bernard
THEE Realist
Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), former Orlando police chief and House impeachment manager, announced on Wednesday her run for Senate. Her announcement video underscored her dynamic, feisty persona:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=421g_3k3sMc
Florida is always an uphill climb for Democrats, but Demings is uniquely suited to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has become the poster boy for Republicans’ Trump sycophancy. Demings has the biography and charisma to run on offense, making use of several compelling themes.
First, she is a real law-and-order candidate. She is in the position to attack Rubio for failing to hold the former president accountable or even to support a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, a slap in the face to the law enforcement personnel who died or were injured as a result of that day.
Second, Demings is not shy about taking on Rubio as a weakling. It is no accident that she includes in her announcement video a clip of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie pummeling him in the 2016 GOP primary. She can rightly argue that Rubio was unable to muster opposition to — or even criticism of — the former president, who coddled Russian President Vladimir Putin, bungled the pandemic response, instigated anti-Black and anti-immigrant animus, and twiddled his thumbs for months in 2020 as the economy sank into a deep recession. She might start by daring Rubio to concede that the “big lie” that the election was stolen was a groundless attack on democracy.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=421g_3k3sMc
Florida is always an uphill climb for Democrats, but Demings is uniquely suited to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has become the poster boy for Republicans’ Trump sycophancy. Demings has the biography and charisma to run on offense, making use of several compelling themes.
First, she is a real law-and-order candidate. She is in the position to attack Rubio for failing to hold the former president accountable or even to support a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, a slap in the face to the law enforcement personnel who died or were injured as a result of that day.
Second, Demings is not shy about taking on Rubio as a weakling. It is no accident that she includes in her announcement video a clip of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie pummeling him in the 2016 GOP primary. She can rightly argue that Rubio was unable to muster opposition to — or even criticism of — the former president, who coddled Russian President Vladimir Putin, bungled the pandemic response, instigated anti-Black and anti-immigrant animus, and twiddled his thumbs for months in 2020 as the economy sank into a deep recession. She might start by daring Rubio to concede that the “big lie” that the election was stolen was a groundless attack on democracy.