Put your big-girl pants on and let's talk party leadership.
Allison Tant's descent last week into post-election finger-pointing and name-calling -- all caught on camera in a News Service of Florida interview -- might impress the folks who make a living stroking her ego, but she probably won't want to attach the video to her resume.
Watching the chairwoman's rant was particularly painful. I was actually embarrassed for her, only two years ago a lobbyist, favored for the party chairmanship by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
And before you ask what business I have butting into the Democrats' affairs, I will tell you I have absolutely none. I fully admit I tend to favor policies created on the other side of the aisle.
But, believe it or not, I have great respect for the men and women in the Florida Democratic caucus. And that compels me to speak my mind anyway.
Here's the thing to remember: Allison Tant is chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party. Again, that's chairwoman. Last I heard, that is her only title. Her four-year term doesn't make her the party's head poo-bah. And the words she speaks are not delivered on tablets of stone.
Looking at the party bylaws, Tant's job is wholly administrative. She is the chief executive of the state Democratic Executive Committee.
But Democratic legislators don't work for her. Repeat, they don't work for Allison Tant.Quite the opposite -- she works for them. Legislators in the party caucus work for the voters and only the voters.
So my question is this: How is it Tant feels comfortable or justified embarrasing the people she works for, calling them "bedwetters," painting them as little more than disgruntled whiners and telling them to "shut up"? Who else gets to talk so offensively to and about their bosses in a public format?
And as long as I'm asking questions, why is Allison Tant, as chairwoman of the Democratic Party, in the middle of a legislative caucus organizational issue?
Tant's biggest beef was caucus infighting, she said -- a slap at Rep. Dwayne Taylor, who said last week he will challenge Rep. Mark Pafford's leadership of the House Democratic Caucus on Monday night. (Taylor has since withdrawn his challenge.)
Tant gave a torturous explanation that a Pafford-Taylor vote would represent the seventh caucus leadership vote in a year and eight months. She was blaming the caucus for hurting state party recruitment of candidates and fundraising because with all the changes at the top, well, no one knows who's in charge or who to build a relationship with.
Interesting, because by all accounts, Tant was behind the ouster of Rep. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, caucus leader in 2013, because the caucus "was too divided under him." I think thatmight qualify her as Chief Bedwetter.
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The videotaped interview, now on YouTube, is at at the bottom of this page. See for yourself.
It's understandable that Tant might need something to deflect responsibility forFlorida's abysmal election results away from herself:
- She fielded fourstatewide candidates and they all lost three by landslides.
- The Democrats' small delegation in the Florida House further shrunk, giving Republicans a supermajority.
- The party failed to recruit strong challengers to most GOP members of Congress.
- Voter turnout in Democrat-rich South Florida was dismal.
The simple fact is, Democrats were unable to persuade the coalition that delivered the White House to Barack Obama young voters, women and minorities to turn out in midterms at levels seen in presidential elections.
Certainly, it's not fair to pin all the blame for these things on one person. On the other hand, they did happen on Chairwoman Tant's watch -- in a state in which Democrats still hold a 455,000-voter edge over Republicans.
In truth, Tant's marshaling of Election 2014 has been marked with a kind of my-way-or-the-highway rule, first making party enemies of loyal members who genuinely questioned the principles of a Democratic gubernatorial candidate recruited as a born-again party member.
If caucus members are a little squirrelly, a little edgy after losing Mike Clelland, Mark Danish, Joe Saunders, Linda Stewart and Carl Zimmerman -- all replaced by Republicans in the House --certainly it's understandable.
Do the Republicans have these squabbles? I'm absolutely sure they do. But they have enough common sense to find a hotel room, shut the door behind them and hammer out their differences -- letting all the name-calling fly behind closed doors. Then, when the doors open, they walk out into the light with a unified front.
Seems to me Allison Tant would be better advised to hold her temper, address her caucus respectfully and let the enemy camp teach her something.
