Some 2011 Alvin Brown ops saw 2015 loss coming

We’ve devoted quite a few posts to how Lenny Curry won the Jacksonville mayor’s race. In the Alvin Brown side of the race, however, there is no shortage of candidates who are taking fire as people find ways to lay blame for that loss.

We’ve covered some of the less-than-politic statements made by Florida Democratic Party operatives in the wake of this past Tuesday’s defeat. Over the weekend, people who were instrumental in the 2011 campaign (specifically, the ground game, especially in the African-American community, that was so instrumental to that unexpected success) have emerged to say that they saw the loss coming all along. They allege, among other things, that the ground game was lacking, and that the Republicans caught up; that, and message incoherence on issues like the Human Rights Ordinance, led to Brown’s downfall.

One of those voices from the past: Tom Bacote. Bacote was the field manager for the 2011 campaign, who taught Brown field canvassing techniques in a class held by the Congressional Black Caucus a couple of years before that. Knowledgeable sources maintain that Bacote has a much better perspective than anyone else on why Alvin lost, and his operation was key to the 2011 victory.

It should be said that Bacote is a controversial figure. He didn’t leave Brown World on good terms, and there is every expectation that a counternarrative will emerge later today on his comments.

In the hours after the defeat, Bacote wrote a post on Facebook that essentially accused Brown of selling out the people who got him to the runoff.

“I saw Alvin Brown’s defeat 4 years ago almost to this day when he and I discussed/argued about his choice of staff leadership and direction for his administration. Immediately after the election of 2011 he made it painfully clear to me he no longer wanted my help or to ‘campaign’ he preferred that I ‘go back to DC’ so that, in his words he can ‘govern,’” Bacote wrote.

“Rather than heed my advice and continue building on the momentum that got him into office by empowering the city-wide canvasser team we painstakingly built to focus on moving his legislative issues door to door and in city council, he made it clear to me that he preferred to place his legacy in the hands of [people] like Chris Hand,” Bacote added.

Bacote, it should be said, had conflicts with Hand, who came over from the defeated Audrey Moran campaign, helped Brown make the sale with enough Republicans to get him over the hump against Mike Hogan, and ensured the necessary establishment buy in that drove victory. Hand, it should be emphasized, was not part of the 2015 campaign, as he has been Brown’s Chief of Staff this term. Bacote also claimed that Hand and the Florida Democrats did not give him the resources necessary for voter contact.

He also had conflicts along similar lines with the state party. As Matt Dixon wrote four years ago, Bacote ended up having a “residue” rubbed on his car by two of his colleagues from different wings of the campaign at the election night party. Before that, he tried to withhold information about field ops and canvassing from the state party.

Bacote told Dixon that other wings in the Brown campaign “just ignored the people who had been there from Day One,” he said. “They marginalized us and it did not sit well with a lot of people.”

Bacote claimed that Brown’s decision embodied a “self-defeating concept held by many black people today,” an embodiment of a “false premise that they will finally find us acceptable.” Bacote also claimed that Hand and the Florida Dems sought to starve him of the resources necessary for voter contact.

Others who were with the campaign at that point support that narrative, though they are reluctant to put their names on it. One early member of the campaign said that the FDP “swooped in” a couple of weeks before the First Election, bringing with them new names and a new approach that divulged from that of the old guard. The major disagreement: different numbers used by the imports, that underestimated the African-American voter universe, which ended up being so key in 2011.

Informed sources claim that leading up to the First Election, the team worked black neighborhoods: 50 canvassers for three months straight. That was because  Brown knew the key to victory was to galvanize the base, and the field operation was the key to that goal.

They lost not a single precinct in District 7, 8, 9, or 10. They claim that was because they had created a self-perpetuating movement, in which people would bring friends to volunteer.

From there, the informed sources say, Brown promised to take them to the “promised land.” However, the new additions to the campaign had different ideas. The claim is that they took the black vote for granted, and then made a play for white centrists that stretched throughout the term.

There are informed sources who disagree as to the impact of all this. As one put it, the African-American percentage of the vote was higher in May and March 2015 than it was in the 2012 Presidential election or either of the 2011 Jacksonville municipal elections. So even with these issues that are spotlighted, the campaign side could point to the statistics and claim that the attrition of the black vote wasn’t the problem, as statistically there was no attrition.

But should the universe of black voters have grown in the last four years? Especially given that the campaign could have forecast problems in other areas that were heavily pro-Brown in 2011, there is an argument to be made that they needed greater gains that they did not get.

In that sense, the de-emphasis on field operatives and the increased emphasis on mail and email led to, if not an attrition of black support, then insufficient gains. Black voters, the argument holds, responded to the movement feel of four years ago; it is the thought of the Bacote wing that those gains could have been increased if the mayor hadn’t governed as an “all things to all people” centrist., and that could have made the difference.

The movement feel of 2011 as well had effects beyond the traditionally black districts, including in urban core neighborhoods, goes the narrative.

“Riverside wanted to be part of the party,” claims the source, who said they were “galvanized” for Alvin.

“Were they excited this time? Nope.”

Comparing the operation four years ago to the one from this year, the source noted that there were only three blast emails from the campaign in 2011. They weren’t needed.

“You can’t motivate Moncrief with blast emails.”

At the same time the Dems forgot base turnout, the Republicans figured out how to politic in African-American areas. “They’re never gonna under-poll the ‘hood again,”  said the source.

Saying that in 2011, Brown had one of the biggest field ops in Florida, with “50 people who would die for him in the ‘hood,” the source contended that Brown was resting on his laurels with the current campaign.

“There was no fever in black neighborhoods” this time around.

“Jacksonville is the testing ground for GOP inroads in the black community,” he said.

One of the successful things the Curry campaign did is reach out to the black community, bringing Johnny Gaffney into the fold, helping to get Sam Newby elected, and including Charles Moreland on the transition leadership team. That suggests Curry and his operation learned from 2011 and built broad coalitions of stakeholders throughout the community. And this fairly detailed counter-narrative from Brown supporters of yesteryear suggests that the Brown campaign and the FDP learned different lessons.

Ironically, a point of comment many African-American men have made to me has been about the speech Alvin Brown gave at A Call for 1,000 Men last week. They recognized, in that speech, the man who inspired them four years ago … someone that they had not heard on the campaign trail this time around.