Jacksonville Republicans are reeling because the nightmare they were having when they went to bed last night didn’t slip away as they hoped at today’s dawn. No, Democrat Alvin Brown, a former Clinton administration and Al Gore advisor, African-American, and pro-education candidate (not to be confused with bizarre nobody Alvin Greene of South Carolina) was still 603 votes ahead in the mayor’s race, just like he was last night.
As we speak, absentee and provisional ballots are being counted, so anything could happen in what the elections supervisor is calling the closest mayor’s race in Jacksonville history. Anything could happen, that is, except reinstating the conventional wisdom that a Democrat can’t win in Jacksonville – or in Northeast Florida. Apparently he can.
Brown was one of six candidates in the elimination round in March that was expected to easily pick Republican Audrey Moran, who passes for moderate in these parts, and fellow Republican and incumbent Tax Collector Mike Hogan to face off in the final race. Had that played out, Duval County voters would have the familiar Republican Thing One and Republican Thing Two from which to choose, and First Baptist Church (a Jacksonville institution that pulls most of the power strings), the Chamber of Commerce, Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver, and a few others could resume running things for another four years.
And then something strange happened.
Hogan, comfortable in his GOP/Tea bubble, told us how he really felt. In an early debate, he said that he would not personally bomb an abortion clinic, “but it may cross my mind.” Making the statement wasn’t the odd part – that kind of thing is bandied about all the time in Jacksonville. The odd part was that people didn’t assent.
Instead the blow-back caused the candidate to duck public forums and interviews at the same time as he pulled out the big guns, like freshman Sen. Marco Rubio, former Lieutenant Governor and current Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, and even the new governor himself, Rick Scott, to campaign on his behalf. Hogan’s message could be distilled as, “I know you’re going to vote for me because I’m the Republican so just shut up and do what these other Republicans tell you to do.”
And why not? That hand usually wins around here. Columnist Abel Harding showed how unexpected, even hours before, the results were.
A conversation I had with [State] Senate President Mike Haridopolos summed it up best yesterday.
“The party is telling me Hogan should win pretty handily,” Haridopolos said.
The party in this case was the Republican Party of Florida, which invested in polling and had sent operatives to Duval to help ensure the campaign delivered. The margin being bandied around yesterday by various party officials I spoke with was between 6 and 10 points.
While Hogan focused on GOP/Tea red meat about cutting taxes (a pretty outrageous platform for a tax collector), Brown talked about jobs, revitalizing the downtown core, and improving Duval County’s abysmal public education system. And voters responded.
There are two takeaways here. First, even if an honest accounting of outstanding ballots and the recount that currently looks inevitable produce a Hogan victory, Northeast Florida Republicans have been put on notice that they take voters for granted at their own peril with their “we always win” mindset.
Second, as Abel Harding again noted, “Gov. Rick Scott’s approval ratings could have complicated the race. He endorsed the GOP candidate and campaigned for him.”
It could be an overreach to extrapolate from one race in one metropolitan area that the tea party’s reign is over. But recent polls show that the more voters get to live with the results of electing tea party candidates, the less they like the movement. Stay tuned to see where this goes next.
Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself, please see Detroit democratic leadership: last 40 years.
Exceptional high(low) points:
Coleman Young
The entire Kilpatrick family.
What’s the comparison? Because both mayors are black and Democrats?
I was illustrating another economically depressed city that many say corrupt leadership over 40 + has helped decimate.
You choose to bring in race.
I hope you understand that political corruption is not based solely on party alliance, nor race. Blindly supporting anyone for a certain affiliation and allowing them a pass because they “agree with your party” while not holding politicians accountable is as insane as doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Russ, I’m confused.
So you just randomly picked Detroit, which has an African American population of around 80 percent, to compare with Jacksonville, now that Jacksonville has an African American mayor? Sorry, but what do Detroit and Jacksonville, which is about 30 percent black, have in common?
Detroit is in a long, slow death spiral mainly because its industrial base collapsed. Yes, there are other causes — white flight in the 1960s left the inner city without a tax base, which had a ripple effect that hobbled schools, housing, health care and the rest. With its infrastructure collapsed, it has had a hard time attracting new business and accommodating the information and service economies. It also doesn’t help that the weather is lousy for much of the year.
Detroit’s population is declining, while Jacksonville’s is growing. Jacksonville was never a one-industry town, as far as I know. It has attracted new business in the service and information sectors. Its growth in the center city seems to be hampered mostly by the fact that the Baptists own so much of the real estate. Unlike Detroit, Jacksonville, which is near the beach and has warm winters, is a popular tourist destination.
So I don’t see much connection, other than the fact that Detroit has had two mayors that you specifically mentioned — Young and Kilpatrick — who’ve been charged with corruption and who are black.
In fact, a more apt comparison might be Charlotte, a Sunbelt city that has its second African American Democratic mayor now, Anthony Foxx — the first was Harvey Gantt in the 1980s. Not a whiff of scandal from Gantt’s administration or from Foxx’s, so far. Because it’s a banking center, Charlotte was hit hard by the Wall St. collapse and the Bush recession, but it has a smart, educated multiracial workforce, the infrastructure is in good shape and Uptown is booming.
Isn’t it just as likely that Mayor Brown will do as good a job as Mayors Gantt or Foxx than he will be corrupt like Mayors Young and Kilpatrick? Or are you saying Alvin Brown is already corrupt, and that he’s getting a pass because he’s a Democrat?
Actually Jon, Russ knows him some Detroit. And there are parallels, but the difference is that although Jacksonville was at one time a one-industry town, that industry was insurance. And when insurance companies like Independent Life and Prudential pulled out, the insurance workforce was easy to convert to call centers and other information/technology jobs. A second parallel is that neither town is known for the education level of its workforce, although probably anywhere would have an edge over Detroit in that arena. And finally, both towns are trying to use arts as a road back to making them the kinds of places people want to live in. I think Detroit, where it’s all wide open, is having more luck with that than Jacksonville, where the Baptist sensibilities get in the way.
There are cultures where corruption flourishes, and Detroit certainly has that rep. I don’t know about Jax. But what it really comes down to is character. Some mayors have it, some don’t. I know diddly about Alvin Brown’s character, of course, but I assume he gets a presumption of innocence, all things being equal.
eh, after thinking this through, I see that no presentation of political accountability across party lines on my part will gain any traction here before accusations of racism, democrat bashing, or apples to oranges comparison, no matter how unfounded, will allow you to arbitrarily discredit my common sense apolitical position.
please resume your regularly scheduled programming.
Sorry if I misconstrued the comparison.