Florida - Will we ever learn...? and if so... When might that be...?

Cross-posted from dailykos, Sat Dec 31, 2005 at 04:28:50 PM EDT

Back in September 2002 I read the election insert in the Sarasota Herald Tribune. There, I found "the one" real candidate for Congress (FL-13). Suddenly, one person had emerged. Unique. The only one who was truly ready, willing and able to step-up, enter the glaring spotlight of personal and professional scrutiny. A candidate committed to lead in battle... heads-on with Katherine Harris and her camp... while having little chance for success. That took guts and grit. I found a true leader.

What I discovered was, that like me, the "one" candidate is a lifelong Democrat. A staunch fiscal conservative, she has a decades-long, verifiable record of being passionately committed to progressive issues, positions, principles and causes. I found a highly principled, true leader with guts and grit.

Was it too much to hope for then, that she might share the same nuclear fire that had been in my belly, day-by-day to this moment since the nightmare of the 2000 election?

Through the 2002 and 2004 cycles I saw that she did. Terrific...Great!

But sadly, I was witness to so much more....

On the part of some... I witnessed back-biting, in-fitng, innuendos, dirty-tricks, defections, personal vendettas, lies, plots, deceptions, misrepresentations, non-resolvable personality conflicts, selfishness, self-serving myopic perceptions, narrow-mindedness, not to mention a good-measure of old-fashioned human pettiness, ignorance and stupidity. Some say "..that's politics..", but it made me a very sad man. All the while, this went to directly bolster Katherine Harris' position along with that of the menacing forces behind what she represents.

Can we not but sense the Katherine Harris camp's glee as we blithely skipped-down the path of self-divisiveness, and thus, defeat?

At this writing, we are days away from 2006. But we may not have learned the lessons of our recent past. Not locally, and now perhaps, not even from as far away Washington D.C.

While divide-and-conquer ought to be a strategy against one's true enemy, we are [seemingly] content to oblige our political foes once again. Unless of course we - for the next 11 months - would subscribe to the proposition that "...we have met the enemy and they are us...".

Is our side of the isle adopting a policy of political pre-emptive strikes from afar, against District 13? Further, such pre-emption would accrue to the benefit of some likely Harris-clone, hand-picked replacement or the like.

Jan Schneider staunchly withstood two consecutive election wars against some of the most formidable political and financial opposition in the entire country, and both times Jan achieved unexpectedly strong (45%) results in the generals. Further, in 2004, Jan held Katherine Harris to the smallest margin of any congressional candidate in all of Florida.

It should be noted that our Nation's mood is changing. The 2006 mid-terms are expected to signal a slight shift toward the political center. Jan has earned the highest level [by far] of name recognition for Florida's 13th; not to mention amassing strong, hard-earned "in-the-trenches" experience campaigning. She is ready, willing, prepared and quite able to take-on any opponent in the 2006 General Election.

The key questions:

....Are we ready to rise above petty differences?
....Are we willing to set them aside in order to achieve victory?
....Are we ready to stop playing into the hands of our true political enemies once again?

Are we ready to win?

Rally behind and support Jan Schneider (FL-13) for 2006!

Florida's 13th and the Nation need her voice in Congress.