The animosity began just before the cameras went live.
“Going on the attack tonight, mayor?” Lenny Curry quietly asked.
To his right, Mayor Alvin Brown slightly looked away, took a sip of water and ignored the inquiry.
So, Curry goadingly asked again with a smile. Again, no response.
It was going to be that kind of night.
The second televised mayoral debate had intense back-and-forth but lacked direct answers, despite the moderators’ best attempts.
Right off the bat, a straightforward question for the two from WTLV TV-12/WJXX TV-25 anchor Shannon Ogden: Who are you voting for sheriff? All it needed, he said, was a two-word answer.
Curry began a longer-winded answer about working with whoever is elected, before Ogden cut him off and asked again. Same type of answer from the Republican challenger, so Ogden went to Brown.
Same answer from Brown: He was looking forward to working with whoever … then Ogden cut it short.
It was that kind of night.
There were questions about what each would do in different parts of the city. Combat crime in Northwest Jacksonville, improve commerce in Arlington and how they’d work with the Beaches communities.
But the focus for the candidates continued to be their tried-and-true stances on some on the broader topics, only this time peppered with more barbs.
“Unlike my opponent,” was how Brown started many an answer, along with many “proven track records” thrown in. He continuously mentioned his left-leaning stances on support of minimum wage increases, equal pay for women and voting rights, all of which he claimed Curry — the former Republican Party of Florida chairman — opposed.
Curry hammered away at what he called Brown’s newfound support for those measures, saying the mayor had four years to back those but only in recent weeks has publicly supported them.
And on the issues of crime, budgets and expanding the Human Rights Ordinance, he said Brown was always passing responsibility or blame when things didn’t work.
“It’s always somebody else,” Curry said. “He’s never in the game.”
At one point, each was allowed to ask the other a direct question that led to maybe the most eye-opening exchange of the evening.
Curry pulled out a door-knocker flier, unfolded it and held it up to Brown.
On it, Curry’s face with descriptions of being a “partisan Republican, divisive and dangerous” and blocking voting rights.
Curry said he was being personally attacked. Called the method “race-baiting,” as City Council member Denise Lee has claimed.
“Do you think I’m a racist?” he asked.
Brown didn’t directly answer, but said Curry’s leadership style was divisive and the Republican would “turn back to clock” on voting rights for blacks.
During Brown’s turn, he asked Curry whether he honestly believed Jacksonville and its economy were not better off today than four years ago.
Curry said 120,000 jobs had been lost, all while Brown has contended 36,000 jobs were created on his watch.
Pressed several times on his stance toward expanding the Human Rights Ordinance, Brown stayed with his answer that the Office of General Counsel was undertaking a review of local, state and federal laws to provide to the next City Council. It was an answer, but not really what Ogden was seeking.
Curry maintained his posture that the city wasn’t discriminatory as a whole, the law didn’t need changing and he’d lead any conversation on the topic when elected.
When the show ended, the sniping continued.
“The only messaging you are running are negative ads,” Curry told Brown.
“That’s not true,” Brown said. “You’ve been running negative ads since Day One, that’s a fact.”
And it continued when the two addressed the media separately, with each claiming they were, in fact, the one being positive while the other was negative.
“It’s the lowest form of politics,” Curry said.
“As a mayor, I have to defend my city,” Brown said.
It was just that kind of night.
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