by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
People call Linda Whipple an activist for a reason.
The Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell and Matthews paralegal ascended quickly through the ranks of the local Democratic Executive Committee by getting out of the office and onto the streets. Now, after six months as DEC chairwoman, Whipple is trying to revive Duval County’s minority party by convincing its near quarter million members that politics is not a spectator sport.
Whipple’s rise to the top of the party was so sudden, it even shocked her. She said she barely realized what had happened when she emerged from a December 2004 DEC meeting as the new chairwoman after outpolling former chair Clyde Collins by a 2-to-1 margin.
But it didn’t take long for reality to set in. She had taken over a party saddled with debt, election bills it couldn’t pay and a frustrating tendency to lose elections in Duval County.
“I was surprised at the hole we were in financially,” said Whipple. “Bills were coming in from the [presidential] election that needed to be paid. I would open the mail and think ‘Oh my gosh.’ I knew we had to get out of the red to even move forward.”
Moving into permanent headquarters on Beach Boulevard — secured under Collins’ watch — was a step in the right direction. Whipple next turned her attention to fund-raising and, maybe more importantly, spurring her fellow party members to action. She started at the top with the DEC officers.
“People need to understand, this isn’t a social club. It’s a political organization. We need to work, we need to be active. We’re the heart of the party. How we’re perceived is how the party is going to be perceived,” she said.
And Whipple wants the Democratic Party perceived as more than an electoral punching bag. But that perception, based largely on the Democrats’ poor performance in the last two presidential elections, doesn’t see the whole picture, said Whipple.
She notes that registered voters under the age of 35 are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. Supervisor of Elections statistics show Whipple’s party with 71,961 registered voters from ages 18 to 35 versus 61,072 for the Republican Party.
Overall, the Democrats enjoy an advantage in registered voters countywide of more than 45,000. That disparity hasn’t helped the party in a 10-year run of electoral losses. In addition to the last two presidential elections, the party has lost local constitutional offices in the Sheriff’s Office, property appraiser and tax collector to Republicans. But Whipple is encouraged by her party’s lead on paper. Now she’s working toward turning it into an advantage at the polls.
That will take money, an area where the Republicans have a decided advantage. While Whipple hopes to raise $1 million a year, the Republicans spent more than eight times that much just in the Spring 2003 election that brought Mayor John Peyton into office, according to Mike Hightower, chairman of the Duval County Republican Party.
Whipple’s approach to fund-raising is inspired by Howard Dean’s Internet campaign during his run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. Whipple worked for Dean’s campaign before joining John Kerry’s election effort as a precinct captain in Mandarin.
“There are 240,000 Democrats in Duval County,” said Whipple. “If we could get all of them to send a $5 check, we’d take in $1.2 million a year. I learned that approach from Dean.”
Whipple thinks the party’s state and national leadership would do well to invest some of their resources in Duval County. Florida’s razor-thin electoral margins in the last two presidential elections could have been tipped toward the Democrats with more support from Duval County, she said.
Buoyed by the DEC’s new permanent home and what Whipple perceives as growing dissatisfaction with Republican office holders at the local and national levels, Whipple is optimistic about her party’s future in Northeast Florida.
The activist is still driven by the one she sat out.
She still hasn’t forgiven herself for sitting out the 2000 presidential election. After 30 years of campaign work, an exhausted Whipple decided to take a break when Bush ran against then Vice President Al Gore. She woke up to the news that Bush had won and has, “regretted it ever since.”