A.G. Gancarski
The Flag Day Dinner is one of the most important events in the Clay County Republican Party‘s annual social calendar, and on Tuesday two men with their eyes on 2016 races, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, will be the featured speakers
Lopez-Cantera has done everything to signal his intentions to run for Senate in 2016 but actually announce. As the Miami Herald reports, he said at the Miami-Dade Republican Lincoln Day dinner, “If I get in this race, I know that it will be a long road, and a hard road, but if we are on that road together, there is nothing can stand in our way.”
It is expected that CLC will announce July 15 to allow him to make a soft launch, unencumbered by the June 30 campaign finance reporting requirement.
A candidate making a less-soft launch is Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Perry, whose reputation for being gaffe-prone on the national stage, cultivated in 2011 when he couldn’t remember which three Cabinet departments he wanted to eliminate, was reinforced when he referred to the recent church massacre in Charleston, S.C., as an “accident” that President Barack Obama was exploiting for a pro-gun control political agenda.
Perry and CLC, quite likely, will stick around Northeast Florida for at least one more day after the dinner; both men supported Lenny Curry for Jacksonville mayor, and his inauguration is Wednesday.
