The Democrats let the republicans define them.
The Democrats let the republicans frame the issues.
The Democrats don't stand up for anything.
The Democrats fail to create a message that differentiates them from the republicans.
The Democrats don't offer the voters a reason to go to the polls and vote for them.

This have been the case for some time now, but this past election it was the worst I can remember.

Whoever controls the media gets to frame the issues and do the "defining", because that is where it is done.
It doesn't matter how great a message we create if nobody gets to hear it.

The media is lousy, granted

But our messages are weak and diluted.

Republicans have a few strong stands, and they work them to death. But it is effective because they don't sound wishy washy

a great deal of that has to do with the republicans relentless in your face approach. Controversy guarantees air time. The media loves it, it gets ratings.

The republicans are stocked with imbeciles who make outrageous statements on a constant basis. They attack, attack, attack. We laugh at them, but they get airtime and allow the more "sensible" republicans to take up the point, but without the insanity. And voters get the simplistic message and buy into it.

The Democrats have nothing like that. The Democrats get air time only to play defense and they sound weak doing it. It is like "HANNITY and colmes" on a national scale.

and then there's always the question of who programs the voting machines.

I have no answers as to how to strike back, the state seems to be bought and paid for.

Dayam, Romano's kicking ass and taking names! Seriously... only 34.9% of registered voters in Florida are Republicans, yet they swept the boards on Nov 4th. What happened to the Democrats? Did they just go on a vacation? Did they campaign at all? Did they all run away from PO? Did they all run away from ACA? And yes, this happened in state after state.

Just like Reagan's trickle-down-economics has been proven to be a sham, so has the Third Way/DLC (now known as PPI [Progressive Policy Institute])/Grand Bargainers... i.e., the ones who don't call themselves Democrats.

This situation is pretty disgusting, madfloridian.

I don't get it...we really can't be this stupid but it would be hard to prove different.

Thanks a lot DNC...worthless.

Parties are supposed to be lame.

The Republicans win on branding and voter suppression.

Spoil the Democrat "brand" and suppress voters, they win. This is obvious, objective, fact.

And yet we have so called "liberals" bashing such simple initiatives as Common Core... whose biggest opponent in FL is ... Marco Rubio.

Do you really truly sincerely think Common Core and the methods used to test the kids to see if it is working are "simple" initiatives?

I don't think the mood is right for much more liberal bashing. The Republicans oppose Common Core so do many Democrats.

I oppose the extreme testing that is being used to destroy our education system by failing schools by making tests harder and harder. And when goals are finally reached, they set another goal and claimed we failed.

In my mind this is a turning point in the party. A very very big one. Florida Democrats act more like Republicans most every day, and Romano did a good job of calling them out.

AND do you really believe that even the most profoundly handicapped student can pass a test made secretly by Pearson and others even though they barely have life skills??

Do you? Arne does, Obama does. They give lip service to caution by saying not so much testing....but hot damn then they make a new policy that requires more testing. So excuse me if I don't appreciate being compared to Marco Rubio after my years of trying to get good Democrats elected here.

But that is almost the entirety of your post.

Thanks to companies like Pearson et al

It's not about the teaching, though textbook companies will profit also..but it's become the testing as the goal to determining everything.

It's become about requiring all students to learn exactly the same thing, though teaching has always been about individuality. It's about requiring those even with severe learning handicaps to master the same things as the gifted.

Especially here in FL. The brand consists entirely of "hey, we're not as bad as those other guys, yet we support most of the same things they support".

Your post suggests that voters should not have a say in how the elected officials of their party perform. Do you honestly believe that?

Democrats need to get back to being Democrats, then maybe we can have a "brand" to fight for.

Trust me on that. He is far more of a common sense liberal than Bill Nelson or Debbie WS.

So you are right.

is a sure sign that out party sucks down in Florida. When someone who was carrying the enemy;s standard into battle actually was further to the left than some enshrined and richly rewarded folks like DWS, that says something.

Those of us who have lived here for a long, long time know this to be FACT! Very depressing and I simply don't know how to crack this egg!

The classic "blue state" (in this case blue county) campaign run by Charlie was a disappointment. Charlie could just as easily won by reducing his margin of defeat in the red counties by 5%, and still lost all of them. Getting from 75-25 losses to 70-30 or 60-40 losses would have easily done the job better than driving each voter in Miami-Dade to the polls. Instead of 50 state, it needs to be something far closer to 63 counties next time.

is that some of the Democrats that are going to the polls are voting for Republicans.

That's worth remembering. Anyone who insists on a purely liberal, far-left version of a Democratic party is offering up a formula for perpetual electoral defeat.

What you would call "far left" was middle of the road 30 years ago.

We cede the middle to the republicans by running campaigns supporting republican policies.

Who is calling for that?

I don't agree with Romano on that statement really. Actually we didn't just cede the middle, we ceded all the positions we should be taking. We had no defining positions, just that we were not Republicans.

Too many Democrats didn't stand with Crist I guess even though they KNEW what the outcome was going to be. Some even posted this here saying they rather have the devil they knew, etc....

STUPIDITY, since Crist really did govern rather moderately. I'm liberal, but my goal was just to get rid of Scott. State Party didn't seem to push very hard, if at all.

I got very few emails from the state Democratic Party, got many more from the local very Red county Democratic Party, or the National Democratic Party. No leadership at state it seems.

I guess people are concerned and wondering.

Just like I have been.

I said this to DH this morning. Obama won reelection in part by defining Romney. Too bad the rest of the D's can't figure it out.

The numbers make a case for Republican election fraud. Imagine what Fox News would say if the shoes were on the other feet.

to fit together like a glove. Can anyone prove it right now? But, it was proved that the 2000 election wasn't won by Shrub Bush! But Bush is a big name here, carries LOTS of weight and could be a big part of what happens.

Rick Scott is really a crook, don't care if he wriggled out of it or not, he is a CROOK!

Even in my RED county I saw very few bumper stickers, heard very few people say they supported him, many of them R's so that tells me a lot!

I don't think we will have issues on a national scale other than for profit media supporting their advertisers on labor and tax issues, but in elections with out a president on the ballot we have to do what republicans do and that is don't run from our policy's, politicians and never apologize. If we own it and show people confidence we are correct more people will vote for us. I think the reason we do these things is we need some of that big conservative money to win elections from corporations, some of our candidates try not to offend them so they can get donations that go to conservatives too, but I say F them, what good is corporate money if people don't want to vote for you.

It doesn't matter too much who runs or who votes if the election system is badly rigged by partisan operatives cooking the books, bribing and intimidating their way to the vote totals they like. I don't know how bad it is in FL, but that whole hanging chad thing made a lot of people wonder.

Some time back we did have some relatively good Governor's, Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles being 2 of them. Not exactly liberals, but Graham actually voted against Iraq War then decided not to run for Senator again.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is from Florida, say anything to anyone? There has been a LOT of gossip/rumors about the state Democratic Party here too. VERY LAME, but some even say has Repuke influence because of who some are married to. How much this really plays into all of this, I'm not sure. But one things is SURE... it sucks! I live in a Red, Red County and don't think I've ever seen a Democrat elected to Congress from here. But, it does seem that FL Democratic Party is kind of a "name only" entity," which I feel does very little.

WHY Wasserman-Schultz for DNC Chairman is another question that has bugged me for quite some time.

Good article, wish there were a lot more!

When you look at the favorability rating of Crist and Scott...you'll know why that race was even close. Crist's numbers aren't much better.
The issue in that race was Florida voters hated both candidates. The Democrats were not excited about Crist at all, and therefore GOP led the turnout.

That's all there is to it.

There is much more to it than just unfavorability ratings. Florida is completely in GOP hands...completely.

There are a lot of factors as to why Florida, despite having somewhat more registered Democrats than repubs, goes red statewide.

First, the number of registered Ds may be misleading; there are a lot of older voters in Florida that may have started out as registered Democrats but who now lean R but haven't bothered to change their registration (in the Scott-Crist race, exit polls showed a 16 percent margin for Scott with voters 65 and up; those voters made up 25 percent of the voters -- as many as 18-24, 24-29, and 30-39 year old voters combined). Second, turnout: in the Scott-Crist race repubs made up 35 percent of the voters showing up at the polls, while Democrats only turned out 31 percent of the voters. Even the independent vote turnout (33%) topped the Democratic turnout.

As for the state senate, there were 20 seats up for election. Yes, the repubs didn't lose any of their seats. But neither did the Democrats. In all 20 seats, there was no change in party control. Which shouldn't surprise anyone since 15 of the 20 were uncontested.

Finally, turning to the state house, in 69 (57.5%) of the 120 seats up for election, there was only one major party candidate running for election. A total of 28 Democrats and 41 Republicans were guaranteed election barring unforeseen circumstances. In two of the instances where a repub unseated a Democrat, the Democrat had only held the seat for 2 years and had won in 2012 by 1 percent or less. Turnout. Turnout. Turnout. Democrats who did well in 2012 when the Democratic voters made up 35 percent of those voting and repubs only 33 percent, and when voters 18-40 outnumbered voters 65 and older by a 30% - 24% margin, suffered in 2014.

Its an easy out to scream voter fraud. But that simply avoids the real issues: (1) gerrymandering that creates seats that are so safe that over half of the house seats and 75 percent of state senate seats don't even have two major party candidates running.