Scott Powers
Leave it to Democratic former Rep. Alan Grayson to campaign a little differently.
On Wednesday Democratic congressional candidate Clint Curtis announced that Grayson has endorsed him in Florida’s 6th Congressional District.
Technically, Grayson is Clinton’s opponent. Grayson is a write-in candidate in CD 6. He did not drop out to make the endorsement.
The CD 6 seat belongs to Republican Rep. Michael Waltz. Waltz appears pretty secure in his reelection bid. The district has an 8-point Republican lean on voter registrations. Waltz has raised more than 100 times as much campaign money as Curtis. Last time out, Waltz’s Democratic opponent, former Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, spent millions of dollars on a campaign and had strong backing from the national party and its allies. Yet he beat her 56%-44%.
In fact, until now, Waltz seemingly has put more of his 2020 reelection campaign effort into running against Grayson, the write-in candidate, than against Curtis, the Orlando whistleblower lawyer and periodic candidate. Waltz has been running social media ads urging Republicans to contribute to his campaign because he’s trying to keep Grayson from going back to Congress.
Grayson is one of two write-in candidates who filed to run in CD 6 last spring, along with Gerry Nolan of DeLand. Grayson said he did so because he wasn’t certain any other candidates would file, and he wanted to make sure Waltz had some sort of opponent, thereby restricting his congressional franking privileges.
In fact, besides Grayson and Nolan as write-in candidates, two Democrats filed to run. Curtis defeated Richard Thripp of Daytona Beach in the Aug. 18 Democratic primary in CD 6.
Since April, Grayson has kept a federal campaign account open and active, raising and spending a little campaign money, and maintaining some campaign resources through it. Otherwise, he ended his CD 6 effort when he turned in his candidacy forms.
Now Grayson is campaigning.
For Curtis.
Grayson also has been a whistleblower lawyer like Curtis, and went on to become a bull-in-china-shop style congressman, serving a total of three terms in Florida’s 8th and 9th congressional districts
He indicated he sees a kindred spirit.
Curtis rose to some fame in the 2000s with nationally reported whistleblower suits. He has run for elected office four times previously, but lost.
“I enthusiastically endorse Clint Curtis for Congress in FL-6 this year,” Grayson stated in a release issued by Curtis. “Clint Curtis is one of the few people I know, Democrat or Republican, who can be counted on to improve the lives of his constituents if he is elected to Congress. Congress already is full of ‘get along, go along’ Congressmen; it does not need one more. But no one has ever accused Clint Curtis of being a ‘get along, go along’ candidate. Clint Curtis is an ‘iconoclast’ — a breaker of phony icons.”
