Dems slam GOP at fundraiser
They challenged the Republicans on policy. They slammed them for their political tactics. And they tried to slay them with humor.
For South Florida Democrats, who sometimes have trouble staying on the same political page, Republicans were the unifying theme Saturday night at the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s big annual fundraising dinner.
It was almost as if they didn’t know where to start, with speaker after speaker highlighting the opposition’s foibles — real, exaggerated or imagined.
“What issues are they talking about? Nothing. Nothing but race baiting against undocumented immigrants and inventing bizarre lies about Planned Parenthood. These aren’t policies, these aren’t solutions. These are distractions,” said U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat who represents southwest Palm Beach and northwest Broward counties. “Because Republicans have no ideas, they want to turn elections into the battle of dollars. It’s up to us to hold their feet to the fire.”
Deutch said Democrats need to expose the truth about Republican presidential candidates. “Let’s make Jeb Bush explain his plan to give millionaires another massive tax cut. Let’s make Marco Rubio explain why he thinks oil companies should write our energy policy. And let’s make Ted Cruz explain why repealing Obamacare” would improve the health care system.
Mentions of Bush, Rubio and Cruz all got boos.
Then Deutch — whose hair is thinning and keeps his head completely shaved — turned to the Republican front runner with the large head of orange-blond hair. “Let’s make Donald Trump explain his hair.”
U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat who represents most of coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties, said, “Republicans are obsessed with Planned Parenthood, Benghazi, and e-mails. Their incoming speaker just admitted what we in this room already know. The Benghazi investigation is nothing but a political charade to harm our leading presidential candidate.”
Democrats, by contrast, “are fighting for what really makes a difference to Americans.”
The keynote speaker, U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro, echoed the theme of the evening: Democratic policies are good for average people; Republican policies aren’t. “There is a very clear choice in 2016 between a Democratic Party that wants to expand opportunity and embrace the future and a Republican Party that wants to take us backward,” Castro said.
Castro had strong words for former Bush. “I’m not sure Jeb has the intellectual horsepower of George.”
About Trump, the part-time Palm Beach resident, Castro said “it’s dear that he’s in decline.”
Castro demurred when asked about the widespread speculation that he’s a leading Democratic possibility for the vice presidential nomination in 2016. “I don’t believe that’s going to happen,” he said. “People speculate about any number of political things, I can’t control any of that. The No. 1 thing I’m going to do is pay attention to what I’m doing now at HUD.
Deutch and Frankel are big supporters of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy — Castro said he’s neutral — and both down- played her decline in polls U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Democrats like competition,” Frankel said. “I think it’s very healthy, and I don’t see a problem with it,”
But it didn’t turn out that way in 2008, when Clinton lost the Democratic nomination. “You look at the last election, everybody thought Hillary was just going to swoop right in there and then you had Barack Obama.”
Frankel saw Clinton at one of her three closed-door South Florida fundraisers on Friday, and said she turned in a stellar performance that impressed donors, many of whom she said hadn’t ever seen her in person.
“She was so personable. She was so articulate. Everybody was going ‘Oh my goodness.’ People just really have to get to know her. It’s almost like she has to reintroduce herself back to the public.”
Frankel and Deutch said Clinton would be able to do that when their party’s presidential debates start and the focus of the campaign shifts more toward their party’s issues and less on what Republicans are saying.
And, Frankel said, unless there’s something completely unexpected in Clinton’s e-mails, she would emerge unscathed from the questions about her e-mail practices as secretary of state.
“I think it’s an exaggerated issue. There was nothing illegal, nothing unethical,” Frankel said. About 600 people attended the dinner at the West Palm Beach Marriott. County Democratic Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo estimated profit would top $125,000.
Palm Beach County Democrats call the event the Truman-Kennedy-Johnson Dinner, after the three former presidents.
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