DeSantis and Pedicini take a beating; Canady's speakership is probably in jeopardy

Who were Florida's biggest losers in what was a sneakily important primary election for the future of our state? A lot of people who deserved to lose. Is this a tiny pivot away from cynicism?

Here are the biggest losers in Tuesday night’s low-key quite consequential primary in Florida:

Loser 1: Ron Desantis.

DeSantis lost high-profile confrontations all over the state, from Duval to Broward to Manatee to Sarasota to Pinellas to Citrus. He’s now a weird lame duck, who can’t deliver wins for his MAGA freaks, saddled with the huge UF scandal and a seeming divorce from Mori Hosseini. Night, night, Ron. Matt Gaetz will trounce Casey in the ‘28 primary. And then we’ll see what happens in the general.

Loser 2: The Anthony Pedicini, Carlos Beruff, Pat Neal triumvirate in Manatee County

Their bought and paid for commissioners and the incompetent, DeSantis-appointed Supervisor of Elections were cleanly swept out of power by a groundswell of cross-party civic action that mirrored (and expanded on) Polk County’s “Decency Coalition” of 2021 and 2022. See Marc Masferrer and the Bradenton Journal, which did heroic work.

Loser 3: The Ziegler/Corcoran/Mike Flynn axis of Sarasota County

A massive turnout (31 percent, huge for a primary) took out two years worth of pent up aggression on some of Florida’s worst people — especially on the Sarasota School Board. See the “Dear Bubbie” Sarasota-based substack for a breakdown. And see Cathy Antunes.

The totality of Manatee/Sarasota grifter wipeout may well have altered Florida’s corrupt committee political money-laundering system forever. If nothing else, Polk (in ‘21-22) and Manatee and Sarasota (in ‘24) have shown the confrontational template for imposing grass roots civic decency on indecent “red” county grifters and bosses.

Loser 4: Jennifer Canady

The mistress of forced birth, the supposed, eventual speaker designate, is probably Pedicini’s #1 ATM machine now that his Manatee racket has been smashed. She depended on DeSantis/Pedicini juice to secure her theoretical speakership. If she wants to keep it, she should fire Pedicini, who is now a deep liability to anybody he touches. How many more developers will want their names and fortunes attached to this cynical loser? It’s going to be fun to watch.

You know who else should fire Pedicini right now? Polk County GOP legislative candidates Jennifer “5,950 votes” Kincart Jonnson and Jon “3,881 votes” Albert. Both are Pedicini clients. Both should make a clean break today.

Kincart Jonsson, particularly, is just a walking donor welfare program for Pedicini. She paid his firm “SimWins” firm at least $233,000 by my calculations to win 5,950 votes Tuesday night — not even counting PACs. That’s $39 per vote of donor money.¹ If you gotta spend $39 per vote as a political consultant to win, you are not very good at your job

Jonsson and Albert should learn from Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse, a former Pedicini client-turned-nemesis. See the amazing article below from Kruse, who just whipped Pedicini. He explains what Pedicini is gonna try to make Jonsson and Albert do now that he owns them. Here’s how they’ll be expected to dance for the privilege of using your campaign contributions as Pedicini’s personal jobs program.

Good vs Evil: The Endgame

And let me paraphrase the great Marcellus Wallace for the benefit of Jennifer, Jennifer and Jon: We, the decent people of Florida, ain’t done with Anthony Pedicini by a damn sight.

I certainly intend to mercilessly pin him on any candidate foolish enough to use him. And somehow I doubt the Manatee-Sarasota coalition has any problem further stigmatizing their beloved “Pepperchini.” At the same time, Pedicini’s fellow “consultant” hyenas — and their clients/funders — will be prowling his wounded business model, I assure you.

So, perhaps Jennifer Canady should ask herself how comfortable she feels today with her narrow margin for speaker — with DeSantis weakened and her boy Pedicini collapsing. Power is as power does.

Loser 5: MAGA

It is depressed and on the run — a big vibe loser from Tuesday. There were no Trump signs, no MAGA love, at the big GOP party I attended in Lakeland. To hear all my fellow Republicans talk, you’d think it’s 2014 all over again. What’s MAGA? I’m not MAGA. I never liked that guy. I don’t hate LGBT people. I would never be cruel to vulnerable people. I would never ban books. Can’t we all get along? LOL. Next thing you know we’ll have proclamations back at the School Board.

Loser 6: Eydie Tricquet, Manny Diaz, Ralph Arza, and the vanquished charter grifters of Jefferson County

Charter-backed Superintendent Tricquet, against whom I have filed an ethics complaint, lost her GOP primary; and Jackie Pons, architect of the amazing Jefferson resurrection story, won his Democratic primary.

In addition to being a great public education feel good story, this outcome is extremely satisfying for me, personally. No other reporter in Florida has come close to the effort and scrutiny I brought to bear on the DoE-Jefferson scandal. As of today, the good guys have routed the bad guys; and the future lies open. Go get ‘em, Jackie.

The other hero of the Jefferson rebirth is Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, the single most effective legislator in Florida state government. And guess what? She has a Pedicini welfare candidate — a 26-year-old inheritance baby developer and insurance industry plaything — running against her in November. They’re already using the same tired, uncreative Pedicini playbook that crashed and burned in Manatee. I’m gonna have fun with this young fella in the weeks to come.

Loser 7: the GOP political candidates and Pedicini-dependent GOP donor class of Polk County.

They drove turnout down to a shocking 17 percent for a primary saturated with more GOP candidates that I can ever remember. Turnout was 23.4 percent in ‘22. By comparison, riled up Sarasota County topped 31 percent in ‘24. In Polk County, we produced Gow Fields v. Neil Combee for the Property Appraiser race, perhaps the worst single choice in the history of Polk County elections.

And the rest of candidates (except the excellent Blair Allen who won the Public Defender race) spent all their time and effort jostling and whining, mostly in private, over which Pedicini would or wouldn’t launder political money for whom. No competition, no issues, no respect for voters, no concern for the community. It was one big, gross cotillion of meaninglessness.

17 percent was more than it deserved; but power is at stake nonetheless. And 31,000 fewer people voted here in ‘24 than in ‘22.

It’s true that the grassroots fought hard here in ‘22 to defeat the worst of MAGA/DeSantism and fake book-banner type movements that won elsewhere in ‘22.

But now the “normal” GOP “leadership class” here has replaced the CCDFers with Pedicini-ism. Maybe that’s how the “normal” donor class wants it; but the donor class sure is wasting lots of money on farces like Florida Poly and the collapsing Lake Wales Charter School system. Maybe ya’ll should care, a little bit, Pedicini class, about the contempt for vital local infrastructure and rampant grifting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Until anybody here in a position of public or private authority/influence besides me and couple other people takes public life seriously enough to hold their peers accountable, we will continue to have the worst, least loyal to home public legislators and the most disengaged constituents of any important Florida county.

So let’s learn from Sarasota and Manatee, like they learned from us. Let’s take back our state and county one cynical loser Pedicini at a time.

1. I won 140,000 votes on the night I won my school board election in 2016. If I had spent $39/vote, I would have spent $5.4M — with an M.