Is new Democratic Chair Stephen Bittel wearing blinders? It appears that's the case, because his $100,000 program recently rolled out to incentivize voter registration only includes small and medium Florida counties (read: working-class white voters).
This program, geared toward protecting (former) Sen. Bill Nelson, is not going to achieve its goal. Bill Nelson is still going to lose.
I guess it's good that Bittel & Co. isn't there for the urban community, because the urban community won't be there for them.
Like it or not, Bill Nelson is going to lose. Deservedly so. What should be happening is we should be looking for a candidate to replace the old geezer.
Where is Tim Canova? Where is Pam Keith? Why are we hanging onto people like Bill Nelson, who clearly should be put out to pasture?
The thought process here is that Hillary Clinton relied too heavily on turning out the vote in the major Florida counties.
Yes, Hillary Clinton lost Florida, and lost the Election Day vote by a large margin.
However ...
Has anyone paid any attention to the turnout of the black vote for the General Election?
It was 12.5 percent. Down from the previous presidential elections. Just as I said it was going to be.
Black folks just were not that into Hillary Clinton, and they are going to be even less into Bill Nelson.
When I said the black community would not turn out for Clinton, so many know-it-alls here in Florida wanted to say I was wrong.
They pointed to early voting. They pointed to Souls to the polls.
They said Leslie Wimes didn't know what she was talking about.
Where are they now? Now that the official numbers are out, and I have been proven right, those "experts" are no where to be found.
They're so quiet, you can hear a mouse peeing on cotton.
Mark my words. Bill Nelson is going down. He has not made himself a presence in the black community at all, except to put his finger on the scale in the Florida Democratic Party chair's race.
I've said it before, and I will say it again: No Democrat can win statewide without the black vote, and I don't care how many small and medium counties you go to.
Let's see how a Democrat will win if the black vote drops to 11.5 percent or 10.5 percent.
Keep playing.
You will wander in the desert another 20 years, Democrats.
What Hillary Clinton failed to do, and what Democrats keep failing to do, is actually engage the black community.
You give lip service.
You give phony optics.
All to get votes. Now, as you can see, you are no longer getting the votes you need. It started as a trickle. It's going to get worse.
The way to change that is no secret. There is no big mystery. You have to engage our community.
The bottom line is that you just don't give a damn.
You keep playing those same plantation politics with black people, and only black people.
You run through our churches a few weeks before election time.
You pick a few black surrogates you think we listen to (we don't).
What other demographic goes through these same gyrations? None.
You have to actually deliver tangible things in order to get their votes.
What's sad about this is Hillary Clinton's loss didn't wake you up, and Bill Nelson's won't either ...
Leslie Wimes is founder and president of Women on the Move and the Democratic African American Women Caucus, www.daawc.com. Follow Leslie on Twitter: @womenonthemove1
