Welcome Ken! So glad you could join us at Firedoglake today.

No problem. Glad to be here.

Ken, welcome to Firedoglake. I know the election is Monday and I know you don’t have to spend the day knocking on doors in Tallahassee. Can you explain who gets to vote in this election for state committeeman? And I have a feeling most of our community want to know what an activist like yourself can accomplish in this kind of a state party position.

Thanks. The election is internal to the Leon County Democratic Party. So the publicly-elected precinct committee women and men and state and local elected officials who have all or part of their district in Leon County, so the mayor, city and county commission, legislators, our Congressional reps and other local offices like sheriff. Leon County is 2/3rds Democratic, so there are something like 30 elected Democrats. In all, there are about 160 voters in the election.

The position serves as a liaison between the local party and the state party and serves on the state party committee. The first and most important role the committee takes on is the election of the state party chair and other state party officials.

How does one go about “campaigning” for this job?

Welcome Ken. Florida’s lucky to have you. Would that we had someone comparable here in Colorado!

Beyond that, the state committee people have increased access to both the party leadership and elected officials in the legislature, Congress and lower levels. Over time, a state committeeman or woman can build up those relationships and have a chance to influence elections and policy.

Hey Kenneth, just wanted to stop by and say good luck!

Thanks, siri.

The biggest thing I’ve done in running for this position is staying on the phone talking to the various voters. Since it’s a small enough group, it’s pretty easy to contact all of them. Much like running for a bigger office, I had to come up with a campaign message and prepare promotional materials. Getting endorsements from local and state officials has also been a pretty significant part, too. I’ve only been involved in the local party for a few years and my opponent has a few decades, so many of the voters know him better than me. So getting someone like Andrew Gillum — who everybody knows — to support me helps convince some of those people who don’t know me as well that I’m someone who can do the job well.

Thanks, Jason.

I’m also working on endorsements from around the state, since those are the people I’d be working with and it’d be good for the voters to see that I’ve already made a lot of the connections I’ll need down the road.

Good Afternoon Ken and thank you for being her this afternoon.

How do the powers in the state party feel about the prospects of a progressive blogger joining them on the committees?

I didn’t mention Andrew in the intro here. He’s an old friend and the head of People For the American Way’s Young Elected Officials program. He’s also a young elected official himself– a City Commissioner… in Tallahassee.

In Florida, the blogging community has a pretty good relationship with the state party. Last year, I proposed a constituency caucus within the party for Netroots Activists — along the lines of the Black Caucus or Hispanic Caucus — and it was approved by the state party. They’ve also given us meeting space at state party events and freedom to present whatever we saw fit at those events. So we’ve really tried to introduce the state party members to the Netroots. We did a live radio show from the state convention with Markos last year and had Matt Stoller come down and keynote our event, which was pretty much a day-long affair.

How would you like to see the state party change– well… in ways that you’ll be able to work on as a state committeeman?

Overall, I think that most of the key players in Democratic party in Florida recognize the importance of the Netroots — and we even have a few electeds who blog, most notably Dan Gelber, who was a minority leader in the legislature last year. And he publishes a real blog, not just press releases. I’m not sure most of the candidates and local members of the party understand all of it yet, but they recognize it as important, so I think they’ll welcome me to the party if I win. And then they’ll pick my brain for how to incorporate this stuff more into what they are doing.

Some of our candidates have already really picked up on the importance of the Netroots and incorporated it well into their campaigns — including big winner Alan Grayson and some of the others who were close to winning, such as Joe Garcia, Annette Taddeo and Doug Tudor. Some of you may have met them at Netroots Nation or at the Big Tent in Denver, since they all visited (as did a few others).

Had the pleasure of meeting Annette in Denver – hope there’s a place for her in the next election cycle.

Some of the other bloggers in Florida have really kind of talked about bringing the disparate parts of the state together more — even jokingly referring to it as a 67-county strategy. Too much in the past, each county has worked independent of the others and the state party and new candidates have recreated their campaigns from scratch, often to their detriment because Republicans are much more well-funded in Florida. There has also been a pretty significant bit of infighting between different factions within the party and people trying to keep ahold of their own turf, regardless of how that effects the party or the state. My goal and what I’d be working on would be to try to get people talking to each other more and working more on moving the state in the right direction. And even beyond that. We recruited people from around the state to make calls for Jim Martin in the runoff. I’d like to see a lot more of that kind of activism — crossing county and even state boundaries to work together — and I’d like to see a much bigger focus on fighting against Republicans than amongst ourselves.

I was really disappointed that Doug Tudor got no real support from the Democratic Establishment. He wound up doing incredibly well– against Adam Putnam, then the #3 ranking Republican in the House. How are the decisions made about who to back and who to not back? Is it something a state committeeman is involved with?

I think we really need to work on institutional knowledge and finding ways to retain that. There’s no reason for us to start over every time we want to do something. We should use the resources we have — including the Internet — to balance out the financial resources the other side has. We’re smarter than they are and we have more creativity, we need to use it.

And as head of the Florida Progressive Coalition, I’d definitely like to see the recruitment of more progressive candidates — more people like the candidates I mentioned earlier. I’d be happy to have people like that representing me. I’m not always happy with some of the Dems we have now, and certainly not happy with the huge Republican majorities we currently face.

I was shocked in 2006 when a real Democrat and union member, Dave Lutrin, was shoved aside by Rahm Emanuel to make room for an actual Republican, Tim Mahoney, as a candidate to run against what Emanuel already knew was a doomed Republican (Mark Foley). I was on the phone with Lutrin a few times a week and I remember feeling ill that he couldn’t get the support from the state party when Emanuel made his moves from DC.

I haven’t heard anything yet about Annette’s plans, but hopefully we’ll see her again. Beating Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will be tough in that district, but Annette is someone we need to see more of.

I like Doug a lot and we spent a lot of time with him in Denver in the Big Tent and I was really disappointed with the lack of support he got and the insult he got from Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I understand she has to put her resources where she thinks the work the best, but she should certainly be helping candidates in other ways if she doesn’t think money is spent wisely on them. And at a least, she shouldn’t be insulting them or insulting the grassroots.

I’ll wager if she had done her job in South Florida, Joe Garcia, at a minimum, would be in D.C. now. There is a draft movement to get him to run for Senate to fill Mel Martinez’s seat and I’m excited about that.

Obviously, I haven’t been a big fan of Emanuel’s influence in Florida. He doesn’t know the landscape here and he doesn’t know the people — which is why we had the Mahoney fiasco. Luckily he’s moving on to another job. At least luckily for progressive candidates around the country.

Joe would make a great member of Congress– in either House. How about Alex Sink? I don’t know her. Is she a progressive at all?

Would love to hear more about the Senate race.

Sink plays her ideology very close to the vest, which can be important in winning statewide office in Florida. The state has a few major urban areas that are progressive and then a ton of smaller rural areas that are not. It’s difficult to win the state if you can’t make some headway into the rural areas, which is why we end up with statewide officials like Bill Nelson and Alex Sink, who are moderate at best on some issues.

Sink does have some pretty good things in her favor, though, that suggest she may be more progressive than she appears at times. During her campaign, she reached out to the Florida Progressive Coalition and was the first interview we did when we were starting up. She also recently hired one of our endorsed candidates Sean Shaw, a good progressive, to an important and visible position as a consumer advocate in the insurance field. The word I get from people who know her better than I do is that she’s fiscally more conservative, but very good on social issues. Obviously, as the state’s chief financial officer, she doesn’t have much impact on social issues these days, so that remains to be seen. She is probably the most popular and most widely-liked Democrat in the state right now, though.

Ken, how difficult is it for netroots activists to break into electoral politics?

The Senate race is difficult to say much about at this point. The wildcard is Jeb Bush. He’s still quite popular in Florida — inexplicably so, since he was a terrible governor — and went out of office with pretty high approval ratings. If he gets in the race — and I think he probably will — he’ll be tough to beat. He’s got universal name recognition, will be able to raise a mint, and effectively already has a team in place around the state. He also speaks Spanish and has a latina wife, so he’ll be able to do well amongst the key Hispanic demographic in South and Central Florida.

On the Democratic side, the top contenders at this point include Sink and Garcia, as well as popular centrist state senator Dave Aronberg, the aforementioned blogging Dem Dan Gelber, and the national blogosphere’s favorite Florida Democrat — Allen Boyd. There could also be others interested in jumping in that have been talked about yet. Any of these candidates would have a legit shot in a non-Jeb race, but Jeb would have to be the initial favorite if he jumped in.

If Jeb’s not in, I’d have to think the seat leans toward the Dem, because the other Republicans are all much less popular and have few of Jeb’s advantages. That is, unless Charlie Crist changes his mind and throws his hat in the ring.

I think Netroots activists can break into electoral politics as easy as anyone else, as long as they can do the things that any candidate would need to do — make contacts, raise money, craft a good message. They might have some advantages in terms of raising money — particularly outside of their district — through the national blogs. And they’d obviously have practice crafting the message through blogging, commenting and debating online. The biggest problems would be getting traditional activists and fundraisers on board (particularly those with a bias against the Internet and new methods of activism) — which would be done through traditional political networking — and the fact that if they’ve blogged or commented for any amount of time, they’ll have a paper trail of old statements that could be used against them. I’m thinking of something like what happened with Melissa McEwan when she joined the John Edwards campaign. That could be a significant drawback if other candidates knew how to exploit it.

Does the state committee have any formal decision-making duties aside from elected the state party chair?

It’s largely a democratic process, with the committee having the ability to vote on various aspects of what the party does. From what I’ve seen and read, the state party officials — such as the chair and her staff — handle the day-to-day operations of the party, but the committee regularly meets and votes on any major things like rules changes (and state party rules are pretty extensive, although some come from the legislature), electoral college members and they have the ability to remove the chair if necessary.

Was great meeting you at Netroots Nation, Ken. Felt much more confident that FL will eventually turn itself around after talking with you and a few other FL folks in August.

[BTW, for the rest of you folks who are becoming more active, even if you’re not thinking about running for office — get business cards printed up, even simple ones with just your name, phone number and email address. I’ve still got Ken’s from this summer, filed in a 3-ring binder with other business cards. Makes him more memorable and a ready resource.]

Thanks, Rayne, and I think the business card thing is a must, both at Netroots stuff, but also at state and local political functions. People are going to ask you for a card and if you don’t have one, a lot of people will think that you don’t have your stuff together if you haven’t even done that little step towards professionalism.

Ken, do you see this as a step towards running for public office yourself at some time?

A key to a lot of this, I think, is listening, reading and learning from others. Soak in everything you can long in advance of taking any action like running for office, then you’ll know what to do when the time comes. And since other people have already done what you want to do, you can learn a lot from them. You need some level of ego to run for office of any sort, but if you take it too far, you’ll be wasting your time and lose.

I’m definitely considering running for office at some point, but I’m a long way off from that. As a father, I wouldn’t want to put three young kids through a campaign at this point — or leave my wife to take care of them by herself while I was out campaigning. And I clearly don’t have the ability yet to raise the kind of money you need to run for office. It’s a skill I can learn, but haven’t gotten it down yet. Running for state committeeman comes out of my desire to change things for the better, both in Florida and beyond. If the party isn’t as progressive as I am or I think they should be, then I feel the best way to do that is from within the party. But moving the party in a more progressive direction isn’t enough to improve the world the way I think it should be improved. Elected officials are the ones with the power to do that, so I would definitely consider running for office at a point when I understand a lot more about the nuts and bolts of politics and campaigns than I do now. For now, though, I want to focus on helping move Florida in a more progressive direction by helping the party become more progressive and more effective statewide.

While there is a little break here, I want to make sure to plug Florida Progressive Coalition — which is not just me, but has dozens of other writers — http://flaprogressives.org and my Twitter Feed at http://twitter.com/quinnelk

It looks to me that the Florida electorate is getting more progressive. And I’m not just saying that because of the victories of Obama and Grayson and the defeats of Feeney and Keller. Maybe I’m dreaming but I believe I’ve detected Bill Nelson moving in the right direction over the past year or so. I suspect he’s keenly aware of what Floridians are looking for. Or am I being overly optimistic?

I hear you, Ken, about the kids; I won’t run for elected office as long as my kids are still in school. With a spouse who travels a lot, it’s not fair to them if I were to have to spend every evening at events when they still need a parent there for support.

But this is a great time for building a posse. You need a strong team on the ground to help with all the odds-and-sods that a successful candidate needs, and working with other campaigns as part of party apparatus builds chops and the network you’ll need. And your kids will learn how to help, too. Mine know how to make Windows Media videos and can upload them to YouTube, they can stuff envelopes and help with literature drops. In another two years, the oldest can drive walkers doing lit drops. And they can babysit for folks who are doorknocking and dropping literature, too. It’s all good.

Nelson’s career-long Progressive Punch score puts him down at the #38 most progressive Democrat in the Senate. But in the current ‘07-’08 session he’s the 29th most progressive, a nice move

I don’t think that’s too optimistic a thing to say. Florida’s electorate was never quite as conservative as people outside the state thought it was. Our representatives are largely Republican because of some of the worst gerrymandering in the country. Beyond that you have the huge Cuban-American population and a lot of rural areas. But there are clearly some demographic changes going on that are moving it in a bluer direction. The Hispanic population in particular, is changing significantly. Cuban-Americans are now less than half the overall Hispanic population in the state, as there has been a huge influx of Puerto Ricans into central Florida. And the younger Cuban generations don’t have the same hang-ups with the Democrats that the older generations do. Garcia, Taddeo and Raul Martinez might’ve just been a little early in running against the big three Cuban-Americans in South Florida. The changing demographics alone could change those seats blue within a few cycles. There are some other factors moving the state in a bluer direction, but that is the most obvious trend in the short-term. It may take a few years for these changes to have much impact on elections or policy, but it’s coming.

I think you’re right Rayne and my kids are getting good progressive training these days. One of the three-year-old twins, Jack, recorded a video for the NotMyGal campaign against Sarah Palin that was great: http://www.zannel.com/viewupda…..K&v=u

I think Nelson has been pretty progressive on certain issue areas and a lot less so on others, which is what drags him down as far as things like his Progressive Punch score. His biggest problem, PR-wise, is that the issues he’s less progressive on just happen to be the issues that are most important to bloggers and the Netroots.

Can you get any kind of an idea how this race is going to turn out? Is it too close to call?

At this point, I’d have to say it leans slightly in my opponent’s favor. I’ve only been involved in the local party for two years (although I was involved in other aspects of the party longer than that), and he has several decades experience, so people know him better. But I’ve been talking to a lot of people and I’m getting pretty good support, and I think that endorsements of elected officials such as city commissioners Andrew Gillum and Debbie Lightsey and Mayor John Marks will help a lot in convincing some of the people that don’t know me as well that I’m someone who can be trusted and that I’m someone that will do a good job in moving the party forward. Obviously, it says something that I’m getting the endorsement of elected officials over an incumbent, and I think people will recognize that. I definitely have a shot, but at this point, it would be an upset for me to win. It’s an upset that myself and a number of other people are working hard to make happen, though.

I hope there’s some way to keep people who recently got involved in politics engaged. Seems like we let the party fall apart in between major elections. Thanks for all you are doing to keep things going.

My opponent also got a head start on me, as I waited to work on this race until after the November 4 election was over. I was so heavily focused on making sure that we held on to state house district 9, which was an open seat because of term limits. It’s usually a reliably Democratic district, but former Florida State and Baltimore Ravens football star Peter Boulware jumped in the race as a Republican with tons of money. The Democratic candidate, Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, held onto the seat by just over 400 votes, but it took a lot of hard work from a lot of people. It just seemed to me that worrying about my own personal future wasn’t as important as working for Michelle and other candidates in one of the most important elections in recent history.

Are people on the committee embarrassed over the spectacle he made of himself with this whole Hillary hysteria he created?

Something we’re working on across Florida — I don’t know about elsewhere — is trying to keep the local Obama campaigns going by creating a series of “Club for Change” organizations. They’ve had some particular success on this in central Florida and the Tallahassee version is meeting today to get going.

Also, things don’t slow down in Florida. Our legislature only meets two months of the year, but they are February and March, so we’ve got to work very hard to make sure that the public knows about the extreme measures the Republican legislature is going to pursue during those 60 days. The economic crisis is worse in Florida than in most other states and last year the Republicans were focused on things like trying to force women seeking abortions to view ultrasounds first, getting intelligent design into the classroom and the banning of “Truck Nutz.” We have our work cut out for us if we want to keep laws like these off the books again this year, because these Republicans are tenacious.

The local committee is mixed on Ausman. He has his strong supporters — he’s earned them over the years — but others don’t like him because of his style and the fact that some don’t feel they can trust him to always do the right thing. Around the state, there are a lot of people who dislike him as well, for many of the same reasons. He has done a lot of good work for the party in the past, but it seems to me — and to some others — that it’s time for a different approach, one that is more collaborative and more connected to newer technologies and campaign strategies and one that brings new voices into the democratic and Democratic process. We’ll find out Monday if enough other people agree with us.

OMG!! He’s adorable!! I think you have a little fundraiser there!!

Can you imagine anybody turning him down if he asked them to donate a dollar bill or a five at a potluck?

Jack’s got two other brothers who are just as adorable. If nothing else, I do make some good-looking kids.

yeah– someone who brough mooseburgers to the potluck. Otherwise… no

Ken, thanks for spending the time with us today. And good luck on Monday. Please let us know how it goes with the voting. I’ll have my fingers crossed for you!

Thanks, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And thanks to everyone at Firedoglake who let us have this platform and thanks to everyone who joined us, it was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely let you know how things turn out.

Thanks Ken and wishing you well with your new endeavors.

Best of luck, Ken, look forward to hearing an update!