In our fundraising efforts to attend the Democratic Convention in August, we've decided to focus on a small donor campaign.  We figured out that it'll take us 240 people contributing $25 each for us to reach what we need to go to Denver and provide you with the best convention coverage in America.  So far, we have the equivalent of 42 ($1050), leaving us 198 to go.  Anyone reading this should be able to donate $25 to help us get there.

Go to PayPal and donate through our Florida Progressive Coalition account (quinnelk@gmail.com), or you can write a check to Florida Progressive Coalition and send it to me:

For most Americans (and Floridians), members of Congress are these distant things that aren't human and don't connect to regular human beings.  They don't have lives and they don't have emotions.  Sometimes these feelings are true.

And then you have the Robert Wexler's of the world.

One of the key things that we should start to do as activists is expand our playing field when it comes to thinking of elections.  Howard Dean's 50-state strategy and Barack Obama's commitment to fighting in every state and territory have produced results that show us this approach is one that can lead to positive change.  It can give candidates a chance to win who might not otherwise do so, it can send a message to Republicans that places they have assumed are theirs by birthright must be earned and it can sap Republican resources and make them spread their spending and activity to places they usually wouldn't bother to worry about.

A first step we can take down this road is to support good candidates in supposedly red districts.

Obviously, nobody is perfect.  But if I were going to design a perfect candidate, he or she would be a whole lot like Joe Garcia.

I say it that way, because that's the way he'd say it.

For those who don't know me on a personal level very well, George Carlin (along with Richard Pryor) was as close to an idol as I had.  I don't idolize anyone, as Carlin said, I admire them.

If you want to figure out why I think the way I do and why I do what I do, there's no easier way to do that than to listen to a few of Carlin's routines.

As a tribute, my oldest son's name is Carlin Richard Smith Quinnell.  And even my kids were into Carlin as well, as he was the voice (for a while) of Thomas the Tank Engine and Fillmore from Cars.

A couple of others have said what I would've said if I had thought of it first...

Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress District FL-14, Larry Byrnes is challenging an unfair and undemocratic ruling that has kept him off the ballot for this August.  

The Republican-controlled Florida Division of Elections (which you may remember from its recent appearance in the movie Recount) has determined that Byrnes will be a write-in candidate in August, defying the will of the people and the intent of the law.  Laws like the one used to keep Byrnes off the ballot are meant to prevent voter fraud and to help ensure that the will of the people is reflected at election time.  

If you remember, a while back a Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples had this to say about gay marriage:

This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people, such as myself had some problems with that statement.

Wicker, for some reason, took umbrage at the outrage against his hate speech.  Here's what he said in a letter to the editor:

This is the type of thing that state/local blogs can be particularly effective at leading efforts on...

As I mentioned on the radio show the other day, one of the things we're going to do is make sure that every prominent public official in Florida is on record as to where they stand in terms of the Hate Amendment, the latest proposal to ban gay marriage in Florida.  Our job now is to find out where everyone stands on Amendment 2, including:

Wow.  At first glance, that's all I can say about the comments from Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples, Florida.  Here's what he said at an anti-gay event last week:

This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.

Wow.  

One day into our campaign to get our congressional challengers to sign on to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, we've already had one victory.  Samm Simpson has endorsed the plan.  Knowing Samm, I figured this was an issue that was important to her and that she'd be eager to sign on.  We should reward Samm for singing on, so go here and contribute what you can. Hey, I'm a poor adjunct professor/blogger and I was able to muster a few bucks.  It's the least you can do. And it's important.

Florida Progressive Coalition hereby endorses the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.

Generally, we try to focus on state and local issues but we decided to go outside that for once.  Why?  A number of reasons:

In the realm of logic and argumentation, there is a fallacy sometimes referred to as the "Desire for Simple Answers."  Simply explained, it is the idea that human beings, by their nature one an answer or explanation for things that is easy to understand and where it is easy to lay blame for how something turns out.  Quite frequently, people will reject answers that are not simple enough or they will glom on to answers that are simplistic, rather than go for the more complex explanations that are the reality.  This is, obviously, a fallacy.  In the real world, almost everything has a complex explanation and to leave out any part of that complexity is to ignore reality.

A prime example of this is the Florida Democratic presidential primary.

The 2008 Florida Democratic Primary is the first "virtual primary" in U.S. history.

It is a unique event in American history, where technology and people power are being used to determine not only who Floridians favor as the Democratic nominee, but today's primary also will play a key role in determining the next president of the United States.

Last year, the Democratic presidential contenders signed a pledge not to campaign in Florida before the primary to punish Florida for violating Democratic National Committee rules and moving the vote in advance of the February 5 barrier set up in 2006.

Florida Progressive Radio is proud to announce that our special 9 p.m. show tonight, Thursday December 20, 2007, will feature Congressman Robert Wexler, who will be on the show to talk about his new push to hold impeachment hearings for criminal Vice President Dick Cheney.  Also appearing on the show will be several other Cheney impeachment supporters: Bob Fertik (Democrats.com), Dave Lindorff (Case for Impeachment, Counterpunch Magazine) and David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet).

To listen to the show...

Okay, here is the official ballot for the Netroots Awards.  Voting will be open from now until Friday at noon.  Please e-mail me your votes at quinnelk@hotmail.com in order to keep ballots secret.  I want to try to avoid hurt feelings and unnecessary conflict.  Votes after 12 p.m. on Friday I won't even see, since I'll be on the road...

The competition was pretty strong, particularly considering the fact that the nomination period was necessarily brief.  Next year, nominations will be open longer.  Still, we had 46 people nominate 208 web sites, individuals and groups in the 13 categories.  Please pick only one choice in each category and please vote in more than just one category.  Don't just vote for your friend or your group, take a look at the other categories and do your best to honestly vote for the best in each category.  In each category, I took the top three nominees based on the individual number of nominations.  With the state and local blogs, the votes were closer and there were more options so I extended it to five.

Announcing the first annual Florida Democratic Party Netroots Coalition's

<h1>2007 Netroots Awards</h1>

The purpose of these awards is to recognize the best of the best in the blogging and netroots activism community in Florida.  The process will work like this:

Everybody is going a bit crazy about the fight between the DNC and the FDP over the seating of delegates at the national convention.  There's a lot more to say about this at other times and for other reasons.  But one aspect of the debate is somewhat overdone.  The claim that our votes won't be counted doesn't make much sense.  The fact is, no state's delegates "count" at the convention.  The only influence that a state has in the election process is by determining who the front-runner will be during the early part of the electoral cycle.  Florida will have a huge impact on that on January 29, regardless of whether or not our votes are official that day.  But, by the time the convention comes around, the vote for the nomination will have been long determined and 200 votes will have no impact on the outcome.  They never have.  The results at conventions going back to 1936 make this clear.  In 1936 (and earlier) a candidate had to win 2/3rds of convention delegates to win the Democratic nomination.  Since then, the rules have required only a majority and at no convention since then would 200 votes make a difference in the outcome:

This is not my favorite type of post.  I much prefer going after Republicans, but when I see something like this happen, I can't let it slip by.  Friday night at the Collins-Steele Dinner in Tallahassee Congressman Allen Boyd gave a speech in which he referred to Barack Obama as "smart" and "articulate."  That was the whole of his description.  Here we go again...