69 percent: the forced birth referendum on Jennifer Canady and Anthony Pedicini is going badly for them

But until my fellow Republicans learn to punish our fellow Republicans for weird, bad behavior, the weird bad behavior will persist. PediCanady offers an excellent object lesson and opportunity.

This is the most jaw-dropping poll of any kind I have seen in a long time from a reputable source.

For the abortion amendment, 69% of participants said they would vote to approve the initiative. The poll of 774 Floridians was conducted by the University of North Florida's Public Opinion Research Lab. 

Let me repeat what this poll says: 69 percent of Floridians plan to vote to repeal the 6-week forced birth law imposed on an unwilling public by Rep. Jennifer Canady, R-Lakeland (after she lied about her intentions as a nepo-candidate). Only 23 percent of voters say they support keeping Canady’s 6-week forced birth law. With undecideds, that’s a potential ceiling of 77 percent.

So make no mistake, Amendment 4 is a referendum on Jennifer Canady, personally, as a weak person and politician. She’s done nothing else but convince weird little dictator DeSantis to make her House speaker, in theory, at some time in the future.

Canady is a Pedicini ATM

Amendment 4 is also a referendum on Anthony Pedicini, Canady’s gross “political consultant” bro bagman, at whom I often laugh.

By my count, Canady has paid Pedicini (through his company “SimWins”) roughly $276,000 of her donor money during her short happy life as a nepo-politician.

Pro-tip: in Florida, campaign “expenditures” often tell you more about a candidate than “contributions.” The expenditure side tends to pick the candidate so it can withdraw cash through them from its pet big money contributors. Jennifer Canady is mostly an ATM machine for Pedicini and “SimWins,” which is among the most cynical “political” shops in Florida. That is saying something.

Two-thirds of every dollar you gave Canady for her easy maiden campaign in 2022 went to this guy, who also is a bit of a snowflake, as most braggarts are:

Some genius told Canady to lie about 6-week forced birth as a candidate; then sponsor the law; and then run away from it.

I would bet that genius was Pedicini.

I would also bet Pedicini produced this mailer that refuses to mention Canady’s only “accomplishment” as a legislator. Who else could it be? She’s not paying anybody else for advice and mailers with your donor money.

PediCanady or Canacini are welcome to correct the record if I’m wrong. I’ll happily print their firsthand story of the lie, sponsor, flee sequence in this very space. I’m easy to reach.

Canacini banks on you having no self-respect, my fellow GOPers

Moreover, every Republican involved in this legislative cycle knows that PediCanady is trying to pick and choose which GOPers get to ascend to their little legislative mean girl sorority.

Everybody knows what’s happening. And everybody is looking around at everybody else lamenting how gross it all is — and wishing it was different.

I know this because basically all of them have complained about it behind closed doors. Some have complained directly to me; others I’ve heard whine indirectly, through various sources. Others have filed ineffectual public complaints about Canacini’s candidates. (Thirsty Frostproof Mayor Jon Albert ain’t the problem, Chad.)

All the closed door pillow-crying at night is soooo lame.

It’s dictator-submissive behavior. I’m handing you, right here, GOP candidates, how you should go about challenging Canacini in public — if any of you have the personal character to do so.

In any event, I consider it my duty to teach my fellow Republicans some self-respect. That’s the main reason I became a Republican.

Polls that give permission to end Canacini’s weird, cowardly war on normal people before it *really* starts

The political scientist in me — who thinks hard about tribal and partisan voting patterns — can’t help but feel some skepticism about that 69 percent poll. I’ve continually said publicly that I expect the amendment to top out just short of the 60 percent it needs to become law.

But I may well be wrong.

The big business GOP “conservatives” at the Florida Chamber of Commerce also had a poll above 60 a few weeks back — albeit 61, not 69.

Moreover, the fake pro-lifers like Canacini have completely given up making a serious political, moral or even basic operational public case for 6-week forced birth, the “life” goal that was supposedly most important to them for all those years of sanctimonious bleating.

All of that suggests to me that normal people are collectively receiving broad social “permission” from their circles, political allegiances, families, “leaders,” and even personal sense of identity to actually vote in their own interest and protect themselves, their wives, their daughters, their sisters from weird, vicious people like Canacini.

Thus, these polls function as more than just snapshots; they’re encouragement. They’re self-fulfilling.

They document for normal people other normal people looking around and saying, at scale, “Yeah, it’s ok to reject these fake Christians reaching their immoral, creepy hands into my bed and body. Everybody’s doing it.”

Punish Canady for putting us all through this — so she doesn’t put us through anything else

Can you imagine me, as a politician, running away in lame silent terror from my only public “accomplishment?”

Can you imagine me just lying to your face during a campaign about the supposedly most important thing on my agenda? Can you imagine someone pointing that out to me in public over and over again — and me just ignoring it?

Can you imagine me having that little respect for you — even if you think of me as a dirty lib?

Well that’s Jennifer Canady; and those are deep character defects that should not be given power over anyone. Ever. They should be punished and ostracized in public life — civically and politically. Likewise, paying Anthony Pedicini at least $276,000 is a personal character defect.

The 6-week forced birth referendum will provide some measure of punishment. It is going to humiliate her — the only question is how deep the humiliation will be and whether it actually becomes law.

I can assure you that I will be a vehicle of ongoing public accountability for Canady over 6-week forced birth until she address forthrightly what she’s put us all through for nothing — and why she was dishonest and cowardly about it.

But public mockery and shame isn’t what really moves the needle for people obsessed with status, like Canady is. You have to take away the personal status itself to really get their attention.

Republicans for Bonnie Patterson-James: she’s braver, more honest, and on the right side of the 69 percent

And there is an option for harming Canady’s personal status for beyond Amendment 4. There is an option for creating a deterrent for future Canacinis.

Anti-forced birth activist Bonnie Patterson-James, she of the flying bouncy panties manhunt that Canady sicked on her last year, is the Democrat in the race.

My fellow Republicans, I know that you’ve been told your entire lives that you will spontaneously combust in sulfurous hellfire if you vote for a Democrat or a non-GOPer — even if you’re just trying to punish a politician of low character.

I am here to tell you: this is not, in fact, true.

You will not spontaneously combust if you righteously punish Canacini with a vote for BPJ. You can vote for a different Republican in 2026 if you want. But at least you will have provided a measure of accountability for PediCanady.

Moreover, you agree with BPJ on the only public matter — 6-week forced birth — in which Jennifer Canady has actually done anything. BPJ is also far braver and more honest than Canady as a person. These are indisputable facts.

What will you do with them?

It’s also indisputable that BPJ is more emotionally ragged in her personal presentation of herself than the immaculately curated Canady. BPJ is the type of woman who would never get an invite to join Canady’s mean girl sorority. (Guess what, my fellow GOPers, you’re not invited either.)

Is that a bad thing? You can decide for yourself. Here’s my long interview with BPJ.

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Do I expect BPJ to beat Canacini — on top of Canacini losing a huge majority in the 6-week forced birth referendum? Nope. But every GOP vote Canady loses in this heavily GOP district is an expression of self-respect — and a warning to the next Canacini.

It’s an expression of power, which is the point of politics — to distribute and shape the use of power

So I’m voting for BPJ in 2024 because, my fellow Republicans, I actually have some self-respect.