A.G. Gancarski
UPDATE: 12:48 p.m.
Governor Mitt Romney has announced his endorsement of Lenny Curry, as an email from the campaign attests, with slightly different language than that in the email we obtained..
“I have traveled our country working to advance conservative principles, and here in Florida I’ve had a partner in Lenny Curry. Lenny is committed to restoring conservative leadership to Jacksonville. As an accountant and business owner, his professional experiences make him the right person to deal with the city’s finances. Lenny and his wife Molly have dedicated themselves to making Jacksonville a better place for their children and all families. I proudly support Lenny Curry, and ask all of Jacksonville to vote Lenny Curry for Mayor.”
Meanwhile, Curry had this response.
“Mitt Romney is a conservative leader with a passion to see America succeed. In business and in public service, Governor Romney has been a tireless advocate for freedom and prosperity. I am honored to have his support and endorsement, and I thank him for taking time to remind voters that conservative principles are the pathway to a better Jacksonville.”
This email reminds Jacksonville that Curry has national, mainstream Republican support, and follows up reporting earlier today.
As the Florida Times-Union reports, Mitt Romney will be in town to deliver a Saturday commencement address at Jacksonville University. Before that, he will “help GOP mayoral candidate Lenny Curry raise gobs of campaign money for the May 19 general election” at a fundraiser on Friday afternoon in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The convergence of events is not necessarily a surprise, given that Romney speaking at JU has been in the works for sometime, yet Romney’s appearance fortuitously helps Curry, especially on the fundraising side, as the election nears.
Romney will, according to the published report, be the “special guest” of the fundraiser. Other special guests: Ron DeSantis and his wife, along with former House Speaker Will Weatherford.
The fundraiser will have virtually every important GOP power player in the area on hand.
In an email that we’ve obtained, which was sent out yesterday “from the desk of Mitt Romney,” the 2012 GOP Presidential nominee asserts that Republicans need to “support Republican leaders at the local level who will inspire Republican voters to turn out in 2016” and that “the path to retaking the White House starts in Jacksonville, Florida with the mayor’s race.”
Romney writes that he is “proud to endorse and support” Curry, a “committed conservative and a Republican leader in Florida who stood on the front lines with me in 2012. Lenny stood up against Obamacare and has worked tirelessly to elect strong conservative leaders.”
Brown, meanwhile, is “a liberal Democrat and and ally of Hillary Clinton,” with a history of working with what the email calls “national Democrats.”
The email contains three calls to donate to the Curry campaign.
The Alvin Brown campaign has made the claim that Brown is a “conservative Democrat” with the proven ability to work with “Republicans, Democrats, and Independents,” with the Mayor describing himself as such in conversation with this reporter last month. Perhaps intentionally, Brown has used Reaganesque phrasings in public orations, including “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?,” a line best remembered from Ronald Reagan‘s 1984 re-election campaign.
Yianni Varonis, the Brown campaign spokesman, claims in a statement that the Romney endorsement and fundraising pitch yokes together two “out of touch” politicians in the “national, partisan politics game.”
It’s little surprise that a candidate who was infamous for being out of touch with working families would stump for the equally out of touch Lenny Curry. While Mayor Brown has spent four years working across the aisle to create 36,000 new jobs and not raise taxes, Lenny Curry has opposed all efforts to close the gender wage gap and other measures that would create economic opportunity for all Jacksonville citizens–and not just the richest few. This is just the latest example of Lenny Curry refusing to focus on local issues, and instead, play the national, partisan politics game.
While the big news of Tuesday for the Curry campaign is the public rollout of the Romney endorsement, the campaign does plan to unveil at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday what spokesman Brian Hughes calls a “local announcement” that will be a “major development in the campaign.”
One can only assume that the Brown campaign will attempt to counterprogram that. With just four weeks to go until the election, both sides will try to win every news cycle.
