With yesterday’s Florida Supreme Court ruling delivering a self-executing 6-week abortion ban on May 1st, Democrats in Pinellas County might think they've been handed Anna Luna's Congressional seat on a silver platter.
Not so fast.
Putin-Trump’s MAGA Princess of Chaos should now be facing a tsunami of new voters registering and voting to repeal the ban by referendum in the November general election. However, given the abysmal performance of our Pinellas and Florida Democratic Party leadership to date, we are in trouble, and the abortion rights issue may not be enough to overcome the GOP's lead in registered Pinellas voters.
Key Performance Metrics (KPIs) and the Warning Signs
A peek at last month’s Pinellas voter registration numbers (right) shows an abominable Pinellas Democratic Party machine voter registration performance. Republicans swamped Democrats by almost five to one in new voter registrations in March: R=794 to D=171. Red alert!
Root Cause Analysis
Pinellas Democratic Party Chair Jennifer Griffith has been so focused on attacking me and my campaign by way of public smears, campaign sign-swiping, active suppression, resource denial, and outright lies to her own Party membership, she’s taken her eye off the ball. She’s been lying, claiming falsely that I’m an actual physical danger to her. That's ridiculous. She’s neglected her core mission: Energizing and getting out the Democratic vote. Her numbers don’t lie. She is failing. The buck stops with her.
She’s even gone so far as to claim she is the somehow the victim and has gotten the Party to cough up funds to pay for an armed security guard for herself at Party meetings. She’s now falsely claiming I am somehow “dangerous.” This just after I filed for a restraining order against her. I captured video of her shortly after she swiped my campaign sign, accosted me, and then snitched on me and my sign to a St Pete College security guard.
Just to be clear, video recording a renegade Democratic Party Chair after she swiped a Democratic Congressional candidate’s campaign sign, after she had escalated it into a public confrontation, and then my filing for a restraining order against her, does not make me a threat to her physical safety. These are fully non-violent acts of self-defense taken in response to her public bullying, her physical fingerprints on my swiped campaign sign, and her attempts to deny me a seat at the Pinellas Democratic Party table.
Shirley Chisolm and the Folder Chair
As the great Democrat Shirley Chisolm once said: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
I’ll amend that by saying: If they don’t give you a seat at the table, if they swipe your folding chair, bully you, then call five-oh on you for returning your chair to the table…well, then you pull out your cellphone camera, start recording, and file for a restraining order...and keep soldiering on.
This is a different form of what Florida Party Chair Nikki Fried has done in the Presidential Democratic primary. By acting to cancel the FL presidential primary, Ms. Fried and her staff have suppressed Democratic voter registration state-wide just as Trump whips up his FL MAGA base into a frenzy.
We’ll see what happens with the Jennifer Griffith’s Pinellas voter registration numbers in April. Hopefully we’ll see a drastic turnaround, because whoever wins the Democratic nomination in the 13th Congressional District, it is imperative that we remove Anna Luna from office. Come what may, I am fully committed to bring about that reality through the democratic process all the way to November.
As of March in Pinellas County, there are 31,801 more Republican registered voters than Democrats: A 5% margin. In 2022 Anna Luna defeated Eric Lynn by 26K votes. There are 183K voters registered as "Other" that are up for grabs. The non-MAGA moderate Republicans are all up for grabs.
So stop the juvenile campaign sign-swiping. Stop eating one of your own. Instead of focusing on crushing me, focusing on crushing Anna Luna, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian disinformation supply chain they've been laundering into Congress and the minds of the electorate.
From Putin-to-Trump-to-Luna-to-MAGA, the key to victory in November is to attack, attack, attack: Attack every node in the Putin-Trump-Luna lie supply chain. Attack it at its source: The Kremlin. And yes, let's energize those voters who support a return to the Roe-standard on abortion rights. Do NOT take them for granted.
Let’s not squander the opportunity this draconian abortion ruling has handed us by playing Party small ball and by misbehaving like a bunch of Putin-Trump MAGA infighting liars.
We’re better than that Democrats.
John Liccione
Rebel Democrat for Congress
John Liccione for Congress
For media inquiries contact John Liccione, 443-698-8156, [email protected]
You're Florida's abortion.