A.G. Gancarski
Rainy days and Mondays always got Karen Carpenter down. That didn’t apply to the Republican Party of Duval County, though, which drew a couple hundred hearty souls for a ran-soaked rally Monday at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront.
In the house at the Hyatt were heavy hitters who needed no introduction, such as Sheriff John Rutherford and State Attorney Angela Corey, as well as Councilman Richard Clark and Councilman-Elect Danny Becton.
Council candidates Mike Anania, Al Ferraro, and Scott Wilson, three of the district hopefuls, also attended. Anna Brosche, Sam Newby, and Geoff Youngblood, the At Large candidates, were there. Candidate for sheriff Mike Williams and mayoral hopeful Lenny Curry were also on hand.
Two big hitters from the state Cabinet also stopped by: Attorney General Pam Bondi and Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam.
With such a jam-packed lineup of speakers, most candidates kept their messages short and sweet. Sam Newby rocked the crowd, saying that it’s a “great day to be a Republican” and gave a shout-out to “the captain of the Dream Team: Lenny Curry,” who “turned this party around” with unprecedented outreach to the black community.
Likewise, the popular Brosche proved dynamic: “We are here to unite Jax,” said the effervescent candidate, who called the GOP the “party of solutions” for Jacksonville.
Another At Large candidate, Geoff Youngblood, brought humor, comparing a bid for an At Large seat to “running for mayor without the money.” An apt comparison, given he is running against former Mayor Tommy Hazouri, who has spent most of his adult life in elected office.
Rutherford, meanwhile, set the table for Williams, describing his endorsed candidate as the most experienced man in the race. Williams was equally complimentary to his professional mentor: “I firmly believe that we have had an excellent sheriff for the last 12 years.”
“This campaign is about keeping my family safe, about keeping your family safe,” he said.
After Rutherford and Williams, the big guns were unleashed.
Putnam made a pointed case for the Republican ticket, describing Jacksonville as the “gateway to Florida,” a “conservative city that deserves conservative leadership.” But will Jacksonville get that leadership?
“Our enemy is not the other party,” Putnam said. “It’s apathy.”
In this “narrow moment in history that will change the trajectory of Florida,” Putnam said, “Lenny Curry is the man with character, integrity, and values … a man you’d send your kids away for the summer with” and know “they would come back as better people than when they left.”
Putnam extolled Curry’s virtues as an accountant who, if elected, would “squeeze a dime to get three nickels,” and a uniter “who believes in the politics of addition and multiplication, not division and subtraction.”
That dictum of unity extends to the GOP campaign, Putnam said, which could be “no lonely victory” but a “team win” to bring a “renaissance” to Jacksonville.
“We can’t produce an ad more powerful than what you can say to your neighbor,” Putnam said, reminding the Republican core that to compete with the incumbent, they need a strong ground game.
Speaking after Putnam, a late-arriving Bondi cast the election in larger terms.
“This race has national implications,” she said, characterizing it as a harbinger of 2016.
“Lenny Curry and his wife Molly are amazing people and dear friends,” Bondi said reminding voters of Curry’s bootstrap rise to his current position.
“He started his business on a credit card,” she said. “That is the American Dream.”
At about 6 p.m., Curry took the mike.
“There are days when everyone on the campaign is exhausted,” Curry said. “Then we see familiar faces.”
The faces of friends. The faces of those devoted to the mission.
“You’re here because you care,” Curry said, reminding the faithful that they are “here to restore Jacksonville to greatness.”
“We want Jacksonville to be better than we found it,” Curry said, but the “trajectory in our city is not the right trajectory,” as it relates to budgets, the debt downgrade, and the pension liability.
“Violent crime and murder have spiked as a result of the lack of priorities of the current mayor,” Curry said.
As Putnam did, Curry also made the case that the election would be won or lost based on the passion of his supporters and their ability and willingness to “cut through TV ads, cut through mailpieces,” and have “face-to-face conversations with the people of Jacksonville.”
Ultimately, it will come down to that, despite the activity and energy from the state parties and the national-level talent working on both sides of the campaign, the incessant media campaigns and endorsement events on both sides, and the unprecedented resources in this campaign.
It will come down to which candidate has the most passionate, believable, and effective people out on their behalf, knocking the doors, making calls, and sounding the alarm, for either four more years for Brown, or systemic change with Curry, Williams, and the Republican city council candidates.
Update (11 a.m. 4/14): The Alvin Brown campaign provided an emailed statement about Monday’s Duval GOP rally.
According to Alvin Brown spokesman, Yianni Varonis: “Lenny Curry’s rally is emblematic of his chairmanship of the Florida Republican Party: partisan without any intention of working across party lines to get things done for Jacksonville’s citizens. This is how he ran the state party. This is how he’s campaigning. And most concerning, this is how he would run City Hall if elected to mayor. Mayor Brown, on the other hand, is a unifier, the most recent example being his addition of Bill Bishop’s former campaign manager to his team. It is this type of leadership that has enabled Jacksonville to reduce crime, create jobs, and makes Mayor Brown the clear choice in this election.”
