A.G. Gancarski
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum may be facing fundraising problems and accountability problems in his bid for the Democratic nomination for Governor, but odds are they won’t be a topic of conversation in Jacksonville this week as he addresses friendly audiences.
Gillum has at least two area appearances this week, on Tuesday and Thursday evening respectively.
On Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., Gillum will speak to a meeting of Young Democrats at the University of North Florida.
At this organizational meeting for the group, Gillum will participate in a question and answer session.
Thursday evening — August 31 — sees Gillum at a reception in the San Marco neighborhood.
One expects that checks from this event will beat the Midnight deadline.
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Gillum’s Jacksonville visit likely will be low-profile, with media attention likely to be focused on other things than a major gubernatorial candidate swinging through Duval.
And that low profile may be the best thing for this campaign.
As FloridaPolitics.com reported Monday, Gillum “continues to flounder on the fundraising trail, and unless the specter of his email scandal or the cloud of his tangential connection to a Tallahassee FBI investigation magically disappear his contributions are likely to remain flat.”
Gillum “hasn’t brought in a dime through “Forward Florida” since July 14. That $10,000 contribution came from homemaker Lu-Shawn Thompson and made up the whole of the committee’s income that month.”
In August, Gillum’s committee spent $70,000; $65,000 went to the Florida Democratic Party.
Gillum is being out-raised by Chris King and Gwen Graham on the Democratic side, and there are a number of Republicans with more fundraising capacity as well.
Beyond money woes, the Mayor is getting it from his hometown paper also. Gillum was pilloried recently in a classic “we’d love to help you clear your good name” editorial in the Tallahassee Democrat.
Gillum’s City Hall has been investigated in recent months by the FBI, with the Mayor himself talking to undercover agents as part of the investigation.
The Democrat has been frustrated by answers to its questions regarding “this intersection of personal, professional and political activities … a pileup waiting to happen.” Especially salient to the Democrat, a 2016 Gillum trip to New York City, in which he was photographed with one of those agents and his “good friend and former campaign treasurer.”
“Mayor Gillum can put all this to rest by sitting down with the Democrat for an interview about these and other interactions … We certainly understand these intersections of personal, political and professional can be complicated and would love to be part of clearing the record. If the mayor hasn’t done anything wrong, it should be a relatively easy conversation.”
