Jennifer Canady's loser consultant Anthony Pedicini taking another humiliating beating
Allison Tant, Florida's best legislator, is crushing Spencer Brass, the spoiled son-in-law of a self-interested Tallahassee developer. Pedicini's Polk clients should take notice.
Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee is the main reason a Jefferson County School District still exists after Richard Corcoran and Manny Diaz and their charter buddies took it over; failed its kids and the Jefferson community; and then tried to loot the district as they ran away.
Tant’s legislative advocacy on behalf of the people and kids of Jefferson County (of all parties and affiliations) is rivaled only, in my long observation, by former senator Paula Dockery’s years of resistance to the massive CSX corporate welfare deal of 2006-2009.
That is why Tant is crushing Anthony Pedicini, the formerly bombastic Florida political consultant recently humiliated in Manatee County, as he tries to make a comeback in the Tallahassee area. Here is some detail from data guru Matthew Isbell on Tant’s race against Pedicini.
If you care about good, responsive government and civic life — and you should, as our ongoing hurricane and clean-up experiences demonstrate — Tant’s dominance of Pedicini is great news. We need more Allison Tants and zero Anthony Pedicinis in our public life.
The once cocky poster boy of the post-candidate era in Florida
What’s that you ask? Anthony Pedicini isn’t the one losing, is he?
Isn’t his candidate, Spencer Brass, losing? Not really. Here’s a key excerpt from Isbell’s article, illustrating just how generic Brass is, and how Pedicini-ism operates in a post-candidate form of representative self-government.
Through most of 2024, it seemed entirely possibly Allison Tant would get no opponent. Then in June, Spencer Brass, a 26 year old in real-estate and development, entered the contest. Brass is a Pasco County native and moved to Tallahassee a few years ago. Brass, who is gay, is married to Dylan Leoni, the son of prominent Tallahassee developer Steven Leoni. As such, he is well connected and already very financially successful. Brass lists his net worth at $5.3 million, though the details of some of his net worth have been left unclear. Brass has redacted several listings of income sources - simply leaving blacked-out lines with millions in value. He claims ALL the info must be redacted because he is the son of law enforcement - but then does not redact other items. He bristles when being questioned on this, as if the financial disclosures are not a legitimate issue.
Brass has simultaneously run a cagey and extremely negative campaign. Most of the dirty work has been done by Florida Republican Party. …
… As seen above, another mailer has attacked Allison on LGBT issues - specifically focusing on the issue of transitioning individuals playing in gendered sports. The mailer here using transphobic language of “boys playing in girls sports” and basically implies she is a traitor to women.
Pedicini is the guy who gets paid to produce the laughably amateurish “dirty work.” I wouldn’t even say he’s loyal to the Republican Party. As a coherent political organization, rather than simply a vague, self-spiting, lib-hating collective vibe, the GOP does not exist any more in Florida. That’s why I could join it — because it has no standard for belonging. My membership in this fiction is as legitimate as anyone else’s.
Indeed, if gay anti-LGBT nepo baby Spencer Brass was not married to Steven Leoni’s son, Steven Leoni would have found a different Spencer Brass to run exactly the same campaign for exactly the same purpose — personal dominance of the levers of the state in the area where he has personal interests.
Republicans for Allison Tant and against Pedicini-ism
Pedicini-ism operates on the largely accurate assumption that there is always some Spencer Brass eager to surrender his or her dignity to join the club of nothingness that calls itself the Florida Legislature.
Allison Tant mocks the thirsty Spencer Brasses of Pedicini-ism with her constituent work and effectiveness. She takes the job of governing seriously. She takes human outcomes for her constituents seriously.
As a Republican now, I wish there were any Republican lawmakers anywhere in Florida who cared about that; but there are not. You know this as well as I do.
Indeed, Pedicini-ism’s clients are not allowed to care about constituent outcomes or common good. Not caring about governing or outcomes for constituents is a pre-requisite for getting rich guy money from Pat Neal or J.D. Alexander or Steven Leoni or Carlos Beruff laundered through Pedicini’s firm “SimWins” to your campaign. Signing on with Pedicini is like getting a someone to sponsor your country club membership.
Or at least it was. You can refresh yourself on Pedicini-ism’s spectacular recent comeuppance in Manatee County in the August primary in this article.
Because Pedicini-ism demands docile club members, legislators (with a few exceptions, all of whom happen to be Dems) just don’t do Tant’s type of advocacy anymore. I don’t know a single GOP legislator who consistently thinks of their constituents as their constituents. Not one.
(I will say that Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, has shown some ability to think about public good and decency when it comes to criminal justice issues and the Leo Schofield case. But that’s about it on the GOP side.)
The Fredo, not the Michael, of Pedicini-ism
Anthony Pedicini is not the reason for Pedicini-ism. He’s not important or rich enough. He does not own enough capital. The system that created him is much bigger — and Pedicini much smaller, personally.
But he has been, perhaps, the mouthiest, most self-congratulatory symbol of a Florida political system that openly celebrates how much contempt it has for the public. He has dedicated his professional, public life to skimming a little bit of money off the “powerful” rich guys seeking to convince you that you live in dreary dictatorship.
He is the marketing tip of the spear for cynical money. And he was dumb and emotionally needy enough to tell you all about it in public — and make himself a hittable target.
LOL. These days Pedicini looks like the Fredo of Pedicinism.
Pedicini’s shit talk is was designed to make you think nothing matters — and that you’re powerless before the handful of self-dealing developers/capital owners who feed political welfare money to the firm Pedicini shares with Tom Piccolo, husband of Rep. Josie Tomkow, R-Lakleand-ish.
As Manatee and Sarasota showed, it’s starting to have the opposite effect. And Pedicini is awfully quiet, as decent people shit talk him. If I were him, I’d be looking over my shoulder. You never know when a Michael — somebody with real power — is lurking.
My fellow Polk County Republicans, do you have the guts to to primary Pedicini-ism in ‘26?
Pedicini’s last personal stronghold is Polk County.
This seems to be largely because of Tomkow’s marriage and Jennifer Canady and J.D. Alexander, based on my admittedly gossipy sources. It’s actually not gossip in Canady’s case. She has spent a gazillion donor dollars with SimWins. See article here.
GOPers in Polk County complain to me all the time about Pedicini and Pedicini-ism. But they’re all too weak to do anything about it in public.
My dear timid fellow GOPers, if you wanted to actually fight Pedicini-ism you could primary Jennifer Canady in 2026 and take her speakership away. That speakership isn’t going to do you any good, anyway. You are not its constituents. You could run openly against her Pedicini-ism (not to mention her abject forced birth lying and cowardice.)
You could run on good government, with a cross partisan coalition like the Manatee and Sarasota coalitions that trounced Pedicini-ism. Win or lose, you would actually force Pedi-Canady to account for itself to you. You could take power from them. And power has to be taken. They won’t give it to you.
I mean, hypothetically: what if there was a Republican with existing Lakeland name recognition, a public platform, a reputation for aggressive (and perhaps articulate) attention to healthy civic life, and, who could maybe convince a lot of Dems and NPAs to register for a low turnout GOP primary?
Or what if someone actually ran on emulating Allison Tant, not seeking a useless, undignified club membership.
How might that race go?
Anyway, daydreams are fun; and Pedicini-ism is vulnerable these days. What are we gonna do about that?
In a recent WFSU-LWV forum, Spencer's talking point seemed to be I'm in the majority party, I'll get things done, when everyone knows that Allison is all over the place doing things for constituents. She got 14 bills passed by working with GQP, and built a residential living complex for developmentally disable adults like her son. He didn't have much else of substance to say. He has apparently bought a property that he intends to build a luxury horse stable on because he thinks Leon Co needs one. He talked about involvement on something related to homelessness, but then said that arresting people experiencing homelessness for sleeping in public spaces was a good idea. He's all over the place, mainly because he's only lived here 3 years. Oh, and he blew off the Gov's DEI initiative. That won't get him points with DiSaster... Too bad he didn't play for FSU.. Meanwhile the GQP is running the usual negative tv ads full of lies. The ads that Cory Simon and Daryl Parks (FL Senate race) are so bad and so frequent that some people are asking Loranne Ausley to be a write-in....