OPINION | For Deegan, will town halls be enough?

The gold standard for all mayoral reelection campaigns arguably is Lenny Curry’s in 2019.

Why?

Despite being a polarizing, capital-R Republican, he buffaloed the Democratic Party into not fielding an opponent.

The chair at that time opted to run for an at-large City Council seat.

And Democrats backed former Council President and current CFO Anna Brosche, but nothing tangible came of that.

Donna Deegan won’t have that luxury in 2027.

Despite running an openly aspirational campaign in 2023, one that brought over a lot of people who voted for Republicans LeAnna Cumber and Al Ferraro in March to support her in May, the realities of governance have  – as they always do – thrown sand into the political gears.

Republicans see an opportunity to exploit this on a recurring basis, and they are doing just that.

Consider last week’s presser to highlight a miniscule ⅛ mill cut in property taxes, for example.

While you couldn’t have done a City Council quorum call on the front steps of City Hall, you would have seen the leaders of the legislative branch – the President, the Vice President, the Finance Chair, and multiple other former Presidents — along with the chair of the Republican Party of Florida.

The RPOF was a non-factor in Deegan’s first campaign. But what Evan Power’s presence made clear last week is the state party sees an opportunity to flip the mayor’s office. 

In and of itself, that is a footnote. 

But contextualize that to the relative uselessness of the Florida Democrats.

Even if they wanted to have Chair Nikki Fried hold a presser on the steps of City Hall, which Democrats would be there to accompany her, and what points would they make in light of the city council’s aggressive challenge to the “strong mayor” model that has a lot more variance in application than it does in theory?

Democrats will have to play defense for the next two years, and Republicans (and their political consultants who know this space better than their Democratic counterparts) plan on teeing off.

Expect the funhouse mirror attacks on the mayor, painting her as tax-and-spend even though she can’t do much without the council’s sign-off. Expect attacks on staff pay – one complaint a Republican pushed recently was a certain staffer making close to $200K a year to hide dinosaur action figures around town. 

Is that a distortion? Of course.

Will it pop on a mailer though? 

If you close your eyes, you can visualize it with no more imagination than even this writer has. 

And, contrary to the “change for good” rhetoric of her campaign, the anti-Deegan push is personal for some.

Republicans say, for example, that Deegan has pointed out her poll numbers in conversations in response to critiques.

Poll numbers, as the saying goes, are snapshots in time. And anyone who has studied a few thousand polls over the years knows that framing of questions, selection of respondents, and other factors can edge the results one way or another.

Would anyone on the mayor’s side concede that happened even if it did?

Of course not. 

But again, that doesn’t matter much. 

Going into the second half of her first term, Deegan isn’t changing her playbook much – the Doug Pederson approach, in football terms.

She’s announced town halls starting tonight in Mandarin, a series of six showups that will demonstrate at least in theory a support for her proposed budget that the city council’s Finance Committee has whittled down here and there.

Deegan has done the town halls before, of course. And this columnist agrees that they are, in the words of 20th century cereal commercials, part of a nutritious breakfast.

But just as human beings can’t live off Lucky Charms or Count Chocula or Frankenberry exclusively, town halls simply are not enough. 

Deegan needs to start running for re-election not like she is 10 points ahead but 10 points behind.

There should be an open campaign account already.

There should be PAC fundraisers — locally, in Tallahassee, and even in D.C. Because whichever Republican emerges from the invisible primary will be raising money. She had roughly $300,000 in the “Duval for All” account as of the end of June.

Get a professional in there and 10x that money, because you’re going to need it.

Consider: potential mayoral candidate House Speaker Pro Tempore Wyman Duggan’s committee, Citizens for Building Florida’s Future, has nearly $800,000 on hand. And it couldn’t raise money during the legislative session. Which is over now.

And also consider how much money the aforementioned Curry raised in 2015, and the defeated Republicans in 2023. 

The mayor and her team learned the wrong lessons from that year, which was as much enabled by Republican political consultants mistaking a purple electorate for a GOP primary pool of voters as it was by what Democrats did.

By the time Daniel Davis emerged for the general election, he was wounded and taking bad advice. But all Deegan had to do in that election was seem normal, relatable and pragmatic, and she understood the assignment. She was always ahead in polls, and Davis’ operation buried his vocals deep in the mix, with ads making it seem like he was Sheriff T.K. Waters’ puppet.

This time around, institutional realities and energy flows aren’t necessarily with her. 

And there’re more exploitable errors and debatable policy decisions.

So, yes, Mayor, go ahead and town hall it up.

But it’s time to turn on the political machine as well.

Your enemies are already making moves.