Originally posted at FLAPolitics

Congresswoman Karen Thurman, Chair of the Florida Democratic Party (FDP), titled a recent email "The Road to the Presidency Runs Through Central Florida". Like most missives from a political party it was soliciting funds (which is to be expected). This one was for the Democratic challenger in the special election for a central Florida State House seat.  

But, the email's title spoke to me, because I've been thinking along the same lines recently. Let me explain.

Several weeks ago I posted a diary over at Daily Kos called Run, Dee Dee, Run. In it I called on people to email a note of encouragement to a popular ex-politician who was thinking about running for a Florida State House seat that had come open due to the Governor appointing the Republican incumbent to a state administrative job.

A local Pensacola, Florida blog reported the results this way:

Earlier this week, the liberal national blog Daily Kos posted a reference to Ritchie possibly running and she was flooded with emails voicing support.

But, it was to no avail. Dee Dee decided that she didn't have the fire needed for a full scale dead heat special election set for February 27. At first, I was disappointed, but then I realized what my true purpose in this whole affair was.

I recently wrote a piece concerning Florida Republican Governor-Elect Charlie Crist and the thirty year old ban here in Florida on gays and lesbians adopting children. I was proposing that Florida Democrats could score political points by forcing Crist to publicly choose the mean-spirited option of continuing the ban. Obviously, Mary Cheney's very public pregancy makes the issue of parenting by same-sex couples very topical.

But, since then I have been doing additional research and want to bring attention to the heroic long term efforts by Equality Florida to address this issue. More Below.

The newly elected Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who will replace Jeb Bush starting on January 2, has been acting like a stealth Democrat with his appointments to state leadership posts. Between that and Marco Rubio, the new dynamic, young speaker of the Florida House promoting "citizen participation" and "government accountability", you'd think our state had been taken over by a bunch of progressives.

We Democrats here in Florida need to realize that the good old days of ranting about Jeb and his clueless brother are gone.  If we are going to make any inroads in the 2008 election we need to start looking at policy issues and come up with some juicy wedge issues that will separate us from the Republicans.

Follow me over the fold for one possibility - repealing Florida's ban on gay adoption.