Interesting article in the Times Union (below). And, to clarify, Bill Bishop is interested in helping Jacksonville succeed, not establish himself as a career politician. Bill Bishop is a local business owner and architect in the city of Jacksonville. As a two term councilman and former President of City Council, he has the political experience and knows how Jacksonville government operates. Florida Times Union Lenny Curry: Former GOP party head runs as outsider; Dems dont think so. By Nate Monroe Sun, Dec 21, 2014 @ 11:37 pm | updated Mon, Dec 22, 2014 @ 12:20 am Look for Lenny Curry on Youtube, and he’s there, staring into the bright lights of TV cameras representing the Republican Party of Florida as its chairman — the position for which he has been best known until he resigned last summer to run for mayor of Jacksonville. Switch to the television set, and Curry is there, too. But the content is very different. In his first commercial of the mayoral campaign — a well-produced, 30-second biographical piece released late last month — Curry’s father tells viewers his son “is not a politician.” A second commercial recently hit the airwaves, featuring a testimonial from his wife to voters: “Lenny followed his dream and built a business. It wasn’t easy, but he succeeded.” In both ads, the images are down to Earth: a workshop, backyard football, decorating a Christmas tree. What’s not there? Any mention of his time leading the state GOP — an omission opponents and critics note. And they say that omission is a cynical trick: the Lenny Curry now featured in the ads clashes starkly with the Lenny Curry who is actually running for mayor, a former Duval County and state party chairman, the consummate Florida political insider. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of thing a politician would do. “It really in a sense boggles the mind that someone who has held an insider political position both locally and as statewide as GOP head could in any way consider themselves to have not been a politician,” said Neil Henrichsen, chairman of the Duval County Democratic Party. Curry points to his years-long experience in the private sector, first as a certified public accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global professional-services firm, and then as a co-founder and CEO of Jacksonville-based ICX Group Inc., a professional recruiting, staffing, consulting firm. He notes that unlike his main opponent, Mayor Alvin Brown, he’s never been on the government payroll or held elected office. “I have over two decades of private sector experience ... That is the crux of my life,” he said. “I don’t even see it as a debate.” University of North Florida political science professor Matthew Corrigan said the debate is indicative of Curry’s first challenge in hoping to unseat Brown: defining himself to voters before his opponents can. The party chairman’s “job is to raise money and support candidates. Their job isn’t to be well known to the public,” Corrigan said. “The Curry campaign has to do two things. It has to introduce Lenny Curry, and then it’s got to make a decision on how they’re going to contrast themselves with the mayor.” Brown’s campaign had no comment for the story. STRONG START Since announcing his run in June, Curry’s broken local fund-raising records, raking in more than $1.4 million by uniting the often-fractious Jacksonville Republican donor class. He’s announced endorsements from some of Florida’s most powerful Republican elected officials. He’s enlisted help from top GOP political consultants and firms. Those developments have earned enviable coverage and eye-popping headlines for a mayoral candidate seeking to unseat a well-funded incumbent who has deep connections to national Democratic superstars like former President Bill Clinton. Curry credited those successes not to political connections but to hard work and effective leadership for the state party — responsibilities he handled while remaining involved with ICX Group. “That’s private-sector experience getting things done,” he said. City Councilman Bill Bishop, also a Republican mayoral candidate whose fighting to compete with Curry’s resources and support, has a different take. The two-term councilman has positioned himself as the outsider, frequently taking to social media to say Jacksonville “doesn’t deserve the same old bought and paid for GOP candidates.” DATA TARGETING Local Democrats suggest Curry’s ties to the party are a liability for his candidacy. Henrichsen noted Curry was head of the party while the state Legislature was working to redraw Florida’s congressional and legislative maps as part of the redistricting process. An ongoing and winding fight over the congressional maps has played out in state and federal courts, with the League of Women Voters of Florida alleging in a lawsuit that state lawmakers were improperly influenced by Republican political consultants and claiming the maps violate the Fair Districts rules against gerrymandering. The state Supreme Court recently ruled that over 500 pages of disputed evidence submitted during legal challenges to the redistricting process had to be released to the public — The Florida Times-Union was among more than a dozen news organizations and advocacy groups that filed a “friend of the court” brief in favor of the documents being unsealed. The media groups argued that coverage of the redistricting process and ensuing legal challenges required full transparency of all related documents. That evidence includes previously unreleased emails and documents belonging to Republican consultant Pat Bainter, whose firm, Data Targeting, the League of Women Voters says, was among those working on maps that would favor members of certain political parties. Curry’s campaign and political action committee have paid another firm with ties to Bainter — the similarly named Data Targeting Research — more than $34,000 for consulting services. Consultant Tim Baker started Data Targeting Research with Bainter in May 2013, though Bainter dropped off on the corporate filings as a managing member in June. The company has helped Curry with opposition research, submitting several records requests to the city of Jacksonville seeking travel records and pension information on Brown as well as salary, benefit and other information on Mike Hogan, a former city councilman who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2011 as a Republican and is rumored to be considering another run. Curry said his job as chairman was largely to raise money and prepare for elections, and he said his chairmanship overlapped little with the redistricting process. “I was not chairman of the party when the legislative process was underway,” he said. He took over as chairman in late September 2011, after the public-input process for redistricting ended — the period of time when the plaintiffs allege Bainter and others were funneling maps through members of the public to conceal their origins. The legislature approved the originally revised maps in February 2012, about four months after Curry’s chairmanship began. OLD TREND Corrigan said candidates around the country and in Jacksonville have long-sought to run from the “politician” label. “This whole idea of separating yourself from politics or the institution is an old idea,” he said. “It’s a common thing to do.” But Jacksonville University political science professor Stephen Baker said while voters may have soured on politics and react negatively to the “politician” label, it undeniably takes political skill to be an effective elected official. Ultimately, he said, it’s a “puff issue.” “If he is not a politician, he really shouldn’t’ be running for mayor. To be a mayor, you really have to have political skills,” Baker said. Information from the News Service of Florida was used in this story. Nate Monroe: (904) 359-4289 jacksonville/news/metro/2014-12-21/story/lenny-curry-former-gop-party-head-runs-outsider-dems-dont-think-so
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 16:52:59 +0000
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