David Jolly talked about hope and hate and, of course, Byron Donalds.
The Democratic candidate for governor visited friendly turf in Tallahassee Friday. First he met with Black community leaders, where he defended diversity, equity and inclusion, and said leaders have neglected Florida A&M University for too long.
Mike Stocker/Sun Sentinel
Steve Bousquet, Sun Sentinel columnist.
Then he and running mate Gwen Graham met some 200 supporters at a distillery. So many showed up, it was moved outdoors.
It was an older gathering — too old, in fact. Many in the crowd had strong ties to state government. They held office, worked at a state agency or university, lobbied the Legislature or belonged to trade groups.
They know from personal experience how big a difference it makes who’s in the Governor’s Mansion.
“Housing, healthcare, education and no data centers,” Jolly said, distilling his platform to eight words. “You can say it in your sleep.”
He desperately needs money, and lots of it, to compete with the Republicans’ enormous advantage, but he asked for something else: Trust. He asked people to trust each other to build a far different and much better Florida, a place of hope, not hate.
An image from Donalds’ first TV ad, castigating David Jolly over LGBTQ issues (YouTube)
“You see, Byron Donalds and the folks on the other side, God bless them, are going to spend all their money running these crazy ads, reminding you we should hate each other. That’s the message,” Jolly said. “When they say ‘radical,’ ‘communist,’ ‘socialist,’ it’s not about ideology … most of them don’t even know what that means. They’re trying to scare you. They’re trying to break our trust in each other.”
The message is idealistic, not transactional, and it has nothing to do with attack ads about transgender athletes.
Jolly’s running mate, Gwen Graham, who was a teenager when her father was governor and who once represented North Florida in Congress, told the crowd that Florida can return to what it once was.
“We have lost sight of what being an elected official means,” she said. “My Dad always said to me, ‘Gwen, it’s not about the title, it’s about how you help people once you’re in office.’”
Jolly faces legions of doubters, some of whom want him to win. A few fretted Friday as they stood near him.
All that voters see, one woman told me, is “a stupid transgender ad” attacking Jolly. She fears that will define him in the minds of many before they vote.
It’s fear, not hope. The divisive culture war playbook is how Republicans win in a state with many uninformed voters.
Democrats in Florida have been losing statewide elections for so long and had their hearts broken so often, it’s as if they forgot the concept of winning. One longtime Democrat said it’s a case of “battered political party syndrome.”
I’ve never seen so many Floridians as angry and frustrated as they are now. People are enraged, and scared, about the high costs of everything. They are sick and tired of Trump. They resent the power of big money to dominate their lives with data centers and overdevelopment.
They detest the status quo and where it has gotten us. And the candidate of change is not Donalds — it’s Jolly.
Corruption is now a part of the conversation. The grand jury report in the Hope Florida scandal and the ability of multiple key players in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orbit to wriggle free, and look arrogant doing so, only makes people angrier — as it should.
Then there’s Donalds, packaged and powered by big money, who clearly failed to connect with much of his party’s base, as his primary performance showed. He got 48% of the vote against weak competitors, whom he refused to debate, after spending tens of millions in seeking to be Florida’s first Black governor.
Donalds has the highly coveted endorsement of a president who’s increasingly unpopular. It now looks more like an albatross than an asset.
“His message isn’t resonating,” Jolly said. “He may be one of those candidates who, the more money he spends, the worse he does.”
Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale.