Magnetic and impeccable in his delivery, Morgan regaled Tampanians Friday afternoon at a Tiger Bay Club event, where he railed against politicians who let corporate interests determine their policy positions instead of the needs of the population — and rattled off his if-I-was-governor wishlist. And there was many a punchline.
Ostensibly, he was there to talk about the Florida legislature's bungling of the voter-approved medical marijuana amendment to the state constitution, of which Morgan has been a most vocal champion and backer.
"Mayor Buckhorn's not here today, but in light of what's been going on in the Florida legislature with marijuana, his new business venture is going to be handing out his product, Bob's Best Brownies," he joked.
But clamor about his possible go at governorship is probably what drew much of the crowd. Morgan is often named among potential Democratic candidates for governor in 2018, a primary contest that thus far has two named Dem candidates in the ring (Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and newcomer Chris King) and plenty more on the perimeter known to be considering a run.
A household name whose face is featured in ads plastered on buses and billboards and taxi cabs across the state, he told the audience his decision to run for governor in 2018 is a ways off. It seems appealing some days, but on others — say, when he's sipping a beverage somewhere on St. Barts when it's 40 degrees in Tallahassee — reluctance creeps in.
"Don't count me out yet, Adam. I'm still thinking about it," he said, addressing Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam Smith, who recently weighed the pros and cons of a Morgan run — and the cons seemed to win out in Smith's view.
There was skepticism among audience members over whether he was really all that undecided; when is someone like that ever uncertain about anything and why else would he be giving a speech in Tampa? But he said the big question in his mind is how much of his desire to run lies in his ego — something he'd like to avoid.
"If I did it…I would do it with the purest of intentions," he said. "When your ego gets involved you're most certainly doomed, I think."
His philosophy on policy, he told the crowd, is "doing the most for the most," rather than helping the obscenely wealthy while hurting those in need. It may be conservative Republicans who brand themselves as Christians, he said, but Christ himself "was a liberal Democrat." That's not a new notion in some circles, but it might be the first time a Democrat has had the guts to say it in mixed company and in front of a row of news cameras.
If he decides to run and manages to beat a Republican nominee whose candidacy will likely be reinforced with an endless stream of money, he said he'd use his office as a bully pulpit for pushing a hike in the minimum wage, probably via a constitutional amendment — since the GOP-led legislature wouldn't do it no matter what percentage of the voting public wants it.
"People aren't paid enough. The minimum wage, seven dollars, eight dollars, whatever it is, is not enough." he said before launching into the math.
Eight dollars an hour translates to $320 a week. Multiply that by 52.
"I mean, it's not possible [to live on that]," he said.
On immigration, Morgan said that if opponents of illegal immigration really wanted to end the practice, they would stop targeting undocumented workers with draconian laws and instead target the people who hire them. Make it a third-degree felony to hire one and slap them with a $100,000 fine for each undocumented person they hire — but what politician has the guts to piss off powerful industry leaders who benefit from all that cheap labor?
"People like slave labor or near-slave labor," he said. "They just say that because poor angry people don't know who to be mad at. They really should be mad at the politicians."
He also called for a new "war on drugs" that shifts the focus from recreational substances, especially marijuana, to the pharmaceutical industry's hold on lawmakers at the federal and state levels. While a being in possession of a relatively innocuous substance could land you jail time, purveyors of deadly drugs are given a pass, and actually enriched from marketing and selling potentially harmful drugs aimed at treating problems that aren't really problems or could be treated with lifestyle changes.
"You can't sleep without a drug now. You can't have sex without a drug now. If you've got a problem in life there's a pill for it," he said. "These companies are in the business of premeditated murder."
Morgan has often been referred to as the Democrats' version of Donald Trump, due to his bluntness, but he eschews the analogy, he said, and wishes people would stop using it.
"I am the exact opposite of Donald Trump. He's probably got oriental rugs that are worth more than me," he said. "Just 'cause I cuss doesn't mean I'm Trump-like…I think I'm everything he's not… I don't dye my hair, either."
And unlike the teetotaling Trump, the man enjoys his cocktails.
He joked about a 2014 video of him engaged in a curse-infused rant during a pro-medical marijuana amendment rally at Lakeland's Boots & Buckles.
"I guess if I use the F-word or F-bombs, people think I'm drunk. If that's the case, I'm drunk every damn day of my life."
He wasn't drunk, he said; he was maybe two drinks in at that point.
"I was not drunk when I was in that video," he said.
After the video was taken? Yeah, maybe.
"I did not know that video existed, but when I got on the bus to go back to my beach house that night, I got drunk. And when I got back to the beach house I got drunker. But I was not drunk — I was not drunk — at Boots and Buckles."
Among factors that would keep him from jumping into the race, he said, is who else ends up in the running. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson would make a great governor as would Morgan's friend former NBA player Grant Hill, Morgan told the crowd. He said he thinks Hill, who is active in Democratic politics, "would be the greatest governor the State of Florida has ever had." On the Republican side, he said he's a fan of Republican State Sen. from Clearwater Jack Latvala, whose refreshing honesty and tendency to side with consumers over Big Business is not unlike that of Morgan.
"He's a bull in a china shop," he said of Latvala. "I'd love for that guy to run."
Judging from the response in the room Friday, he's got some fans in the Tampa Bay area.
“I would urge you to run. You would get my money and my vote," said Joe Redner, an outspoken businessman who has run for office numerous times. "You're a treasure.”
If Morgan has the best prospects among the current prospective and announced candidate pool, which he just may have, the Democratic Party may once again screw it up by meddling in the primary process or attempting to over-manage whoever becomes the nominee. And that's a big part of the Dems' problem in Florida. A similar dynamic played out at the national level in 2016.
"Democrats, I think, don't fight right. They don't fight to win. They fight not to lose," Morgan said.
This article appears in Apr 20-27, 2017.