Andrew Gillum whose impressive resume over the past decade as a leading Democrat in our state speaks for itself has chosen to announce his support for Allison Tant today here on TPH. We are proud Andrew choose TPH to release his recommendation. Andrew’s letter to Florida Democrats is below.
Dear Florida Democrats:
I enthusiastically support Allison Tant for Florida Democratic Party Chair. While many have touted Allison’s fundraising prowess as her greatest strength – a distinction she earned raising over $300k for President Obama – her belief in grassroots organizing and the power of people make her the right woman for the job.
I first got to know Allison in early 2007 when she was an enthusiastic volunteer for then-Senator Barack Obama’s anti-establishment campaign to become the Democratic nominee for President. Back then Obama’s chances of becoming our nominee were bleak to say the least.
Still, Allison was there to volunteer for any and every job; from helping organize walk-lists for door-to-door canvassing to staging organizing efforts from her living room. She worked to organize Women for Obama and helped transform everyday citizens into campaign volunteers. While her fundraising skills were evident from the very beginning – her passion, energy and willingness to engage at the grassroots is even more inspiring.
Here in Tallahassee, Allison has earned the reputation of being a hard-charging, committed and unwavering Democrat eager to usher the Party into a new renaissance of people-centered power. I can personally attest to her support for the need to build a strong bench of Democratic candidates to compete for public office – a crucial area where we need to improve as a party.
The Florida Democratic Party could not have a greater advocate for building a rapid response machine capable of responding to the Governor and the legislature on their inevitable efforts to enact Karl Rove’s legislative agenda.
With Allison at the helm, the FDP will not only have the right ideas to move our party into the next election cycle with the infrastructure and vision necessary to compete, but also the resources needed to bring these changes we all know are needed.
There are some who feel that Allison’s support from party leaders including DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Senator Bill Nelson means she won’t be able to bring change to our party. This argument is flawed. Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz has helped lead our national party forward, and achieve historic wins nationwide and here in Florida. Throughout this past election cycle, even as polls showed the President trailing Romney in Florida, Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz fought to keep our state a top priority and helping us pick up seats up and down the ballot. Her support is a testament to her belief that Allison will be able to achieve the same success for the Florida Democratic Party
Allison is one of the strongest, most driven and independent women I know. The Allison I know will not be beholden to the party elite; she will be a fiercely independent and committed leader. With Allison Tant as our chair, I am confident we will have the leadership we need to put Democrats back in power.
I am asking for your help to move our party forward. I am asking your help to unify our party. I am asking for your support for my good friend, Allison Tant.
Yours In Service,
Andrew Gillum
Gillum is the consummate Tallahassee insider. Should we have expected any different?
The thing so many people in Tallahassee and even central Florida totally fail to understand is how out of neglected those of us in the LARGEST METROPOLITAN AREA IN FLORIDA FEEL HOW THOSE OF US IN THE AREA PRODUCING HUGE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES ARE BEING CAST ASIDE.
I wish we had produced our own chair candidate, someone like Brett Berlin, Terrie Rizzo or Ken Evans. But Alan Clendenin has embraced our region and our needs with his plan. Besides Tampa is a lot more like Miami or Fort Lauderdale than Tallahassee or Gainesville are. Urban Florida is where the Democrats are strong and need to gte stronger. It is where we can squeeze out more votes if our party is rebuilt from the ground up in the big counties, the ones that truly matter.
The insider network is trying to railroad Clendenin. We won’t let them. We are winning this election. This site has been great except for that series by Trotter that totally went off message and backfired, so please keep saying what you are saying guys. I respect you for giving Tant supporters the floor like with this piece but keep pushing hard for changes regardless of who wins this chair’s race.
How come these Tant supporters never talk about unions? The biggest backbone of the Democratic Party are the unions, and Tant doesn’t talk about them at all. If Tant wins, you can kiss away any grassroots organization! She associates herself with people who constantly lose. So those that end up voting for Tant support the status quo and support the Democrats in Florida being the worst in the nation!!!!!! I don’t know about you but I am tired of losing!!!!!!!
Never talk about unions .. you mean like the FEA and SEIU endorsements? She associates with losers … like Barack Obama and Bill Nelson? I can smell the panic in Hillsborough County from here.
Endorsements, big deal! I don’t care about endorsements. I care about what each will do. None of her supporters talk about unions and she doesn’t even mention the word “union” once in her plan.
Right now it looks like Tant is anti-union. Looking at her past campaign contributions I can see why she would be anti-union! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Clenendin nabbed the Teamsters support today.
Andrew Gillum – Wow another Tallahassee operative sucking from the gravy train that Allison Tant will continue as the puppet for the Tallahasee power elite. How unique!
Don’t be fooled by the Andrew Gillum from Tallahassee BS!
We need someone who’s away from the La La crowd in Tallahassee where everyone tells everyone else how wonderful they are!
Get the shovels out! It’s going to take a lot to get rid of this Tallahassee and DC crap!
Don’t be fooled Democrats! Vote for the Union guy who has worked in the trenches like the rest of us and not someone who just showed up at a DEC meeting last week!
Support the real agent of change: support Alan Clendenin for FDP Chair!!
What a breath of fresh air. It has been a while since TPH has not been so obviously biased. I don’t know what has changed but I like it. Unfortunately the people in the comments section are still loony, but that is to be expected I guess. Let’s try to keep this going.
As for Union endorsements for Tant, the Florida Educators Association (aka Teachers Union) endorsed her today. So, perhaps you should do a little research before you start slinging accusations Phil.
Yeah… Before you speak, I would recommend this great site I found the other day called google.com (pronounced goo-geh-lay I believe). It would tell you that Andrew Gillum is a city commissioner in Tallahassee not an operative.
Also this site the google linked to, Wikipedia (a bunch of Hawaiians with a foot fetish or something – i don’t know, I suck at latin), will tell you that Andrew is 33 years old and was elected as a 23 year old to the city commission. That’s what I call building a bench.
AskJeeves also told me that he also runs a non-profit progressive organization dedicated to developing young candidates and pushing progressive policy like union rights (see I mentioned unions so by the transitive property of dumbass logic, I must be a clendenin supporter).
Reality check:
Who to fund the party?
Allison: Crist and Republicans
Alan: Joe Abruzzo, Jeff Green and you get hookers.
The Democratic Party is more corrupt than the Republican party and their cover is about to blow.
Read the comment I made above and you might understand, the “endorsements, big deal” comment?
Also, what is “loony” about wanting to win? So if wanting to win is “loony”, well, call me crazy then.
While I love DWS for her many accomplishments on the one hand, I am angry at her for the poor choices she has made in candidates to support in Florida. Nelson is a wuss who just follows her lead. But, whoever wins this election, I doubt seriously that DWS will interfere with the Party machinery and she does have a history of being supportive.
I still expect Tant to win.
I expect the party to go down in flames with the Greer trail Charlie Crist and Robert Wexler. Concerned Blue you are 100% correct, the Democrats in Florida seem to always fuck the public. It is going to be interesting how many people end up jail. The funny thing is Burt is not going to be one of them.
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Another Tallahassee insider backing Tant. The Good ole gals and boys club is still rocking!
Mr. Come On..Obviously reading is not your strong suit cause you didn’t really read my post or the meaning didn’t sink in to your thick skull!
You can google till the cows come home but your boy Gillum is still a Tallahasseean no matter how you want to cut it. Gillum is a beneficiary of the Tallahassee La La land gravy train, that the current FDP staff and their highly paid loosing consultants, that still continue to feed from the same ATM trough.
It’s very simple, we give you millions of dollars to win races, you spend millions of dollars and you loose.
In the words of Donald Trump…YOUR FIRED!!!
Alan Clendenin is the only one with the guts and as an outsider of the Tallahassee fumes where everyone tells everyone else how wonderful they are that will clean house!
I believe you are loosing your grip on reality, Concerned Democrat – oops I mean mrs. Really.
I’m sorry if I misread your post, but its been years since I had to read at a third grade level.
Gillum’s not my boy – also I think that you might be a racist calling City Commissioner Andrew Gillum boy. Despite that, I am uncertain how you think that Andrew could be sucking from the gravy train.
Btw (which the google says means by the way) when you post as multiple different people maybe you shouldn’t let your glaring lack of knowledge be so clear. There is another website I would have mentioned, if I knew that you were the same person as Concerned Democrat, it’s called Amazon.com (a bunch of large women transcribe books and mail them to you). But, I digress, this site has all sorts of books that contain words and sentences. I’d like to recommend you buy a dictionary (make sure you buy the American English version, it is not just labeled American – I know who knew there are other states we didn’t know about? England, Canada, France, even a place called the Soviet Union, though no one has updated there twitter since the early 1990s or so, weird). Anywho buy a dictionary and look some words up in it because evidently other people have assigned precise spellings to words – I know god damn dictionary insiders telling us how to spell.
Ok, I need to run and read my dictionary – I am at limerick which the google shows me some terrible stories about about a man from Nantucket.
yall arent very civil democrats!!
I am a retired, nationally certified, pro-union teacher. I walked/talked for PBO both times. I am stunned and horrified by the fake education reform agenda. It is 100% junk science to evaluate educators using student test scores. The Democrats court teachers but aren’t doing much to stop Republicans rolling over public schools with the goal of re-routing public tax money into private hands. Secretary Duncan might as well be a Republican for all the good he ‘s done. So I would just like to know which candidate will advocate a serious rethinking of this destructive assault on public education. Could someone with access to these two individuals ask them and publicize their answers?