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...And Florida! Yeaaahh!

By ADAM C. SMITH
Published February 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - There's a Florida lesson in Howard Dean's ascension to the helm of the Democratic National Committee Saturday: Don't underestimate the chutzpah and political shrewdness of Scott Maddox, Florida's Democratic state chairman and likely candidate for governor.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that former Vermont Gov. Dean owes his new job to Maddox and the Florida Democratic Party. A key question now is how well Dean will repay Florida Democrats - and Maddox.

The crowded race for DNC chairman looked wide open until mid January, when Maddox announced to the New York Times that Florida's 11 DNC members were unanimously endorsing Dean. The ever-quotable Maddox brushed off talk that Dean is too liberal and would hurt Democrats among moderate voters.

"I'm a gun-owning pickup truck driver, and I have a bulldog named Lockjaw. I am a Southern chairman of a Southern state, and I am perfectly comfortable with Howard Dean as DNC chair," Maddox declared.

A stream of other Dean endorsements followed Florida's. The field of chairman candidates, which included moderate former U.S. Reps. Martin Frost of Texas and Tim Roemer of Indiana, Simon Rosenberg of the centrist New Democrat Network and South Carolina strategist Donnie Fowler, dwindled until only Dean remained.

The many Florida Democrats who at first were sputtering mad about Maddox's early decision to hitch the state party to Dean have quieted considerably now.

"I received a lot of criticism for the decision we made, not only from elected officials and others in Florida but around the country," Maddox said, chuckling. "Now everybody's saying what a great choice it was."

Not everybody.

"What does that do to Bill Nelson? That's like putting a rock on Bill Nelson's back," lobbyist and veteran Democratic strategist Jim Krog said. Nelson, Florida's Democratic U.S. senator, is facing what is likely to be a tough re-election campaign next year. "What I would say to (Nelson) is he should run away from the Democratic Party."

The DNC election highlights how Florida Democrats are as divided about what the party needs to do to start winning again as their counterparts nationally.

Just as many in Washington dreaded the prospect that the Iowa screamer would take the helm of the party, prominent Democrats in Florida were aghast after Maddox threw the state party's DNC endorsement to Dean. The antiwar darling of liberal Internet bloggers is hardly the person to help the party win back conservative North Florida Democrats, they fumed.

Nelson, like many other elected Florida Democrats, was not even consulted about the endorsement. Diplomatically, he said only that he wished Florida's DNC members had waited longer to get more leverage.

Maddox and Florida's other DNC members ignored other state Democratic chairs who wanted everybody to wait weeks and give a unified endorsement.

"We all felt, all the DNC members, that if we waited for that we became irrelevant," said Broward Democratic Chairman Mitch Ceasar.

Florida's diverse set of 11 DNC members had little skepticism about Dean. Most knew of his record as a moderate governor and had a chance to talk to him in person.

He joined many of them for an Italian dinner in Orlando in December. A month later, all 11 members attended a DNC meeting in Atlanta to size up contenders for the chair's job. Dean stood out.

By then, the ball was already rolling for Florida to get behind Dean early. It helped that a leader of Dean's Florida presidential campaign, Tallahassee city commissioner and DNC member Allan Katz, is a Democratic fundraiser and close ally of Maddox's. He helped keep DNC members in close contact with Dean and his advisers.

Perhaps the biggest factor in Dean's favor, though, was his avid grass-roots support. After his presidential campaign ended, Dean created Democracy for America, a political action committee aiming to "rebuild the Democratic Party from the ground up." Dean's Internet-savvy army played hard in the DNC campaign, as did the liberal group MoveOn.org.

"When I'm receiving e-mails and letters from across Florida and all over the country, I have to pay attention to that," said Hillsborough Democratic Chairwoman and DNC member Janee Murphy. "I'm not going to sit here and say I was the biggest fan of Howard Dean, but this party needs some fresh ideas, and I think he has them."

She and other DNC members like Dean's emphasis on grass-roots organizing and on courting voters all over the country and not just in swing states. They say they appreciate that he campaigned hard for John Kerry and other Democrats after losing the presidential contest.

They saw little to gain playing it safe.

"There's a Machiavellian principle that says you should always pick sides," said DNC member Jon Ausman of Tallahassee. "That's because if you're with the side that wins you wind up with the keys to the city, and if you're with the side that loses you at least wind up with a warm cave outside the city."

In Dean's case, that warm cave would include tens of thousands of people in Florida and across the country who could mobilize with the click of a mouse and pump money into a campaign.

None of the other contenders could do that. If Maddox backed Dean and Dean lost, Maddox and the state party still would have endeared themselves to a potent Democratic force.

"This was going to be a good move for the Florida Democratic Party regardless of the outcome, because Dean was the one guy who could help people even if he didn't make it," Katz said.

Dean now owes the Florida Democratic Party. Maddox and others involved in the endorsement insist they extracted no specific promises, other than to ensure Florida has influence in any reorganization of the DNC, particularly in strengthening its political operation for the South.

And Maddox's own political plans? While many Democrats see him as an inevitable candidate for governor, the 36-year-old former Tallahassee mayor said he believes former Senate candidate Betty Castor should have a few months to decide whether she's in. He expects to announce his plans in May and insisted that he and Dean never discussed his own prospects.

"I would not put him in that position," said Maddox, who ran for attorney general in 2002. "You can't ask him to support one candidate over another in a primary."

There are plenty of Deaniacs around Florida and the country who will remember how much Maddox helped their man when others stayed on the sidelines, however. That may help explain why Maddox was smiling so broadly at the DNC meeting in Washington this weekend.

Then again, Howard Dean's becoming the chief of the Democratic Party had a lot Republicans smiling just as broadly.

Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 13, 2005, 01:21:19]