The political media is on fire today with arguments and explanations for Sink’s loss to Jolly in the special election to fill a vacant Congressional seat in FL-13.
But there is only one reason why the Democrat lost this election.
There is only one reason why ANY Democrat EVER loses an election, and that is:
Democrats – who are already registered to vote – Do. Not. Vote.
So, Alex Sink (D) lost to David Jolly (R) by less than 3,500 votes.
140,000 registered Democrats didn’t bother to vote.
That’s all you need to know. And that’s all the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party need to learn from this defeat. Will they? Debbie Wasserman-Schultz @DCCC… are you listening? Harry Reid… Nancy Pelosi… are you listening? President Obama… do you really want your last two years in office to include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joining Speaker Boehner?! Where is your vaunted OFA get-out-the-vote ground game?! They could get a black-Muslim-Kenyan-communist-community-organizer elected – TWICE! – but they can’t win with a well-known Dem in Florida running against yet-another-moronic Republican? In a district that YOU carried in 2012? WTF?!
22% of the electorate in FL-13 is 65-and-older. That equates to potentially 100,000+ voters. How many of them are registered Democrats? How many of those registered Democratic seniors had mail-in ballots for this election? All of them? No? Why not? It’s not like you don’t know their names and addresses! They are r-e-g-i-s-t-e-r-e-d D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-s.
Democrats left thousands, tens of thousands of votes laying on the table in this FL-13 election. The media is already calling the November midterm elections for the GOP.
Here’s the good news. You get a REDO in FL-13 in November. That’s right. Rep. Jolly has to defend his newly won seat in the fall. (Along with every other member of Congress and 1/3 of the Senate.)
And let’s not forget Wendy Davis in Texas. She’s got a tough road ahead of her, eh? That’s what we hear. Gee, if only we had the actual results of the last two elections in Texas… Oh! Here they are now:
Texas has a non-partisan voter registration system, so we don’t know how many TX registered voters are (D) vs (R). But what is obvious from this graphic is that there were plenty of non-voting registered Dems in 2010 to swamp Perry’s margin of victory… if only they had turned out to vote. Wendy Davis… are you listening?
We hear so much about the Republicans gaming the system with gerrymandering districts, blah blah blah. That’s just an excuse used by lazy Democrats! If (already registered) Democrats actually voted in the November 2014 midterms, we would EASILY keep the Senate and take back the House.
So, what are we waiting for? This country has been gravely wounded by the do-nothing, know-nothing, “I’ve got mine!” Republicans. But the GOP has been gravely wounded by its do-nothing, know-nothing, racist, sexist, bigoted teabagger faction. The time for the Democrats to strike is now. The President’s economic, military/foreign policy and healthcare initiatives have been remarkably successful – in spite of the GOP’s constant sabotage.
Democrats: Stop talking about Hillary and 2016. Stop talking about what an uphill climb 2014 is. Stop talking, period. Start doing. We have seven months until voters will start casting ballots in early voting in the fall. How many mail-in ballots can we get in the hands of registered Democrats? How badly do we want to turn Congress blue in November? And the governorship in TX? And GA? And MI, OH, PA, WI?
What are we waiting for?