A St. Petersburg conference finds lessons in the GOP's modern emergence in the state.
By LETITIA STEIN
Published November 21, 2004
Florida's Democrats staggered out of the 2004 election, losing the presidential vote and a U.S. Senate seat, but the Sunshine State is not nearly as solidly Republican as its southern neighbors.
That was the message Saturday at a conference featuring local and national political scientists and activists from both parties.
"Democrats are not out of it in Florida," said Merle Black, an expert in southern politics and a professor at Emory University.
"They may feel out of it," Black said, but he said he believes Democrats actually have more hope here than in other southern states. "Florida politics is going to remain very competitive."
Black was one of the keynote speakers at a conference that examined the emergence of the modern Republican Party in Florida. It was held at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
For Democrats, Black's assessment may offer scant solace in the election recap that political experts presented on Saturday.
By greater margins than 2000, Republicans solidified their victory on the presidential ticket and they picked up a U.S. Senate seat. And they maintained their sweeping control of state government.
Nothing is likely to change soon. But Black said Florida has not fully mirrored trends in other southern states, which gradually recast the nation's political landscape by switching from Democratic to Republican dominance in recent years. In Florida, though, moderate white voters have not swung to the Republican Party in the same numbers as in other southern states. The state also continues to reinvent itself, as population growth and immigration change the political scene.
"Demographics is destiny," said Gary Mormino, a history professor at USF St. Petersburg. "The future of Florida politics is Hispanics and seniors."
Just 50 years ago, anyone who predicted a Republican majority in Florida might have been laughed out of a polling precinct.
In 1954, Pinellas County made history by electing William Cramer to Congress. He was the first Republican from Florida to hold the post in modern times. His grass roots organizing effectively handed Pinellas County's government to the Republican Party during the 1950s, and the GOP still dominates there.
But Democrats can find lessons in Cramer's methods. He served eight terms as a member of the minority party in Congress.
"It's one thing to get elected. It's another to perform," said Richard Haber, who worked as Cramer's administrative assistant for 10 years.
He rattled off accomplishments credited to Cramer, which includes building the state Republican Party.
The late congressman's legacy provided a focal point for discussions at the conference attended by about 30 people. Sponsors included Cramer's family and the state Republican Party.
Cramer's tenacity and patience may be the Democrats' best bet, experts say. For the near future, political experts could offer them only faint glimmers of hope.
Democrats won't have a chance for meaningful gains on the state level until term limits force out a crop of GOP lawmakers in 2008, said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.
But the party may have stopped its fall.
Despite recent gains in elected offices, the percentage of registered Republican voters in Florida has not risen since the early 1990s, said Darryl Paulson, a professor of government at USF St. Petersburg.
"In many respects, the Republican Party in Florida is at something of a zenith right now," Paulson said. "What else is left to grab?"
The one statewide office left in Democratic control: Bill Nelson's Senate seat. He's up for re-election in 2006.
