A.G. Gancarski
The worlds of law enforcement and of party politics are both predicated on loyalty. On a muggy Thursday night at his campaign headquarters in Jacksonville’s San Marco neighborhood, Mike Williams scored endorsements from two fellow Republicans he defeated — Jay Farhat and Lonnie McDonald — to make it into the runoff.
The story, though, was the Republican endorsement that went the other way: that of third-place finisher Jimmy Holderfield, who crossed parties and endorsed Democrat Ken Jefferson for the May 19 runoff election.
Neither endorsement Thursday was a surprise: McDonald had endorsed immediately after the First Election on March 24; Farhat had a two- paragraph endorsement on Facebook earlier today. But the need to frame an event to counter Jefferson stealing the news cycle was obvious, and so the Thursday night event was a necessity, at least for narrative integrity.
Before the event, I talked with Robin Lumb, chairman of the Republican Party of Duval County. He condemned the Holderfield move in strong terms.
“I’m extremely disappointed, extremely surprised,” Lumb said, “This was not supposed to happen. The Republican Party would have lined up behind Jimmy in a minute” if he had won.
Lumb and the Duval County Republicans had expected him to “follow through and endorse because he said he would,” the party chairman said. A copy of the signed loyalty oath was shortly produced for me to see.
Lumb wasn’t the only one there who lamented Holderfield’s perceived inconsistency. McDonald, who I saw at so many sheriff candidate forums that we should have just carpooled, mentioned that Holderfield had said at the Tiger Bay forum days before the March 24 election that if he lost, he would back Williams.
Of course, things changed after that, as Holderfield told us before any other outlet early Thursday afternoon.
Soon after 7:30 p.m., Williams, Farhat, and McDonald spoke. Williams reminded the attending media about the pillars of his campaign: issues, character, integrity, and the “ability to hit the ground running on Day One.”
Farhat was next. After a “long hard-fought year,” he “decided to endorse Mike Williams to be sheriff” because of the candidate’s ethics, integrity, and values, and ability “to make the agency and city as good as it can be.”
Then, McDonald spoke of his “good fortune of working with Mike his entire career,” where he got firsthand knowledge of his “leadership ability to move the agency to the next level.”
“Mike Williams is clearly the most qualified candidate in the race,” McDonald said.
Williams, back on the mike, reiterated that he was “proud and honored” to have the support of these two law enforcement veterans.
“I can’t tell you how honored I am,” he said, before taking questions.
One I asked was how he took the Holderfield endorsement.
“It’s a free country. You’re allowed to endorse anyone you want. Tonight is about honoring these men,” he said.
Then I asked Williams, Farhat, and McDonald whether they knew anything about the infamous recordings that Holderfield so vociferously objected to earlier Thursday. None had any knowledge of their origin.
After that exchange, Lumb took the mike to reiterate and to amplify his sentiments expressed before the event started.
Saying he was “extraordinarily disappointed in the decision Jimmy Holderfield made,” which he called “inexplicable,” he reiterated the Republican claim that Williams is the “only qualified candidate in the race” who “worked his way up the ranks.”
“The comparison between the stellar record of Williams and Jefferson could not be more stark,” he said, adding that this election is not about the decision Holderfield made to break his GOP loyalty oath.
The contrast between the two events Thursday was notable. Jefferson and Holderfield played up the endorsement in an outdoor park in Riverside, with dozens of officers and supporters behind them. Williams held what was essentially a media event, in what looked to be counter-programming.
The ultimate irony of the third-place finishers for mayor and sheriff, however, is this. Many people predicted Bill Bishop would endorse Alvin Brown before Bishop’s press conference on Tuesday. Relatively few people saw Holderfield supporting a Democrat.
There’s disagreement among the party insiders I talked with Thursday about how much Holderfield’s backing (the endorsement, the rallies, the “250-300 ground troops,” and the fundraising help) will mean. Coming out of the week before Easter, the takeaway is this: A Republican who got 20 percent in a seven-way election endorsed the Democrat and bucked his party, for whatever reason, despite saying two weeks ago that he would back the Republican candidate if Williams made the runoff.
Will voters remember that in May? Precedent says no. But precedent also says that a politician as savvy as Holderfield wouldn’t buck the system if he didn’t intend to follow through and, in the words of Rick Ross, “push it to the limit.”
