The Sunshine Empire

Through my recent trip to New Orleans, the holidays, and my recent under the weather spell The Sunshine Empire has seen some sparse posting, but it is time to get back to the job at hand. Several issues both in our state and nationally bear discussion. The Sunshine Empire has had plenty of beautiful sunshine, but not much warmth. The cold spell that has ravaged the country has not spared the sunshine state though. It’s been so cold for so long I actually wore a sweater outside the house today for the first time in a decade. A writer for the Florida Times-Union re-tweeted a comment from a political operative that said it was so cold in Tallahassee, that the lobbyists had their hands in their own pockets for a change.

The events in Tallahassee two days ago are relevant to the overall movement for ideological purity and the GOP civil war that is quietly simmering. Governor Charlie Crist’s handpicked Republican Party Of Florida chairman Jim Greer was finally forced to step down in the face of the conservative revolt in the state. The tea party candidate, former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, and his supporters have turned what would have been a quiet and uncompetitive race into a microcosm of the overall fight for the soul of the Republican party nationally. When Democrats found themselves in the minority for years they finally decided to recruit conservative Democratic candidates to be competitive in the south. The party then regained the majority in both houses and pushed the Senate total to the filibuster-proof 60 seats. Faced with the same situation the Republican party, pushed by the tea party movement, has moved in the opposite direction. Tea party enthusiasts seem to value the scalp above an election victory. They worked to bring down Greer in Florida as a further attack at Charlie Crist’s senate ambitions, and if not for the lack of a big name candidate on the other side could be handing another seat to the Democrats. They see themselves as taking back the sold out soul of the true Republican party. I see Ross Perot.

I read someone who made the comparison and I don’t know where, but for all the weakness nationally of the Democratic party due to the health care reform debate and the weakened state of the economy Republicans seem to be dropping the ball. You would think that any Republican or Earl Grey ingrate with any understanding of history would be able to connect the dots in ways that they blame the President for not doing with the underdrawers bomber. One needs only to look at the example of the New York 23rd special election. The tea party favorite and the Republican backed candidate split the votes and money and allowed a Democrat to take a seat that had not been out of Republican hands for over a century. Look at history again and you will find that most Republicans blame the rise of William Jefferson Clinton on the split vote between George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot. It’s the same thing today and nobody is the wiser on the radical right. While Democrats have used their majorities to move the country in a better direction, Republicans and tea party people seem more interested in a political war of the roses among themselves.

While the electorate continues to show wariness over the changes being made in Washington by the Democratic party, conservatives in New York and Florida continue to show more interest in bringing down Republicans and not Democrats. The Republican National Committee has found itself in the worst financial shape in a decade after getting involved in the NY-23 race and losing to the Tea Party. One of the tea party’s fractious spokespeople has said that they are turning their guns on moderate Republicans. The average political observer could be excused for taking away a belief that tea party people are more interested in self aggrandizement and fiefdoms of power instead of the real possibility of taking back the House of Representatives. As tea party people scream for Republican blood, and moderates awkwardly try to balance support and distance, nothing is accomplished aside from splitting the vote. Radical right tea people seem to be giving up the 2010 cycle for something bigger later. But the moods of the American people are not guaranteed to stay blowing in the same direction. Two years after the Republican revolution in Congress in 1994, Bill Clinton was reelected handily.