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The Children's Movement of Florida organized a series of Milk Party Rallies across the state of Florida in September. After a rally in Miami, the Miami Herald reported....
"As parents gathered from throughout Miami at a Flagler Street rally, a question emerges: Are good intentions enough to help Florida's children? The founders of The Children's Movement of Florida say they have discovered something that almost all Floridians hold in common: They love their children. Now the challenge is whether the movement — a campaign in only its second month — can translate their priorities to the kind of political traction that will lead to big gains for the state's smallest residents.
"Modeling themselves after the conservative Tea Party movement, a group of influential Floridians has launched a political campaign to increase public and private investment in children. They say Florida spends less than almost every state in the U.S. for programs that benefit kids, and voters should demand that their leaders do better. To make their point, movement leaders are holding a series of 17 "Milk Party'' rallies throughout the state; Tuesday's rally was in Fort Lauderdale, Wednesday's in Miami, and the movement's iconic blue bus will be in Key West for a gathering Thursday. Organizers believe that by the time they're done, 15,000 Floridians will have attended at least one of the events. Participants range from PTA parents to the Democratic nominee for governor, Alex Sink. The state's chief financial officer, Sink sat in the back row of a rally in St. Petersburg with her husband, Bill McBride, a Tampa lawyer....
"David Lawrence Jr. ... a former publisher of The Miami Herald, spent the past two years building the Milk Party before going public this summer with a series of press conferences and rallies. His group held focus groups and did polling, among other things, to determine what issues appealed to the broadest group of Floridians. "It starts from a moral imperative,'' said Lawrence, the former head of the Miami Children's Trust. "But simply telling folks you are on the side of the angels — even if they believe you are on the side of the angels — won't cut it. You need to prove to people that this cuts across class and income. You need to prove to them that it is doable.'"
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