Florida Special Election for Congress

The very fact that Alex Sink came this close to winning in a Republican district in a special election should have the Republicans wondering what happened.  Instead yesterday I kept getting email from some Democrat groups all upset they didn't raise/spend enough money.  That wasn't the problem.   Neither was Obamacare.  If you want to point one finger, you look at ground game -- it is hard to flip a seat in a special election but more important then all the ads the Dems wanted to counter was the ground game -- the on one one -- getting people to turn out for a special election.   Personally think the margin being so thin bodes well for Democrats in 2014 but what do I know -- the media has spoken and anyone who has been around campaigns knows nothing as they parrot Republican talking point papers.   Now I am wonder if the media is lazy or stupid and not sure which yet but they are doing the American people a disservice with their shoddy reporting.

This snippet from the article at Politicususa says it all:

The media looked at a Democrat losing by two points in a district where Republicans have a built in 11 point advantage, and concluded that this was a devastating loss for Obamacare. The only way that anyone could reach such a conclusion is if they didn’t bother to look at the numbers, and instead repeated the Republican spin. A majority of voters in the district (50%-48%) said that Jolley’s hard line repeal position caused them to have serious doubts about him. 

David Jolley won even though his position on Obamacare was unpopular with voters.
The message for Democrats is that they need to do a better job with voter outreach in the district. DCCC Chairman Rep. Steve Israel is already encouraging Sink to run against Jolley again in November. Jolley only won the seat for the duration of the late Bill Young’s term. He will have to run for reelection this fall. Democrats suspect that the high profile Charlie Crist/Rick Scott gubernatorial contest will bring their voters out to the polls.
The reason lesson in FL-13 is that Republicans are gambling on the wrong strategy of running against Obamacare. The GOP can still only win elections in places where they have a clear registration advantage. As long as the electorate stays white and old, Republicans can win. If Florida Democrats turn out to vote this November, Rick Scott will be defeated, and Alex Sink will be elected to the House. 

Analysis of the Florida special election has been bungled so badly because many lazy media outlet would prefer to pass off Republican talking points as fact than do their own work. The media are absolutely wrong about why Alex Sink lost, but this is for the course for corporate media that wear their Republican bias on their sleeves. 

Read more at Politicususa

With the Crist/Scott race for Governor turnout is going to be much higher and agree chances of Sink wining are high.  She has already been campaigning in the district and now needs to double down and get a real ground game going.  Democrats need to quit worrying about if they are being outspent and concentrating getting people out to vote.  People get turned off by ads so do a few good ones to counter but don't run ad for ad.  The seat is winnable for the Democrats if they play it right and #1 issue is to quit worrying about is the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton.  Concentrate only on 2014 and any donors looking ahead to 2016 need their heads examined -- plenty of time for that.  Looking at it from the outside, it seems the split that happened in 2008 is still in the Democrat Party in some areas.  Time to set it aside and stop the grandstanding from the Clinton camp.