Running Scared?

 

                                     Running Scared?

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has a problem. Her name is Congresswoman Val Demings and she's running for his office. She's a problem for him because she's brighter, more experienced in real public service, and proven to be more capable where the rubber meets the road.

This has, of course, led to Rubio campaign ads which, as is his norm, cherry pick partial statements out of context and then, in the most recent case, show persons in police uniforms citing them. In the ad I’m referencing, Rubio's campaign takes Congresswoman Demings out of context — attempting to undermine and minimize her background in law enforcement, which is comprised of 27 years as an Orlando City law enforcement officer, four years of which was as Chief of Police.

The 30-second spot, published, of all places, on YouTube on July 19 features several “uniformed law enforcement personnel” bashing Demings' voting record in Congress and calling her a "radical rubber stamp."

Most nauseating is the tired and meaningless Republican mantra that: "Demings votes with Pelosi 100% of the time." One officer said this, invoking data  showing that Demings and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed on 100% of votes in the 116th Congress, which ended Jan. 3, 2021. And so? If a Republican candidate voted with Mitch McConnell 100% of the time, they’d proclaim this as a sign from above of that candidate’s worthiness for sainthood.

A far more misleading and blatantly false allegation came from another “officer”: "She called abolishing the police 'thoughtful,'" he said, bracketing “thoughtful” in “air quotes.”

The source of this last slur is a 2 year old interview shortly after George Floyd was choked to death by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, now serving a 21year sentence for his crime. Shortly after the event, Congresswoman Demings (not in the soon to be referenced interview) asked: “As a former woman in blue, let me begin with my brothers and sisters in blue: What in the hell are you doing? When an officer engages in stupid, heartless, and reckless behavior, their actions can either take a life or change a life forever. Bad decisions can bring irrevocable harm to the profession and tear down the relationships and trust between the police and the communities they serve. Remember, law enforcement needs that trust just as the public does. Think before you act! Remember, your most powerful weapon is the brain the good Lord gave you. Use it!”

This unredacted statement is part of a longer dialogue which far from endorsing defunding or abolishing the police (as Rubio and/or his followers would love you to believe) is a cry for better policing…period.

Now that we’ve established Val Demings Law Enforcement  bona fides, here is the circumstance of the actual recent statement from which the word “thoughtful” was taken, far from its contextual meaning.  In June of 2020, while the Floyd murder was still front-page news, Ms. Demings was asked by a CBS interviewer, for her thoughts on Law Enforcement reform in general and then, more specifically, regarding a proposal in Minneapolis to "dismantle and rebuild" the city's police department. Why ask her? Because as the former Chief of Police in a major city (Orlando) she is, almost assuredly, the sole member of Congress actually qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject. "Is that a strategy you could agree with?" the reporter asked Demings. Her exact response was, "I do believe that everyone has a right to look at any proposal that is put forth because there desperately needs to be change. I also believe the council is being very thoughtful in terms of looking at all of the services that police provide." This is the source of the slanderous Rubio ad. At no time does Demings endorse abolishing police, in fact she believes they should be better.

 We in Florida deserve so much better in the United States Senate than we currently have. Rick Scott is the unconvicted co-conspirator in the most egregious cased of Medicare fraud in history, and a Trump rubber stamp. Marco Rubio has never done anything truly successfully other than take state funds for teaching a college course for which he rarely showed up and getting Federal bucks as a Senator. Other than that, he has never really held a real job, other than as a shill for Florida Big Sugar (“Sugar is a national security issue!” yes, he said that) His unsavory ties to big sugar include taking significant funding from a family whose paterfamilias took millions from the areas south of Okeechobee while remaining a Spanish citizen. It’s bad enough when politicians are for sale to US businesses, but Marco Rubio is far worse than that.

I had no personal knowledge of Val Demings until a former colleague, a retired Orlando police officer and her husband, a very senior retired Orange County Sheriff's Department Division Chief, both staunch Republicans, volunteered to hold a fund raiser for Val Demings in their home. In casual conversations in the teacher’s lunchroom, it soon became obvious that regardless of partisan differences they admired her for her personal character and ability as well as her performance a Police Chief. I challenge you to find anyone who holds Marco Rubio in such regard. We have a choice in the Senate race. Make it Val Demings - not for her but for all of us. Her election could swing the Senate majority.