Rosanne Dunkelberger
He’s been neck-deep in presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mike Bloomberg. She’s managed to play a major role in what might have been the greatest Democratic triumph so far in the 2020s — electing Democrat Donna Deegan as the first woman Mayor of Jacksonville.
Blue politics brought them together. But if you ask Stephanie and Reggie Cardozo who gets top billing in the blended family’s organizational chart, it’s their three children: Madison, 14; Fallon, 12; and Sutton James, 4.
“After 3:30 I’m just an Uber driver, taking them to their events and all that,” Stephanie quipped.
“I think our biggest similarity is just our commitment to our family,” she continued. “Reggie is a family man through and through. He’s been incredibly supportive of me spending a good amount of time in Jacksonville lately and very hands-on with the kids. That’s kind of where we’re happiest, even though every weekend is basically given up to volleyball and horseback riding — and now adding in soccer — that’s kind of like what we love.”
Valentine’s Day will be a family affair with Reggie and Sutton taking out the “girls” for dinner. Flowers may be involved. Madison and Fallon were disappointed that their favorite V-Day spot, The Melting Pot, had closed, but Stephanie and Reggie are planning to drive an hour to a different Melting Pot as a special surprise.
“I think like our ideal date night is — crazy as it sounds — we cook at home together. Monday nights are typically our date nights. We put the baby to bed, and we cook a meal together, and we do all these crazy recipes,” Stephanie said. “He does all the prep and then I’ll come in and cook or vice versa. So we have a good little system going for us.”
Stephanie’s go-to dish is a spicy rigatoni with vodka sauce, although Reggie is currently “obsessed” with different kinds of ramen.
Currently, Reggie is a partner in the Nashville consultancy Counterpoint Messaging. He’s also president of The Public Square, a boutique consulting firm based in Tampa.
He estimates his time is split 50/50 between campaigns and corporate work. In Florida, he said, “I do lots of local races: City Council races, County Commissioner and School Board. I don’t do Statehouse because … first of all, I did that and I would never want to do it again. Fun, but not fun. And second of all, I don’t think there’s a lot of opportunity here in Florida because of the way they’ve drawn the lines.”
There was a place for Stephanie in Deegan’s administration, but she didn’t want to uproot her family and move. She currently works for The Southern Group, based in Tampa Bay, but with responsibilities that take her to Jacksonville for part of the week.
Both Cardozos travel a lot, but a hard-and-fast rule is that neither of them can stay away from home for more than two nights. And every travel day ends with a call to the kids.
“We’re pretty adamant about that,” Stephanie said. “And sometimes that means me getting up at 5 in the morning or same thing with Reggie flying out super early. My clients know, Reggie’s work knows, in the evening when the kids are going to bed, whoever’s home with them, we FaceTime. It doesn’t matter if we’re in a client dinner or not, we step out to do that.”
