A.G. Gancarski
Wednesday saw a rare feat: a trifecta of emails aiming at Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown from The Duval County Republican Party and the Lenny Curry campaign. In a week that has been surprisingly fast moving in terms of the campaign narrative, the Curry Camp and the Duval Republicans are messaging hard.
The first email on Wednesday, from the Curry campaign, charged that “Democrat Alvin Brown and Boss Allison Tant‘s Attack Squad Are Living in the Land of Make Believe.”
“Democrat Alvin Brown and his new communications team paid for by Florida Democrat Party Boss Allison Tant have a new strategy for their campaign; making claims that have no basis in fact,” attests the email, borrowing the “party boss” formulation from their opponents’ erstwhile Deputy Campaign Manager, Fabien Levy, who used that as one of his standbys.
It takes Brown to task for his “make-believe law” separating city business and official business, which the email suggests is a smokescreen to avoid “Brown’s apparent fear of having more than 2 debates with Lenny Curry.”
“The reporter reminded Brown that in the last 10 days he’d done at least 2 campaign events during official hours, so he was forced to admit he simply didn’t want to answer questions,” the email continued.
Another point brought up in the email: “a press release from Alvin Brown’s attack dogs from the Florida Democrat Party who work for party boss Allison Tant [that] falsely claimed Lenny had not held public events for 2 weeks.”
That claim is countered by Curry’s publicized appearance at a Beaches voter forum, as well as a sojourn to One Spark, in which “it’s been reported that international business leader Jack Welch, an event keynote speaker, encouraged the crowd to support Lenny because of his ‘passion for Jacksonville’.”
In addition to the Curry campaign communique, the Duval GOP did double duty.
The party’s first email, as with the Curry email, lambasted the Mayor for not wanting to talk to Action News Jax, reminding Republicans that Brown refuses to debate on the local news outlet, and using a quote from Paige Kelton to support that claim:
We’re really surprised that the Mayor won’t accept our debate offer. Why shut us out? Why exclude us from this important public service? Perhaps because we’re more aggressive. Or because we hold him accountable. This weekend they reconsidered Channel 4’s offer but not ours. In terms of providing public service, the Mayor’s refusal to debate on our station is not a good thing.
