A.G. Gancarski
Friday saw an official meeting between Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and former Mayor Alvin Brown.
And with that meeting, a message to #jaxpol: the bitterness of the 2015 election was finally consigned to memory.
The picture above: worth a thousand words. Acrimony expunged, replaced by bonhomie.
The campaign for Jacksonville mayor was the most expensive local campaign in history. And that money was spent, especially on the GOP side, with a specific intent.
That purpose: to undermine what was perceived to be soft support for Alvin Brown, via a “death by 1,000 cuts” approach that saw Brown and his team on the defensive in every news cycle.
Whether Brown was missing the budget vote in city council for a Bill Cosby fundraiser, or his campaign was touting a convicted murderer as a “job creator and business leader,” Brown was on the defensive as a candidate from the fall of 2014 straight through to the 2015 election.
And when he did get it going in earnest early in 2015, there were glitches.
Brown wasn’t prepared to take fire, day after day, from Curry and Bill Bishop before the March election.
Bishop lacked real money to run the campaign, yet his rapport with local print media gave him earned media, in which he made the case that Alvin Brown didn’t merit four more years. And even when Bishop endorsed Brown after the race became a two-man battle, the endorsement and subsequent campaigning with Brown didn’t undo the damage done before the March “First Election” vote.
Curry, meanwhile, had all the money he could need, along with a political team that simply did not lose news cycles.
However, 2015’s epilogue has already been written. The meeting between Curry and Brown represents a prologue, for 2017 and beyond.
Notable: Brown reached out to Curry to schedule the meeting.
There are a number of plausible interpretations for the timing.
One such interpretation: Brown wanted to give Curry time to settle into office.
With Curry’s first term a third of the way over, he definitely should be settled in at this point.
Another such interpretation: with Brown not ending up in a Hillary Clinton administration, as was expected until the votes were counted Election Night, the former mayor had to commit to a back up plan.
And that back up plan: becoming a part of the Jacksonville scene again, and the brotherhood of former mayors.
From there, if history is a guide, options abound.
Consider the last one-term mayor in Jacksonville: Brown’s fellow Democrat, Tommy Hazouri.
Hazouri, like Brown, had a term with some tangible accomplishments.
However, Hazouri also had some issues.
The book on Hazouri was that his administration had the city’s books in “financial disarray.” That his team had issues with messaging through the media.
Those issues parallel those of Alvin Brown.
Curry was able to message during his campaign on getting the books in order, just as Ed Austin had against Tommy Hazouri. And there were times in Brown’s tenure where the message the administration wanted to get out through the press didn’t quite get out.
And all of that is the past now.
When Brown set up a meeting with Lenny Curry, it represented a radical shift from his absence from the public eye since June 2015.
Brown, even as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, mostly avoided the Jacksonville market in the fall.
Brown was deployed on mayoral bus tours through places like Ohio, and other parts of Florida, as if a conscious decision was made not to parlay on his name value locally.
Brown did attend a November rally in Northeast Florida, where President Obama spoke on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
However, Brown didn’t speak at the event. And there was some speculation as to whether or not Brown even stayed for the entirety of the Obama speech.
Alvin Brown’s path to D.C., as a Clinton appointee, is being foreclosed even as this is typed, as Donald Trump‘s electoral votes are counted.
However, Brown’s future itself is not foreclosed.
As a mayor who lost a very close election 17 months ago, Brown may not have present-tense political capital, but it is very easy to imagine how a reinvented Alvin Brown could become a factor locally in 2017.
Congressman-elect Al Lawson won’t be in Tallahassee forever. And it is entirely possible that Lawson could face a Jacksonville challenge in 2018.
Could that be Alvin Brown?
Back in our “five people to watch in 2016” piece, we tabbed Brown as someone to watch relative to the CD 5 seat.
We haven’t written the 2017 version of the list yet.
Odds are very good that Alvin Brown will be on it again, however.
Even if Brown chooses not to run for Congress, there is plenty to keep him busy locally.
An at large city council seat will be open in 2019, and Brown theoretically could run against Bill Bishop, who has already committed to run in the race to replace John Crescimbeni, the current occupant.
If that were to happen, it would be interesting to see how Curry and his political machine might react, as there was no love lost between the two Republicans when Bishop endorsed Brown.
And other openings could manifest in Jacksonville as well.
In other words, Alvin Brown will have a second act in the limelight.
The only question now is which stage he will pick.
