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Nancy Smith

Allison Tant Shoulda Listened; Merry Trump, Earthjustice!

November 12, 2016 - 6:00am

This column is a vehicle for a number of items in a bits-and-pieces, strictly opinion, sometimes irreverent format. Look for "Just Sayin'" to run once a week in this spot.

Allison Tant's Couldas, Shouldas

If anybody has a right to ask Allison Tant, "Can you hear me now?," it's Leslie Wimes.

I don't have to ask Leslie to know she's not surprised Tant won't be back as Florida Democratic Party chair, and I'm betting the first words out of her mouth were, "It's about time!" 

For the past three years, Leslie Wimes, founder of the Democratic African American Women's Caucus and occasional guest columnist in Sunshine State News, has been about as put down, kicked around, threatened and eventually blackballed by state party leaders as any one loyal party member could be. Her crime? Trying to tell Tant where she was going wrong.

Every time, on every issue I can think of, Wimes was 100 percent right-on. But Tant wouldn't have it. I was even told early on that she thought Leslie was Gov. Rick Scott's "plant" -- a "pretend" Democrat.

The abusive treatment didn't turn off Leslie. In fact, one thing I've learned: you come at Leslie Wimes, you'd better do it in a full suit of armor.

She kept trying to set Tant straight.

Charlie Crist? Why would you throw all your support behind Chain Gang Charlie, a born-again Democrat with questionable commitment to anything, more than six months before the Democratic primary for governor?

Nan Rich? Why wouldn't you allow Rich, the true progressive in the race, a candidate for governor who paid her dues many times over, to face Crist in a TV debate?

Barack Obama? We love Barack Obama. He's our champion and our hero. African-Americans will come out to see him every time. But we don't OWE him our vote for Hillary, she has to earn that herself.

Hillary Clinton? You want the African-American vote? You have to get your candidate -- in fact, all your candidates, not just Hillary -- to engage with the black community directly. It doesn't work anymore for Hillary to send her surrogates to a few churches on Sunday. We want to know what she's going to do for US. Specifically.

Bernie Sanders, also shunned by Tant and the party brass, called Wimes during the primary and asked for her help. She agreed, told Sanders to schedule a trip to South Florida and she would help get the word out. But Sanders never came. He said later it was a matter of money and his campaign opted to spend elsewhere. Too bad. His plans for low-cost housing might have gone over well in South Florida's black neighborhoods.

By late October, when Hillary Clinton was sinking in the polls among blacks in battleground states, the world wasn't asking for Allison Tant, it was asking for Leslie Wimes. Leslie became probably the hottest ticket on network news -- appearing on everything from Fox to the BBC, from CNN to NPR. Even the Hamburg-based German news magazine Der Spiegel interviewed her.

Wouldn't you have thought that along the way somewhere, Tant might have called her, asked to hear more of her ideas up close? Didn't happen.   

Tant's mistake is that she's an establishment Democrat in a party that, until Nov. 8, believed there's no other way than the go-along status quo to survive. From what I've seen, establishment Democrats only want to pick winners. They don't consider a candidate's ideology or principles or history. If they can win, they get the party embrace. That was Tant's doctrine, too.

The FDP needs to find a better way in January, and I'm sure Allison Tant knew it very well in the cold light of Wednesday. Republicans don’t have a slight edge over Democrats in a decaying political system. Republicans are ascendant. Trump has given them a mission.

I genuinely think Tant did everything a traditional Democratic Party leader could do -- throwing all her eggs in Clinton's basket, as she did, closing her ears to criticism. But she was on the wrong path to make a dent in the balance of the Florida Legislature, and her decision not to run again in January says she knows it.


In the Words of Monty Python,
'O, Pantomime Horse, I'm so Bleedin' Happy'

Try to imagine the heart-pounding, Election Night joy of environmental law attorneys when Donald J. Trump was declared the next president. It must have been something akin to kids at Christmas.

Instead of sugar plums dancing in their heads, they saw bubbles of billable hours and Tom Steyer's checkbook. Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.

First lawyer group out of bed, bounding down the stairs on Christmas morning was Earthjustice. No surprise there. Those folks will litigate a mud puddle.

First thing Wednesday, Trip Van Noppen, Earthjustice president, sent out this statement from his San Francisco office:

"We are gravely concerned about the statements of President-elect Trump on environmental issues, which demonstrate that he might be the most anti-environment president in history.

"He has claimed that he will bring about an energy revolution, but his statements and policies demonstrate that he will most likely encourage greater dependence of our country on dirty fossil fuels and accelerate global warming in the face of unprecedented international agreement to tackle climate change. He has publicly stated that he does not believe in the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting climate change and his record on all matters involving justice, equity and human rights is troubling.

“Therefore, Earthjustice will be working overtime in the courts to hold President-elect Trump and his administration accountable under our nation’s laws, which protect Americans’ right to a clean and healthy environment.”

The Electoral College is yet to meet -- Trump is still more than two months away from his inauguration -- but Earthjustice will be "working overtime in the courts" to protect Americans. 

Trump's election is every environmental attorney's retirement plan. 

Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith

Comments

I don't have much of a sense of humor when it comes to Trump and his merry band of climate deniers, and I am actually thinking of donating to Earthjustice, but that "Those folks will litigate a mud puddle" line made me laugh. Good one!

Comments are now closed.

nancy smith
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