Larry Griffin
At a fundraising breakfast Monday morning at the Brio Tuscan Grille in Winter Park, 7th Congressional District incumbent John Mica warned of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) trying to “buy” the election for his challenger, Stephanie Murphy. And it was the supporters of his campaign, he stressed, that could stop that from happening.
Mica was introduced by Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary, who praised Mica as a leader who gets things done, citing improvements to the SunRail, Interstate 4, and the recent Lake Baldwin veterans’ domiciliary as examples. Mica, Leary said, embodied the old adage of “a body at rest stays at rest, but a body in motion stays in motion.”
“He is in motion all the time,” Leary said. “You cannot keep up with John Mica.”
Mica himself started his speech by warning of the DCCC’s coming attempts to influence the election and put in Murphy, the candidate of their choice.
“We can’t take this campaign for granted,” he said. “The DCCC has targeted this seat. This is not about me or my opponent. This is about the DCCC trying to buy the seat and put someone in the seat, and the first vote they’ll cast is for Nancy Pelosi to return as speaker of the House. They targeted our race, our community. But they don’t know our community or the people here.”
Because of recent hacking scandals in the Democratic Party, Mica said it was known that the DCCC was going to launch attacks on him soon, which he said would likely be flimsy and not based in reality.
Then, Mica touched on some of his talking points — he said the transportation system in Central Florida was essential to complete, as about 1,000 new people come to Florida every day. He said it was important to complete improvements to I-4 as well as expand the SunRail to the airport and make it operational seven days a week. Both of those things, he said, were crucial because of Central Florida’s high traffic in particular.
He also talked about the deal with Iran passed by President Barack Obama, saying it was important to prevent Iran from having the capability to build and use nuclear weapons.
He said there was a danger of Iran using the money they got from the U.S. in that deal to purchase Russian weapons, which had to be avoided at all costs.
“National defense is our most important responsibility,” he said.
Numbers for how much Mica raised at the breakfast weren’t available as of Monday morning, but over 200 people attended according to Mica campaign Spokesman Alan Byrd.
