Florida - A Changing Political Climate
By Editorial Staff
Published May 1, 2008
In less than a decade, Republicans have added 1 million voters to their rolls in the state of Florida, while the Democrats have added just 300,000. In 1994, for the first time, more Florida voters took part in the GOP primary for governor than the Democratic.
Florida has voted Republican in nine of the past 11 presidential elections, but is fast becoming a GOP stronghold at all levels of government. The Florida Senate went Republican in 1994 for the first time since Reconstruction, and the GOP is just four seats shy of a majority in the state House. Florida Republicans have a 15-8 majority in the U.S. House.
Florida is not an easy state to campaign in. It is populous – 14 million residents and growing at a rate of nearly 250,000 per year. It is diverse, stretching from the “cracker country” in the northern Panhandle to the retirees on the west coast beaches of the Caribbean, from the Cuban population of Miami-Fort Lauderdale to urban Jacksonville. Florida spans two time zones and takes about 16 hours to drive from the tip of the Florida Keys to Pensacola. Therefore, it is expensive to campaign in. Campaigning must be done on television, and reaching the whole state requires buying myriad media markets.
Many of the issues that are on the front burner in California are also prominent at the other end of the Sun Belt. Crime, taxes and immigration policy are all big issues in Florida, although its large Cuban population (estimated to be about 10 percent of the GOP vote) requires a more nuanced approach to immigration than the anti-immigrant line that has played well in California. And Florida’s large retiree population ensures that the fate of Medicare and other issues of importance to the elderly are of prime concern.
Republican strength has been growing in all parts of Florida. But when GOP candidates go looking for votes they focus on a horseshoe-shaped area that extends up the Gulf Coast to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, cuts through the central part of the state to Daytona Beach, then stretches south along the Atlantic Coast to the Miami area, where most of Florida’s Cuban population lives.
There, it helps to have a friend or family member who speaks Spanish. George Bush used Jeb, who was chairman of the Dade County GOP in the mid-1980s. Jeb helped his father carry the county in the 1988 GOP primary with three-quarters of the vote; Bush ran even better in Dade in 1992. Statewide, Bush won easily both times.
While the Republican Party is rapidly expanding these days, Democrats are trying to hold together a fraying coalition that extends from conservative, small-town whites in the panhandle to Jewish and minority voters in south Florida. It is an ethnic stew that has given Florida politics an anomaly. Northern Florida is Southern and southern Florida is Northern, the saying goes.
Southern Democrats have done best at the presidential level by bridging the two ends of the state. Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter have been the only Democrats since 1950 to win Florida, and Bill Clinton has been the narrowest loser, trailing Bush by less than 2 percentage points in 1992.
Southern Democrats have also done well in the party’s presidential primary. George C. Wallace of Alabama capitalized on anti-busing sentiment to overwhelm a large Democratic field in 1972. Georgia’s Carter won crucial Florida primaries in 1976 and 1980, beating Wallace and Edward M. Kennedy, respectively. And Arkansas’ Clinton readily won in 1992.
Florida at a Glance …
Population: 14 million
Percentage of U.S. population: 5.36%
White 84%
Black 15%
Hispanic 14%Growth rate:
Since 1980: 43.2%
Since 1990: 7.8%GOP presidential wins since 1968:
6 out of 71992 presidential vote:
Bush: 41% Clinton: 39% Perot: 20%Registration:
Democrats: 3,525,344 (48%)
Republicans: 3,052,711 (42%)
Other: 753,209 (10%)
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Massacre of Innocence (DVD)
Exposing The Occult Roots of Abortion
This presentation looks at the spiritual roots of abortion and exposes the myths surrounding child killing. Little known historical facts about abortion and how they relate to modern feminism are presented logically and accurately. Has been effective in converting many to a pro-life position.
Massacre of Innocence goes where no pro-life presentation has gone before in “tearing the lid off abortion” to reveal the spiritual realities we must battle if we will bring an end to this crime. The presentation is absorbing, fast-paced, informative and incredibly devastating to any attempt to justify abortion.
“… an extraordinary statement … a powerfully articulate presentation about what abortion really means, and why a great and moral nation like the United States must not allow the slaughter to continue.”
— Congressman Robert K. Dornan
Running time: 85 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
Freedom: The Model of Christian Liberty (DVD)
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry’s famous declaration not only helped launch the War for Independence, it also perfectly summarized the mindset that gave birth to, and sustained, the unprecedented experiment in Christian liberty that was America.
The freedom our Founders envisioned was not freedom from suffering, want, or hard work. Nor was it freedom to indulge every appetite or whim without restraint—that would merely be servitude to a different master. No, the Founders’ passion was to live free before God, unfettered by the chains of autocracy, shackles that slowly but inexorably bind men when the governments they fashion fail to recognize and uphold freedom’s singular, foundational truth: that all men are created in the image of God, and are thereby co-equally endowed with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This presentation is a similar call, not to one but many. By reintroducing the principles of freedom that gave birth to America, it is our prayer that Jesus, the true and only ruler over the nations, will once again be our acknowledged Sovereign, that we may again know and exult in the great truth that “where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Welcome to the Second American Revolution!
This DVD features “Liberty: The Model of Christian Liberty” along with “Dawn’s Early Light: A Brief History of America’s Christian Foundations.” Bonus features include a humorous but instructive collection of campaign ads and Eric Holmberg’s controversial YouTube challenge concerning Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
$14.95 — ORDER NOW!
(We accept all major credit cards and PayPal.)Click here for more information
The Four Keys to the Millennium (Book)
Foundations in Biblical Eschatology
By Jay Rogers, Larry Waugh, Rodney Stortz, Joseph Meiring. High quality paperback, 167 pages.
All Christians believe that their great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will one day return. Although we cannot know the exact time of His return, what exactly did Jesus mean when he spoke of the signs of His coming (Mat. 24)? How are we to interpret the prophecies in Isaiah regarding the time when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:19)? Should we expect a time of great tribulation and apostasy or revival and reformation before the Lord returns? Is the devil bound now, and are the saints reigning with Christ? Did you know that there are four hermeneutical approaches to the book of Daniel and Revelation?
These and many more questions are dealt with by four authors as they present the four views on the millennium. Each view is then critiqued by the other three authors.
$12.95 — ORDER NOW!
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A Revival Account: Asbury 1970 (DVD)
What is true Revival and Spiritual Awakening?
Discover the answer in this eyewitness account by Dennis Kinlaw, President of Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky, who recounts the story of a visitation of the Holy Spirit in 1970. This is the presentation that has continued to spark the flames of Revival in the hearts of people around the world. Contains eyewitness footage from the Revival at Asbury College in 1970 in Wilmore, Kentucky.
Certain to challenge you to greater holiness and a deeper commitment to full-scale revival. Original news and private footage has been included. If you are a student who longs to see a spiritual awakening at your school, you must see this video!
“This simple video does a wonderful job of conveying something of God’s heart and power, Everyone we have ever shown this to has received an immediate impartation of faith for revival and the power of prayer.”
— Bob and Rose Weiner, Weiner Ministries Int’l
Running Time: 40 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
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The Abortion Matrix: Defeating Child Sacrifice and the Culture of Death (DVD)
Download the free Study Guide!
Is there a connection between pagan religion and the abortion industry?
This powerful presentation traces the biblical roots of child sacrifice and then delves into the social, political and cultural fall-out that this sin against God and crime against humanity has produced in our beleaguered society.
Conceived as a sequel and update to the 1988 classic, The Massacre of Innocence, the new title, The Abortion Matrix, is entirely fitting. It not only references abortion’s specific target – the sacred matrix where human beings are formed in the womb in the very image of God, but it also implies the existence of a conspiracy, a matrix of seemingly disparate forces that are driving this holocaust.
The occult activity surrounding the abortion industry is exposed with numerous examples. But are these just aberrations, bizarre yet anomalous examples of abortionists who just happen to have ties to modern day witchcraft? Or is this representative of something deeper, more sinister and even endemic to the entire abortion movement?
As the allusion to the film of over a decade ago suggests, the viewer may learn that things are not always as they appear to be. The Abortion Matrix reveals the reality of child-killing and strikes the proper moral chord to move hearts to fulfill the biblical responsibility to rescue those unjustly sentenced to death and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 24:11,12; 31:8,9).
Speakers include: George Grant, Peter Hammond, RC Sproul Jr., Paul Jehle, Lou Engle, Rusty Thomas, Flip Benham, Janet Porter and many more.
Ten parts, over three hours of instruction!
Running Time: 195 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
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