A.G. Gancarski
In a new television ad, the first he has had since the First Election in March, Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown asks, “Who’s on your side?”
Spoiler alert: According to the 30-second spot, it is not his opponent in the May 19 runoff, Lenny Curry.
The ad, which is infused with a “fighting liberal” ethos that was absent from the Brown campaign messaging as recently as a couple of weeks ago, draws a contrast between what the Brown campaign dubs his “record of supporting working families” with his opponent’s record of “putting politics above all else.”
Citing Brown’s support of raising the minimum wage, announced last week at a press conference, the ad contrasts that to Curry’s position of opposing a minimum wage increase that he stated, according to the ad, in March 2014.
The ad also contrasts Brown “helping students be the first in their family to go to college” with Curry, who “sided with the politicians who raise tuition.”
As well, “Alvin Brown is working to protect the St. Johns River” while “Curry took money from the billionaires dumping polluted water in the St. Johns,” the ad maintains, referring to donations to the RPOF from the Koch Brothers when Curry was Florida GOP Party Chairman three years ago, rather than to money actually donated to the Curry campaign.
The Curry campaign, via spokesman Brian Hughes, had a fulsome response to the ad’s fusillade of claims about its candidate. Hughes paints the ad as a desperate compendium of baseless attacks and demonstrating Brown’s “embrace of failed liberal policies.”
“Lenny Curry has a positive vision and written plan to restore Jacksonville’s greatness. Alvin Brown has a record of failure and, like all career politicians covered in the stench of losing, he has to resort to baseless attacks,” Hughes said in a prepared statement.
“At least he’s finally demonstrating his embrace of failed liberal policies that leave Jacksonville streets plagued by violence and the financial books of the city in a disastrous mess,” Hughes continued, before pointing out perceived inconsistencies in the advertisement’s argument.
“Alvin Brown never spoke of government mandated wage hikes before four days ago. As mayor he has no role in college tuition or access. And in our waterways, he’d rather pay for penalty credits than actually do the work of protecting our natural treasures,” Hughes said, referring to Brown’s plan to pay JEA for water-quality credits, which was approved by city council this month.
“Jacksonville families should be sad that the mayor they trusted has stooped so low with this dishonest TV ad,” Hughes concluded.
The ad seems to crystallize Brown’s rhetorical pivot to the left in what some perceive as a play for the left flank of Bill Bishop supporters from the First Election. Will it overcome the perception, created by a recent internal poll from the Curry campaign, that a mere 6 percent of undecideds say that Brown should be re-elected? Time will tell on that.
