The Florida Democratic Attorney General's race is tight, and so are tensions within the two campaigns.
Earlier Wednesday, the Gelber campaign conducted a conference call for reporters featured St. Petersburg House Democrat Rick Kriseman. We weren't on the call, but Kriseman informed CL this afternoon at the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club that he has a problem with the situation regarding the fund-raising committee that he formerly chaired before it broke up, to an extent, and how it is contributing money towards a GOP backed group called Voters Response that is airing an ad supporting Dave Aronberg.
The club that Kriseman formerly chaired is Florida Mainstream Democrats, a group of centrist Democrats that in the past has included both Aronberg, CFO candidate Loranne Ausley, and others. They have now paid to an air an ad in West Palm Beach supporting Aronberg for Attorney General.
But Kriseman said that Aronberg had been working and taking money from Mainstream until recently and was asked to stop. Now some of that money, according to the Palm Beach Post, has gone towards a GOP political action committee called Voters Response.
"'It's like, what are you doing, Dave'"? Kriseman rhetorically asked, adding,"As someone who was the former chair of the mainstream Democrats, I have a real problem with that."
Kriseman says the PAC, which was conceived for moderate Democrats to meet, talk policy and work towards electing other fellow "mainstream" Democrats, had had issues with fund raising and so was shut down. "The next thing we know, somebody else grabbed it, it's affiliated with Dave, and their going out and raising money they originally were going to give to Dave's campaign."
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2010.