On the Florida Democratic Party Chair special election, a brief memoir, and my endorsement of Dr. Carolina Ampudia
February 21, 2023
We have faced several difficulties these past few weeks with frequent viral illnesses and other health issues with Jonah, our older son who turns 4 in a week and is afflicted with ataxia (walking difficulties), speech delays, and other symptoms from death of brain tissue in the area of his cerebellum. This is likely a genetic condition that no one else has in the world but him, and we face the ongoing stress of not yet knowing whether it will get progressively worse as he ages, and also not yet knowing whether his 7-month-old brother Milo is afflicted.
As such, I find myself with very little sustained time to boot up my laptop or desktop computer and write for this newsletter. I really cannot write anything of substance on my smartphone (even with an external keyboard), as it requires quiet and a bigger screen to do research on. I've also been working as a university adjunct professor and am doing freelance writing for a software company, so I have written 6 articles for them for pay that otherwise could have been articles here without pay.
Thus, this may be the only thing I write in February 2023, and although there are many other things I would like to write about, I have selected the Florida Democratic Party today.
You may recall in November 2022, on this newsletter, that I joined the chorus of people requesting the resignation of Florida Democratic Party (FDP) Chair Manny Diaz, due to his ineffectiveness and divisiveness over the past 2 years. He ended up resigning on January 9, 2023, "effective immediately," in a lengthy, self-indulgent screed that criticized and blamed numerous groups, including national Democrats, party employees, and Democratic volunteers. Notably, he included stark criticisms of national Democrats in Washington, DC, claiming:
"The 800-pound gorilla to our north continues to co-opt FDP’s ability to manage. Washington continues to believe they are better equipped to determine our campaign strategy, target universe, messaging, staff hiring and firing decisions. People with little, if any, familiarity with Florida hand many of these directives down to us. Once, just once, those of us on the ground, who know our communities, would love to have a say in these decisions."
"My 'choice' to hire coordinated staff was no choice; my decision to replace underperforming staff midway through the campaign was rejected. Coordinated staff made it clear; they worked for Washington, not the FDP." – Former Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz
Manny Diaz, who should not be confused with his son the football coach (Manuel Diaz II) nor the Republican Manny Díaz who is now Florida's radical right-wing Commissioner of Education, went on to lament that FDP was hamstrung by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Florida Democratic House and Senate Victory committees, claiming that "numerous frustrated state house and senate candidates and congressional candidates regularly reached out to FDP but there was little FDP could do to help."
At this point, I want to include a lengthy self-indulgent screed about my political history. I was elected to a 4-year term as Chair of the Volusia County Democratic Executive Committee on December 8, 2020, which is a subdivision of the Florida Democratic Party overseeing operations in Volusia County, a larger county of approximately 553,000 residents along the east coast between Jacksonville and Orlando. (Note: The terms "County Democratic Executive Committee" and "County Democratic Party" are used interchangeably.) This was quite notable, as I only became a Democrat in March 2019, at age 27, having been raised as a Republican to vote for Ron Paul and then Donald Trump in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. I developed more liberal values slowly at first, as a psychology undergraduate student and then education graduate student at the University of Central Florida, and then more quickly as I met Kristy in 2017 (a lifelong Democrat), learned about the veracity of the climate crisis, and came to align with the progressiveness of Bernie Sanders and others with respect to social values, healthcare, economic equality, and other issues.
The birth of our son, Jonah, on February 27, 2019, along with being bombarded with anti-vaccination rhetoric aligning with radical, right-wing beliefs, culminating in my father basically disowning his son (me) and his grandson over vaccination, was the turning point at which I decided to go online and change my voter registration from Republican directly to Democratic. Leading up to this, I received several missed vaccines for myself in 2018 and did a great deal of reading of academic journal articles on vaccines. (I am not immune to being struck by the irony that our son now has a rare, permanent brain disorder that is blamed by my parents on the vaccines; there is sadly little solace to be found in the fact that there is no evidence to support this.)
Of course, it would be rather absurd to change from Republican to Democratic party on this issue alone; I also lacked understanding of many other issues including abortion, climate change, racial inequity, and the functions of government that had to be remedied to facilitate my change. Then, as we were raising our infant son and I was completing my PhD dissertation on financial literacy of university students studying to be teachers, I daydreamed about running for the United States House of Representatives when facing difficulties writing and revising my dissertation. I ended up running and losing by 3% in the Democratic primary in August 2020, and then being elected a county party chairman as part of a progressive initiative that unsuccessfully sought to take over the Florida Democratic Party in 2020–2021. The initiative came up short, and on January 9, 2021, Manny Diaz was elected to a 4-year term as Chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
Back in Volusia County, many long-time Democratic volunteers were outraged by my election, especially as a recent former Republican who did not have a long track record in Democratic politics, and to add insult to injury, I was also aligned with a movement of progressives who came to power by recruiting individuals to become precinct committeepersons without the knowledge of the incumbent county Democratic party officers. So, despite having majority support of the approximately 150 members of the Volusia County Democratic Executive Committee, I was not able to accomplish much. There were some supporters who criticized me most viciously for my purported fecklessness, but I doubt they would have done much better in our shoes. I was a full-time high school social studies teacher entertaining the idea of leaving teaching in June 2021 to volunteer full-time as Volusia County Democratic Party Chair, but in the end I resigned as party chair on June 13, 2021 after only 6 months, having failed to accomplish what we had hoped and also having been blindsided by a notarization issue with our precinct committeeperson candidate oath forms pertaining to the exceptional COVID-19 pandemic that was unknown to everyone until at least several weeks after I was elected. Regrettably, this drama played out in numerous articles on the front page of our county's most prominent newspaper (The Daytona Beach News–Journal), and in the end, I wished I hadn't ran at all.
Anyway, my point is that I had some good reasons for not being able to accomplish much, but Manny Diaz has a harder time making such an argument. His election was not marred by faulty paperwork, nor did he face an intransigent minority hampering his agenda. He came to power touting his friendships and fundraising connections, particularly to Michael Bloomberg, and promising inclusiveness, transparency, effective organizational management, and distribution of resources to grassroots groups, such as county parties. For the most part, these promises were quickly forgotten and ignored, despite Florida laws and the Florida Democratic Party's charter and bylaws giving him the power to hire and fire, to raise and disburse funds, to enter and terminate contracts, to appoint members and to serve as an ex-officio member on all party committees, and so forth. These tools could be deployed to support candidates, county parties, clubs, and caucuses, including direct or in-kind transfers of up to $50,000 to the principal campaign committees of local and regional Democratic candidates and of up to $250,000 to statewide candidates, even if other Democratic groups are being less than helpful. (Money transferred to principal campaign committees is more effective than uncoordinated political action committee [PAC] spending.)
One of Manny Diaz's first tasks was to deal with Richard Thripp in Volusia County, resulting in his appointment of 27 members to the Judicial Council of the Florida Democratic Party on February 6, 2021, to hear the dispute arising from notarial paperwork issues in my election as well as another contentious issue not directly related to my election. The attorney for the opposition successfully sought to have Governor Ron DeSantis rescind the notarial commission of the notary who notarized my precinct committeeperson oath and 61 others, weakening my case—the notary thought they could do it over Zoom because of the Florida Supreme Court's COVID-19 emergency order without having a Remote Online Notary endorsement, which the Notary Section of the Executive Office of the Governor determined was unlawful. The matters of my election and the status of the 62 precinct committeepersons was left exclusively to the internal purview of the Florida Democratic Party, and we did bargain for me and 61 others to remain members of the Volusia County Democratic Executive Committee (I continue to serve as a member, but many others weren't interested), among several other items, but it seemed clear to me that I would not prevail on continuing to fight, nor did I think it would be helpful toward electing Democrats.
What Manny Diaz faced after the November 8, 2022 statewide shellacking was partly a product of Florida Republicans' successful propaganda operation convincing so many Floridians to vote Republican or to not vote Democratic, but it was also largely a product of his own ineffectiveness. President Harry S Truman liked to say "the buck stops here," which is good advice for anyone who has attained a position of substantial authority.
Since Manny Diaz left, his Executive Director has continued to serve, with the blessing of Acting Florida Democratic Party Chair Judy Mount (per charter and bylaws), and they have already saddled the next State Chair with a contract and announcement of a swanky gala at an overpriced, 5-star hotel in Miami Beach (The Fontainebleau), slated for July 8, 2023. This has been roundly panned as not centrally located within the state and as a colossal waste of money for party volunteers and candidates (most of our candidates are volunteers, too, as Democrats in Florida have so little money).
For the balance of Manny Diaz's term as Florida Democratic Party Chair expiring January 2025, a special election is scheduled for this Saturday, February 25, 2023. The party continues to be governed by an arcane system that gives delegates (state committeepersons) from more populous counties extra voting power ("weighted" votes), ranging from 1 to 59 votes per committeeperson depending on the size of their county. Diaz said he was against that, as does pretty much everyone, but it remains in force, consolidating power within the hands of about a dozen people.
I have endorsed my friend Dr. Carolina Ampudia's candidacy, although I am not a voting member of the state executive committee. I wrote: "Dr. Carolina Ampudia is a great organizer who includes all voices and volunteers tirelessly. She has experience as the president of a statewide Democratic organization, as a labor union organizer, and as a medical doctor. Please consider volunteering for her campaign for Chair of the Florida Democratic Party, and, if you are a member of the State Executive Committee, voting for her on February 25, 2023."
Pundits say this race will go to former Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried or former Florida Senator Annette Taddeo, who are both also in the running. But, both Fried and Taddeo have made substantial compromises in either catering to and being funded by corporate special interests, or in reactionary trashing of "socialism" as a bogeyman that reinforces Republican propaganda and has not led to electoral success (Manny Diaz also frequently engaged in this malarkey). I think either of them will do a better job than Manny Diaz did, but Dr. Ampudia is the real deal—which is precisely what we need given the battered, moribund state the Florida Democratic Party now finds itself in.
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Notes:
You can learn more about Carolina Ampudia, M.D. at any of these websites:
https://www.facebook.com/CarolinaForFDP
https://www.floridadems.org/our-party/fdp-chair-candidates/carolina-ampudia/
My letter from November 20, 2022 calling for Manny Diaz's resignation:
AP story from January 10, 2023 about Manny Diaz's resignation:
Seven articles in The Daytona Beach News–Journal about my election as Chair of the Volusia County Democratic Party and the aftermath:
December 9, 2020: Volusia Democrats elect former Republican Richard Thripp as new chair
December 28, 2020: Disputed Volusia Democrats' election exposes inner turmoil
January 6, 2021: Volusia Democratic state committeewoman candidate will challenge local party election
January 17, 2021: Former Volusia Democratic chair: Party election should be invalidated
June 14, 2021: Volusia Democrats reverse December election, re-anoint Jewel Dickson as chair
July 19, 2021: Volusia Democrats have new dispute between Jewel Dickson and Richard Thripp
July 27, 2021: Faced with threat of rancor, Volusia County Democrats resolve issues, elect new slate (I am grateful to Dr. Joyce Cusack for advocating for me and others to continue as members of the Volusia County Democratic Executive Committee)
In the January 9, 2021 election that Manny Diaz won, I supported Hillsborough County Democratic Party Chair Ione Townsend's unsuccessful bid, and later voted for her successful bid for Chair of the Florida Democratic County Chairs Association:
Recently, a friend recommended the book Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change by Eitan Hersh. I am listening to the audiobook which covers a North Carolina Democratic organization ("Precinct 206 Democrats"), which sounds a lot like what we did, although they have been more persistent for longer (perhaps because we bit off more than we could chew):
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Politics-Is-for-Power/Eitan-Hersh/9781982116798
In full disclosure: Dr. Carolina Ampudia was a key organizer in the initiative that resulted in my election as Chair of the Volusia County Democratic Party. This was named "Not Me, Us" (Florida edition), from the Bernie Sanders movement. In January 2021, we endorsed Ione Townsend over Manny Diaz and delivered a great many votes for her (although not enough), as covered here: