Peter Schorsch
“Is it a matter of if, Burr, or which one?” — Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton: An American Musical.
Is it a matter of *if* Richard Corcoran, who undoubtedly sees himself as a modern-day revolutionary, or *when* he announces he’s running for Florida governor?
If this week — one in which Corcoran’s political committee began airing a TV commercial that some have confused with footage from “The Purge” — is any indication, Corcoran is already running.
It’s just a matter of when he makes it official (sometime after the 2018 Session is the obvious, anticlimactic answer).
So if Corcoran is already running, how high a bar must he clear when he formally announces? After all, Corcoran’s been an unofficial candidate for so many months now, if his campaign kickoff isn’t a Broadway spectacular, will he have underperformed the vicious expectations game everyone likes to play?
Corcoran will be hard-pressed to match the county fair atmosphere Adam Putnam assembled in Bartow for his launch.
Standing in front of a huge Florida flag covering the stately pillars of a century-old county courthouse with orange crates on the steps, Putnam used a combination of small-town nostalgia, conservative politics and deep knowledge of his home state to launch his gubernatorial campaign.
As my blogging colleague Brian Burgess writes, “the Bartow visuals speak volumes about Putnam’s ability to organize and mobilize a massive support network. It is truly a magnificent image in political terms.”
Putnam followed up his Bartow event with a 10-day bus tour of the state that took him to 22 communities. Contra Putnam’s pitch-perfect launch with U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis‘ entrance into the race.
The three-term congressman also had large American and Florida flags draped behind him, but that’s about where the similarities with Putnam end.
As several insiders have noted, DeSantis drew a much smaller crowd than Putnam while delivering a speech that sounded as if was auditioning for the 4 p.m. slot on Fox News.
And although the picture was taken long before DeSantis took the stage, a shot of a nearly-empty hotel ballroom is making the rounds in Tallahassee and Washington D.C. (although, per Burgess, the room DeSantis rented was totally full after all. Not Bartow full, but full).
It’s unclear what, if anything DeSantis, has done since leaving Boca Raton. We know he was in D.C. for the State of the Union because he was spotted angling for a shot with Trump as the President entered the U.S. House. But, other than that, I don’t know if there has been much in the way of follow-up.
As for media coverage of his kickoff, type “Ron DeSantis” into Google News and you’ll see how few articles were written about his announcement. It’s not what-if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest quiet, but it ain’t much.
So, somewhere between Putnam’s ticker tape parade and DeSantis soft opening, Richard Corcoran must make his gubernatorial candidate presence felt when he makes it official.
Fortunately for the Speaker, Corcoran’s Tea Party allies should be able to turn out a crowd.
But it will be interesting to see what Corcoran — who has only won one serious political race in his career and that was a primary in a state House district — can do on the statewide stump.
Corcoran has transformed the job of House Speaker into a proconsul-level position. The Pasco Republican has been omnipresent in political media for going on two years. And now he’s on TV with an ad that scares the sh*t out of people.
In order for Corcoran to win in September and November, he will first need to win the expectations game of March and April.
Material from The Associated Press and the News Service of Florida was used in this post.
