I almost feel bad for Angie Nixon. Sometime tonight, after the Panhandle brings it home, she’s going to find out that millions of Floridians don’t want her representing them in the United States Senate, and she’ll have to confront the possibility that the problem might actually be Angie Nixon.
Just kidding. We all know that’s not happening.
She’s already figured out who to blame. Florida is racist. The voters are racist. Apparently even the Democrat donors think so.
Talking with Politico’s Dasha Burns last month, she complained that national Democrats were staying out of her race because “they think that the state is racist.” Asked about it by CNN, she talked about a “level of racism” in Florida she’s trying to overcome.
What a wonderful arrangement. If she wins, she’s overcome racism. If she loses, racism won. At no point does Angie Nixon have to consider whether Angie Nixon might be the reason people aren’t voting for Angie Nixon.
She’s said it about her opponent, too. In August, she said of Sen. Ashley Moody, President Trump, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, “They don’t like black people. Period.”
That would be the same President Trump who endorsed Byron Donalds for governor. Those supposedly racist Florida voters made Donalds the Republican nominee. He’s raised more than $148 million, and by tonight he’ll be the first black governor in Florida history.
Funny how Florida’s racism only kicks in for socialists.
Nixon has given this state plenty of reasons to vote against her that have nothing to do with race, and the biggest one is who she listens to. Spoiler: It isn’t Floridians.
Bernie Sanders, who went on 60 Minutes to compliment Fidel Castro, spent his own war chest to put her in the Senate. Ilhan Omar, who once summed up 9/11 as “some people did something,” endorsed her in July. Nixon herself called CAIR “the right vehicle” for winning elections, an organization DeSantis has designated a terrorist group.
Her Jacksonville bookstore tells you the rest. The wall there honors three cop killers, including Assata Shakur, who was convicted in the 1973 murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster, broke out of prison, and spent the rest of her life under the protection of communist Cuba. When Floridians objected, she told them, “I stand by everything in this bookstore.”
That’s the company Angie Nixon keeps. So when CBS asked her whether Cuba is a dictatorship, here’s what she said:
Bernie Sanders learned about socialism from a book. Florida is full of people who learned about it from a ration line, a prison cell, or a raft in the Florida Straits. Guess which one has her ear.
Floridians don’t need a lesson in racial prejudice to form an opinion about any of that. Nixon has had a platform for years, and she’s used it. Extensively. Unfortunately for her, people have been listening. Judging by the Republicans lining up at precincts since 7 AM, they’ve heard enough.
But here’s what I find especially obnoxious about the whole thing. Nixon wants the privilege of representing this state without accepting that the people who live here have every right to tell her no. The arrogance is almost impressive. She’s walking into the biggest job interview in Florida, telling the people across the table they’re racist, and already lining up the excuse for when they hire somebody else.
That’s the campaign Angie Nixon is running.
And when the race gets called tonight, and Nixon starts explaining what must be wrong with the millions of Floridians who rejected her, I hope somebody asks her a question she hasn’t considered.
What if it isn’t Florida?
What if it’s just you, Angie?