A.G. Gancarski
The year 2018 allowed Duval County Democrats to flex, and why not? Though statewide candidates Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson lost, they carried Duval.
At the time, speculation was that was a springboard for a Democratic candidate to carry that momentum into the 2019 Jacksonville Mayor’s race. Whether it was Alvin Brown (back from wherever he goes between campaigns) running to give Republican Lenny Curry what for, or Jacksonville City Councilman Garrett Dennis, someone was finally going to show the Republican machine what time it was.
The Dems zinged Curry on social media.
.@lennycurry celebrates being the least valuable player 🙄🙄 #LVP #weak #Blueval #DuvalTurnBlue https://t.co/iiG0X4sCCY
— Duval County Democratic Party (@DuvalDEC) January 9, 2019
When the voters have moved on from @lennycurry and his endorsements… #Bluval #LVP #jaxpol #OneTermLenny https://t.co/60c1b7vCsp pic.twitter.com/UWv4YfTURQ
— Duval County Democratic Party (@DuvalDEC) January 9, 2019
Proud to present @lennycurry’s greatest accomplishments:
❌ #CrimeOnTheRise
❌ #CorruptionOnTheRise
❌ #FriendsOnTheRise
❌ #WaterOnTheRiseThis message is brought to you by: The Committee to Defeat Lenny Curry #jaxpol #Blueval https://t.co/6QdzuBume4
— Duval County Democratic Party (@DuvalDEC) January 11, 2019
Yet when all the drama of qualifying week was finally over, a Democrat did not emerge to challenge the mayor.
As has been widely covered at this point, Republican City Councilwoman Anna Brosche is effectively the Democratic standard bearer, despite having never attended a party meeting. And Democratic Party leadership seems to be fine with this.
Former chair Lisa King, now running for a City Council seat, had nothing on record to say when I asked why a Democrat didn’t run. Current chair Daniel Henry says that in a race without a Democrat running, Democrats can back a Republican like Brosche.
Sounds good. Loyalty can be rewarded. In fact, Brosche has rewarded loyalty in the past, most notably by making the Council’s finance committee majority Democrat when she was Council President. A group of African-American Democrats, calling themselves “the pack,” coalesced behind Brosche over a Dem running against her.
Brosche is branding her campaign to appeal to women, the majority of Duval County voters. Team Curry, meanwhile, will have spent $443,244 on television this cycle by the end of next week, with ad buys on Lifetime, Oxygen, and The Learning Channel spotlighting that Jeopardy! ad Brosche backers keep kvetching about.
The bet seems to be that after four years of Lenny Curry, voters are sick of what the critics call his “bullying” and “intimidation.” Thus far, the case has been made via osmosis, and the only hope Democrats have of ending Lenny Curry’s tenure is supporting a Republican who went to an American Enterprise Institute conference just last year.
https://twitter.com/AnnaBrosche/status/989264754098229251
Brosche’s chief campaign consultant, Ryan Wiggins, has likewise stayed on the Republican side of the fence up until now. Building coalitions among Jacksonville Democrats has proven daunting for actual Democrats (never mind Republicans), and the question now is whether Brosche can do in two months what some Ds spend a career trying and failing to do.
Dems aren’t playing in other citywide races either.
They are letting Mike Hogan, the GOP Supervisor of Elections, have another term without opposition. Councilman Garrett Dennis, who talked like a Mayoral candidate, wants four more years on a body on which he is as marginalized as possible currently.
GOP Sheriff Mike Williams and Property Appraiser Jerry Holland face Democrats, sure. The Republican incumbents have political machines and fundraising; the Democratic challengers do not.
The best hope Democrats have citywide: John Crescimbeni, running for Tax Collector. Whether he wins or loses, it likely will have much more to do with his brand than that of the party.
Democrats are playing in City Council races, but it’s difficult to assess how viable that strategy will be without coattails at the top of the ticket. Curry definitely has his favorites in most of the races, and some of those Democrats will (like former Mayor Tommy Hazouri) endorse the Mayor for re-election.
Eventually, the argument goes, Democrats will control Jacksonville politics by dint of demographic growth. People moving here will make the city more liberal, they say. Only a matter of time.
However, when they had an opportunity to take the reins in 2019, they seem to have deferred to the Republicans.
10 comments
Seber Newsome III
January 14, 2019 at 5:16 pm
Anna Brosche wants to remove and erase a part of Jacksonville’s history. She wants to remove the Confederate Monument in Hemming Park, named after Charles C. Hemming a Confederate soldier. It has been there since 1898. The only surviving structure of the Great Fire of 1901, which destroyed everything in downtown Jacksonville. The city was rebuilt around the monument. After the incident in Charl0ttesville in 2017, she vowed to remove it along with the Women to the South monument in Confederate Park. Who does she think she is?? A poll taken after Charlottesville, revealed that 75% of those polled, do not want the monuments removed from public property. We will remember Anna! If that is not enough, she wanted to give back $2.75 million dollars that the UAE had donated to Jacksonville, after the hurricane to help rebuild the Ken Knight neighborhood, which is predominately black, and to help the homeless at the Sulzbacher Center. . I hope the people of that neighborhood will remember that too. She only cares about Anna!! And I heard a rumor, a rumor mind you, that she is getting backing from Socialist George Soros. I cannot prove this, just what I heard.
Susan Aertker
January 17, 2019 at 12:50 pm
Seber Newsome–My memory is that she wanted a study done about the monuments. One of the ideas was to move the monuments of Confederate soldiers to a place that would be like a history park of the Civil War. Are you opposed to that idea?
She actually voted yes on the UAE money if my memory is serving me. She did voice concern about taking foreign money from a foreign country with a history of human rights abuses. BUT she did vote yes to accept the money and to use it to repair hurricane damage.
Susan Aertker
January 16, 2019 at 2:19 pm
She went to a conference with the controversial Dr. Charles Murray?
quote from article:
At the opening session of the 7th cohort of the @AEI Leadership Network with about 100 other leaders from throughout the country listening to Dr. Charles Murray, AEI Emeritus Scholar and author of Coming Apart.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-real-problem-with-charles-murray-and-the-bell-curve/
Susan Aertker
January 17, 2019 at 12:54 pm
I had never heard of AEI. What is it? Why did they have Charles Murray as a speaker? Were there protesters there when he spoke?
I went to the AEI website to see if I could learn more about them.
Quote from this interesting article I found on their website:
Despite our differences though, we are aligned on perhaps the most urgent challenge in K-12 schooling today—the need for schools and communities to embrace children as individuals and future citizens,
http://www.aei.org/publication/whole-child-education-the-era-of-false-choices-needs-to-end/
Seber Newsome III
January 17, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Yes Susan, I am very much opposed to moving any monument to any veteran. The Confederate memorial has been in Hemming Park for 118 years. It was put there for a reason. If you read my post, you know that 75% of those polled DO NOT WANT THE CONFEDERATE MONUMENT REMOVED OR RELOCATED. Now, Brosche and Dennis held a meeting to give back the money from the UAE, did you know that?? Maybe you need to do some research, We know what her intent was and so do the people in the Ken Knight neighborhood and so does the Sulabacher center for the homeless.
Susan Aertker
January 17, 2019 at 7:03 pm
Do you have a link to the poll? I’d like to see it. How was the question asked? Did they ask if people would be OK if the monuments to the revolutionaries (people wanting to split the country in two) were moved to a park about the Civil War? How was the poll conducted? Who was asked? What was the exact question?
Do you have an article expanding on Brosche’s position concerning the UAE money? I read that she voted to accept it.
Susan Aertker
January 17, 2019 at 9:29 pm
Seber–You called the Confederate soldiers “veterans” but they weren’t veterans of the United States. They were veterans of the Confederate States of America. I hope you weren’t offended by me calling the Confederate soldiers “revolutionaries.”
A few quotes from this article:
Abraham Lincoln, who never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America believed throughout the war that Confederates were Americans in rebellion. …. After the war, most former Confederates quickly regained U.S. Citizenship. President Lincoln began the process in 1863 with the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. It allowed for a full pardon to those fighting for the South with the exception of the highest Confederate political and military leaders. At the end of the war, in May 1865, President Johnson offered a similar proclamation requiring those seeking pardon to take the oath of loyalty to the United States and obey federal laws …
here is the link to the full article:
http://www.civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2015/10/10/editorialthink-piece-are-confederate-veterans-united-states-veterans
Seber Newsome III
January 17, 2019 at 8:45 pm
I am done talking to you Susan. It is obvious you are ignorant concerning the facts about the War for Southern Independence. You are obviously a bleeding heart liberal, maybe a socialist as well. When Brosche gets defeated, why dont you go to her house and cry with her, goodbye.
Susan Aertker
January 17, 2019 at 9:12 pm
Seber Newsome—I had heard of a poll back in October 2017 but wasn’t sure if that was the one you meant. Here is the link to that one:
http://www.unf.edu/coas/porl/October_12,_2017_-_Racial_and_Partisan_Divisions_on_Confederate_Statues_in_Jacksonville.aspx
BUT here is the quote from the UNF poll: “53 percent of Duval County registered voters oppose removing Confederate statues from public space”
Please note that it is 53% and NOT 75% ( as you said) plus it is a poll on “removing” not MOVING.
BUT I question even the 53%. The sample size was limited to people that answer the phone.
Another quote from the UNF article:
The Jax Speaks Poll was conducted by PORL Monday, October 2, through Wednesday, October 4, by live callers via the telephone, and calls were made from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. daily. The sample of phone numbers was created through the voter file provided by Florida’s Division of Elections January 2017 update and selected through the use of probability sampling among Duval County, Fla. registered voters in the Florida voter file. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by UNF undergraduate and graduate students. Overall, there were 512 completed surveys of Duval County registered voters, 18 years of age or older. Of those, 509 answered the demographic questions needed for weighting.
Voncile
January 18, 2019 at 11:06 pm
Brosche is a Democrat posing as a Republican. So is Curry.
My vote is going to Jimmy Hill!
Comments are closed.