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Author: Al Krulick

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4x Political Races in Massachusetts

2014 Florida CD7

Lack of Political Education

Politician Corruption & Lies

Voter Transparency

Support Future is Now Coalition

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A Political Tale and Why I Support FiNC

Before moving to Florida in 1992, where I have lived, worked, and raised my family for the past three decades, I was involved in four political races in Massachusetts during the 1980s. Massachusetts was a Blue State at that time, so almost every electoral contest was decided in Democratic primaries. Republicans of that era were generally of the white-glove, country-club variety; they came from old money and often, older families. They believed in small government, low taxes, and a perpetual continuation of aristocratic patriarchy. Thus, they had little chance of defeating the growing Democratic coalition of Italian and Irish working-class voters, Kennedy-clan admirers, and leftist academics and students, especially in the communities around Boston, where I lived.

 

The first race I worked on got me hooked on electoral politics – it was a contest for the State Senate. My candidate ended up winning the first general election write-in campaign in the 200+-year history of the body after narrowly losing in the Democratic primary three weeks prior. I then worked on a congressional campaign, a mayoral race, and the 1988 presidential contest for Mike Dukakis – all Democratic Party candidates.

 

In 1996, I decided to run for Congress, myself, in my new Florida district against the entrenched Republican incumbent Bill McCollum since no one else wanted to. I had no money, name recognition, influential backers, and little chance of winning. But I felt that I had the skills and experience to, at least, give the Democratic voters in CD8, which numbered about 33% of the total, an option. No candidate, I reasoned, should run unopposed. At that time, I was lucky that President Bill Clinton was running for re-election since he directed the DNC and state parties to support any candidate willing to run as a Democrat because he was smart enough to know that down-ballot races often increase voter participation. In Florida, it costs over $10,000 to get on the ballot for Congress and the DCCC and the State Party ponied up the money.

McCollum was much like the old-school Republicans of the Bay State, except that he wasn’t a blue-blooded aristocrat. He grew up in a small Florida town, believed in his conservative values, and played the game of politics like a professional. He was civil to one and all, enjoyed debating the issues, and respected me for entering the fray. While we disagreed on almost every issue, we were never disagreeable on the campaign trail. The only problem I had with Bill was his dependency on special interest money and what I perceived as his subservience to the agendas of his right-wing backers. Not surprisingly, I lost that first race and then again in 1998 when I took Bill on one more time. In each election, I garnered the predictable 33% of the vote.

Fast forward to 2014: Now, I was living in Florida’s CD7 and decided to face yet another entrenched Republican congressman, John Mica, in yet another solid Red district. (Yes, I know. Many of my Democratic friends called me crazy then, too, and there was little hope of garnering any monetary support from the Party or local donors.) Partially, for that reason, as well as for the following, this time, I opted to run as an NPA, i.e. a No Party Affiliation candidate. I thought that running as an Independent would allow me to talk to a wider range of voters without having to label myself as either a D or an R. I had learned over the years that voting is largely a tribal affair and that once a candidate has a letter after his or her name, the outcome is pretty much predetermined, depending on the registration rolls. As an NPA, I felt I could discuss issues without a voter’s bias constricting the conversation. I could also point out that the growing extremism in both major parties was compromising the mechanics of democracy and helping to subvert the people’s will in the House of Representatives.

As it turned out, a young man in the district with no prior political experience entered the race as a Democrat. Wes was earnest in his desire but soon discovered that he hadn’t the staying power or the resources, neither monetary nor psychological, for a sustained campaign. Sometime in August, he simply disappeared. This was my first brush with an ineffective local press, which had little interest in covering a race that it had already decided was going to be won by the incumbent. I had to badger and nag the Orlando Sentinel to investigate this strange occurrence, and the paper finally decided to mention Wes’s abandonment, but to little avail. In the end, even though he was nowhere to be found, eventually surfacing just before Election Day to apologize for dropping out, Wes still received 34% of the vote because his name was still on the ballot followed by that all-important, tribal “D.” Mica handily won with 60% of the vote; I received about 6%.

Here’s the lesson I learned: Without a credible fourth estate informing the voters, they will naturally vote along party lines – in this case, even though the candidate was a ghost. Except for a very small percentage of knowledgeable constituents, most people have neither the time nor the resources to carefully investigate candidates, nor their fitness for office — which is precisely what got us the current George Santos debacle in New York’s 3rd CD, wherein a candidate whose entire résumé and history was fabricated just won a seat in the 118th Congress.

And yet, the Santos situation is not a one-off. In fact, I faced the very same dilemma in my most recent race. (Yes, I actually decided to run one more time when my former congresswoman, Stephanie Murphy, decided not to run for re-election. Crazy is as crazy does.) This time, I registered as a Democrat, again, even though my formerly Blue district was gerrymandered at the last minute by the Florida legislature, which, under pressure from Governor Ron DeSantis, turned it Red by a five-point margin. But since all of the leading Republican nominees were not of the same ilk as my former opponents — indeed, they were all far-right zealots, Trumpists, and election deniers — I thought that a good fight with Party backing, and a forthright appeal to Independents as well as any sane Republicans that might still exist, could finally yield a win for me.

As it turned out, a late entrance into the race was a woman named Karen Green, who had declared her nomination from Florida’s 8th CD, but changed it to the 7th CD at the 11th hour. Green was a Vice-Chair of the Florida State Democratic Party and a darling of the local Party in Seminole County (the SemDems), which made up a large portion of the district. By June 2022, the race was a four-way one. I was the only candidate with prior electoral experience, although Green had worked on various Democratic campaigns herself over the past several years.

Within weeks of her declaring, I received credible, truthful, and verifiable information, some in Green’s own handwriting, that she, like Santos, had completely fabricated her academic résumé, claiming advanced degrees from various institutions, as well as phony Doctorate in Humanities from a non-accredited diploma mill, for which she paid a small sum for its worthless piece of paper. She called herself a Dr. and a Reverend, although she was evidently neither, but the voters didn’t know that. She was a phony from the get-go, and my campaign team felt it necessary to relay this information to the local press, the State Party, and the SemDems. Surely, this was a major situation that would immediately be addressed by those parties in the best interests of the Party, the voters, and our democratic institutions.

Boy, was I ever wrong! The press shrugged. Except for one area reporter whose work on an online political blog was only read by insiders, nobody at the Sentinel cared enough to check out our information, or if they did, hit dead ends and dropped the trail. As for the State Party, it not only looked the other way but also directed the chair of the SemDems to do so, as well. Green was their girl, and it seemed that they would rather lose with her than give an outsider such as me a shot at beating the Republican nominee after the primary season.

Repeated attempts to convince the paper of record that this was a flawed candidate who was lying about her background and, thus, was unfit for elective office fell on deaf ears – so much so that when Green won the Democratic primary, largely because voters were unaware of her dishonesty (and I didn’t have the funds to broadly disseminate our information on my own), the Sentinel actually endorsed her in the general election, pointing out that my claims had been denied by her, although she never actually offered any proof of any of her bogus degrees, which, although she never graduated college, included two BAs, an MBA, two PhDs, and a post-graduate degree from Cornell University in a program that doesn’t even offer one!

So, my lesson about a lazy and incompetent press was reinforced. If the press doesn’t do its job, voters will not have the information they need to make quality decisions at the polls. And although for years I have felt that the Republican Party, whose stances on important issues I had always abjured, and which has now devolved into a Trumpian personality cult, is beyond redemption, I now have to admit that my own Democratic Party, certainly here in Florida, is equally, although somewhat differently, corrupt.

All of this brings me to embrace the purpose and mission of the Future is Now Coalition (FiNC). My own experience of four decades of electoral politics as a volunteer, senior staffer and operative, and four-time congressional candidate has led me to understand that our system is broken and that the status quo is damaging to democracy in our nation. The press will not do its job of informing voters, so FiNC has decided to pick up that charge and do it for them with its Digital Democracy platform. In this place, voters can find out all the information they need on issues, candidates, and election law in all 50 states. The two-party duopoly that has continued to defraud voters and defeat the wishes of the vast majority of the American electorate has shown itself unfit to lead. FiNC has determined that supporting independent candidates, wherever and whenever possible, is a good cure for the corrupt politics of Ds vs. Rs.

FiNC is composed largely of passionate, intelligent, and most importantly, hopeful young men and women who see the next few years and decades as perhaps our last chance to fix the great American experiment before it devolves into an anti-democratic banana republic, run by self-serving authoritarian rulers who care nothing about preserving the country and the planet for future generations. I fully applaud and support their efforts to enhance and empower participatory democracy. While I am now entering my eighth decade as an American citizen, and my political battles are largely behind me, I am convinced that through their efforts, this country will be a better place for those who come after me. Please give this nascent, grassroots organization your support, as well. Democracy is too dear to lose and too precious to leave for others to defend. It’s your job too.

A Political Tale and Why I Support FiNC

Author: Al Krulick

Before moving to Florida in 1992, where I have lived, worked, and raised my family for the past three decades, I was involved in four political races in Massachusetts during the 1980s. Massachusetts was a Blue State at that time, so almost every electoral contest was decided in Democratic primaries. Republicans of that era were generally of the white-glove, country-club variety; they came from old money and often, older families. They believed in small government, low taxes, and a perpetual continuation of aristocratic patriarchy. Thus, they had little chance of defeating the growing Democratic coalition of Italian and Irish working-class voters, Kennedy-clan admirers, and leftist academics and students, especially in the communities around Boston, where I lived.

The first race I worked on got me hooked on electoral politics – it was a contest for the State Senate. My candidate ended up winning the first general election write-in campaign in the 200+-year history of the body after narrowly losing in the Democratic primary three weeks prior. I then worked on a congressional campaign, a mayoral race, and the 1988 presidential contest for Mike Dukakis – all Democratic Party candidates.

In 1996, I decided to run for Congress, myself, in my new Florida district against the entrenched Republican incumbent Bill McCollum since no one else wanted to. I had no money, name recognition, influential backers, and little chance of winning. But I felt that I had the skills and experience to, at least, give the Democratic voters in CD8, which numbered about 33% of the total, an option. No candidate, I reasoned, should run unopposed. At that time, I was lucky that President Bill Clinton was running for re-election since he directed the DNC and state parties to support any candidate willing to run as a Democrat because he was smart enough to know that down-ballot races often increase voter participation. In Florida, it costs over $10,000 to get on the ballot for Congress and the DCCC and the State Party ponied up the money.

McCollum was much like the old-school Republicans of the Bay State, except that he wasn’t a blue-blooded aristocrat. He grew up in a small Florida town, believed in his conservative values, and played the game of politics like a professional. He was civil to one and all, enjoyed debating the issues, and respected me for entering the fray. While we disagreed on almost every issue, we were never disagreeable on the campaign trail. The only problem I had with Bill was his dependency on special interest money and what I perceived as his subservience to the agendas of his right-wing backers. Not surprisingly, I lost that first race and then again in 1998 when I took Bill on one more time. In each election, I garnered the predictable 33% of the vote.

Fast forward to 2014: Now, I was living in Florida’s CD7 and decided to face yet another entrenched Republican congressman, John Mica, in yet another solid Red district. (Yes, I know. Many of my Democratic friends called me crazy then, too, and there was little hope of garnering any monetary support from the Party or local donors.) Partially, for that reason, as well as for the following, this time, I opted to run as an NPA, i.e. a No Party Affiliation candidate. I thought that running as an Independent would allow me to talk to a wider range of voters without having to label myself as either a D or an R. I had learned over the years that voting is largely a tribal affair and that once a candidate has a letter after his or her name, the outcome is pretty much predetermined, depending on the registration rolls. As an NPA, I felt I could discuss issues without a voter’s bias constricting the conversation. I could also point out that the growing extremism in both major parties was compromising the mechanics of democracy and helping to subvert the people’s will in the House of Representatives.

As it turned out, a young man in the district with no prior political experience entered the race as a Democrat. Wes was earnest in his desire but soon discovered that he hadn’t the staying power or the resources, neither monetary nor psychological, for a sustained campaign. Sometime in August, he simply disappeared. This was my first brush with an ineffective local press, which had little interest in covering a race that it had already decided was going to be won by the incumbent. I had to badger and nag the Orlando Sentinel to investigate this strange occurrence, and the paper finally decided to mention Wes’s abandonment, but to little avail. In the end, even though he was nowhere to be found, eventually surfacing just before Election Day to apologize for dropping out, Wes still received 34% of the vote because his name was still on the ballot followed by that all-important, tribal “D.” Mica handily won with 60% of the vote; I received about 6%.

Here’s the lesson I learned: Without a credible fourth estate informing the voters, they will naturally vote along party lines – in this case, even though the candidate was a ghost. Except for a very small percentage of knowledgeable constituents, most people have neither the time nor the resources to carefully investigate candidates, nor their fitness for office — which is precisely what got us the current George Santos debacle in New York’s 3rd CD, wherein a candidate whose entire résumé and history was fabricated just won a seat in the 118th Congress.

And yet, the Santos situation is not a one-off. In fact, I faced the very same dilemma in my most recent race. (Yes, I actually decided to run one more time when my former congresswoman, Stephanie Murphy, decided not to run for re-election. Crazy is as crazy does.) This time, I registered as a Democrat, again, even though my formerly Blue district was gerrymandered at the last minute by the Florida legislature, which, under pressure from Governor Ron DeSantis, turned it Red by a five-point margin. But since all of the leading Republican nominees were not of the same ilk as my former opponents — indeed, they were all far-right zealots, Trumpists, and election deniers — I thought that a good fight with Party backing, and a forthright appeal to Independents as well as any sane Republicans that might still exist, could finally yield a win for me.

As it turned out, a late entrance into the race was a woman named Karen Green, who had declared her nomination from Florida’s 8th CD, but changed it to the 7th CD at the 11th hour. Green was a Vice-Chair of the Florida State Democratic Party and a darling of the local Party in Seminole County (the SemDems), which made up a large portion of the district. By June 2022, the race was a four-way one. I was the only candidate with prior electoral experience, although Green had worked on various Democratic campaigns herself over the past several years.

Within weeks of her declaring, I received credible, truthful, and verifiable information, some in Green’s own handwriting, that she, like Santos, had completely fabricated her academic résumé, claiming advanced degrees from various institutions, as well as phony Doctorate in Humanities from a non-accredited diploma mill, for which she paid a small sum for its worthless piece of paper. She called herself a Dr. and a Reverend, although she was evidently neither, but the voters didn’t know that. She was a phony from the get-go, and my campaign team felt it necessary to relay this information to the local press, the State Party, and the SemDems. Surely, this was a major situation that would immediately be addressed by those parties in the best interests of the Party, the voters, and our democratic institutions.

Boy, was I ever wrong! The press shrugged. Except for one area reporter whose work on an online political blog was only read by insiders, nobody at the Sentinel cared enough to check out our information, or if they did, hit dead ends and dropped the trail. As for the State Party, it not only looked the other way but also directed the chair of the SemDems to do so, as well. Green was their girl, and it seemed that they would rather lose with her than give an outsider such as me a shot at beating the Republican nominee after the primary season.

Repeated attempts to convince the paper of record that this was a flawed candidate who was lying about her background and, thus, was unfit for elective office fell on deaf ears – so much so that when Green won the Democratic primary, largely because voters were unaware of her dishonesty (and I didn’t have the funds to broadly disseminate our information on my own), the Sentinel actually endorsed her in the general election, pointing out that my claims had been denied by her, although she never actually offered any proof of any of her bogus degrees, which, although she never graduated college, included two BAs, an MBA, two PhDs, and a post-graduate degree from Cornell University in a program that doesn’t even offer one!

So, my lesson about a lazy and incompetent press was reinforced. If the press doesn’t do its job, voters will not have the information they need to make quality decisions at the polls. And although for years I have felt that the Republican Party, whose stances on important issues I had always abjured, and which has now devolved into a Trumpian personality cult, is beyond redemption, I now have to admit that my own Democratic Party, certainly here in Florida, is equally, although somewhat differently, corrupt.

All of this brings me to embrace the purpose and mission of the Future is Now Coalition (FiNC). My own experience of four decades of electoral politics as a volunteer, senior staffer and operative, and four-time congressional candidate has led me to understand that our system is broken and that the status quo is damaging to democracy in our nation. The press will not do its job of informing voters, so FiNC has decided to pick up that charge and do it for them with its Digital Democracy platform. In this place, voters can find out all the information they need on issues, candidates, and election law in all 50 states. The two-party duopoly that has continued to defraud voters and defeat the wishes of the vast majority of the American electorate has shown itself unfit to lead. FiNC has determined that supporting independent candidates, wherever and whenever possible, is a good cure for the corrupt politics of Ds vs. Rs.

FiNC is composed largely of passionate, intelligent, and most importantly, hopeful young men and women who see the next few years and decades as perhaps our last chance to fix the great American experiment before it devolves into an anti-democratic banana republic, run by self-serving authoritarian rulers who care nothing about preserving the country and the planet for future generations. I fully applaud and support their efforts to enhance and empower participatory democracy. While I am now entering my eighth decade as an American citizen, and my political battles are largely behind me, I am convinced that through their efforts, this country will be a better place for those who come after me. Please give this nascent, grassroots organization your support, as well. Democracy is too dear to lose and too precious to leave for others to defend. It’s your job too.

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