Corrine Brown: Federal prosecutors ‘make it up as you go’

Rep. Corrine Brown opened her Jacksonville campaign headquarters Sunday, but the media was more interested in her federal trial and her other challenges.

She delivered hot quotes on that, relating her situation to the trial of Marissa Alexander.

“As horrible as this is for me, I’ve learned a lot,” Brown said, saying prosecutors were spending “millions of taxpayer dollars and you make it up as you go.”

“I learned,” Brown said, “more than I ever wanted to know.”

When asked about challenges she’d have marketing herself west of Jacksonville, she noted she once represented Columbia and Baker counties, and as a FAMU grad, Tallahassee is Corrine Brown territory.

Then she was asked about the most recent public poll in the race, one from UNF weeks ago, which had her just three points up.

“I was a political science student in school,” asserted Brown, and “the only poll I care about is Election Day.”

To that end, she’s “doing what I need to do” to get voters out.

The message of the event was “why voters continue to support me,” and to that end, she asserted that “you can’t even drive around [Jacksonville]” and not see her legislative “footprint.”

Brown cited the Fuller-Warren Bridge as one of many examples.

Questions about the trial were “negative” and examples of a media that doesn’t do its homework about the “allegations.”

And, after a short time, Brown was joined by supporters, such as Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis, and Sen. Audrey Gibson, who served the important function of redirecting media attention to them and giving Rep. Brown a breather and an affirmation.

Davis noted that Rep. Brown was “there for [his] family” and Gibson cited Brown’s “years of service.”

Brown told FloridaPolitics.com Saturday in Baker County that Martin Luther King III and Rep. Barbara Lee would be showing up for her before the Aug. 30 primary. Rep. John Lewis also is slated to show up to campaign for the congresswoman, who is faced with the pressure of shoring up her base (which seems to be behind her, if signs up and down Edgewood Avenue are any indication) while making the sale farther west.

If there is any mitigating advantage, her Baker County swing Saturday revealed a curiosity about and goodwill toward Rep. Brown. The question local reporters will want to monitor to get a gauge for this race is the reaction she gets during her swings through the rural counties between Jacksonville and Tallahassee.