastating. It's incredibly painful to revisit the events of that awful day. For me it was the same sort of kick in the gut that Bush v. Gore was, but somehow worse because the "enemy force" wasn't a traitorous court. It was large numbers of fellow citizens, whether victims of brainwashing or just plain evil didn't matter. Hanging unto a belief in the power of the good will of the American people in the face of such an outcome felt impossible. It's like the ground fell out from under us. Finding enough glimmers of hope to put one foot in front of the other and soldier on remains a full time job.