Nestled in a booth a San Marco restaurant, it took less than two minutes for the first person to stop and offer him a few words.
“Hard fought,” the gentleman began. “I voted for you. It wasn’t enough, but I voted for you.”
Bill Bishop looked up and smiled.
“We got all these people to pay attention,” Bishop said. “It was a wild and crazy ride, I’ll tell you that.”
Bishop’s ride as a candidate for mayor ended Tuesday when the First Election placed him third among four candidates.
The Republican two-term City Council member garnered close to 17 percent of the vote, almost 31,000 people. Second-place finisher Lenny Curry, another Republican, took in close to 71,000 votes while Mayor Alvin Brown led the way with almost 79,000.
Less than 36 hours after the dash-and-go pace that comes with being a candidate for such an office, Bishop is relaxed. He isn’t distraught by the results of his ill-fated run. He said all along he knew he was a longshot.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I feel worse for the people that supported me than I do for myself.”
Another restaurant patron slides over to the booth to greet him.
“I think you’re going to be a great mayor one day,” said the man, an engineer employed by a company that’s worked with Bishop’s architectural firm.
In the weeks leading up to the First Election, Bishop’s campaign had gained steam. He fared better than the 11 percent a University of North Florida poll pegged him at earlier in the month. That leads to a lot of “ifs” he’s been hearing.
“If I had more momentum. If I had another month,” he said, his voice slightly trailing off before picking back up. “It is what it is. I’m not ashamed of anything.”
Bishop raised almost $120,000 for the campaign, a fraction of the $5 million or so Curry and Brown combined had raise.
Bishop said he was “locked out of the money,” because Curry was considered the frontrunner for the party. The top-tier Republicans contributed to Curry, which causes the second-tier donors to follow suit.
Even so, Bishop admits he’s never been good at fundraising.
It’s not in his nature, he said, although he knows more money could have meant more exposure and likely a few more percentage points at the polls.
“We didn’t have this grand PR machine,” he said.
But he did have a mostly volunteer staff that knocked on doors, built and placed signs and focused on social media outreach. That “crack team” did a phenomenal job, Bishop said.
Lesley Davidson was part of his social media team that helped overhaul the campaign’s online presence.
She joined him in June, she said, because she respects his knowledge and positive message for Jacksonville. It was that message she wanted to help spread, but like most social media outreach it started slow by word of mouth.
“You tell two people, they tell two people,” she said. “We worked as hard as we could … once we found those voters whose message (Bishop’s) resonated, it took off.”
Then came the music video, a thought that makes Bishop burst into laughter. To the tune of “I’m a Believer” by The Monkees, the catch line was swapped with “Bill-iever” and other lines were altered and sung by Bishop supporters.
It’s a memory from the race Bishop said he’ll never forget. It’s over for now, but he and his “Bill-ievers” still will factor into the race. Bishop knows this.
“Both of them know they need my votes,” he said.
Curry and Brown have both reached out to him to talk. They both spoke glowingly of him in their victory speeches to their own supporters Tuesday evening. Bishop calls it both ironic and funny.
“It’s the way it works,” he said. “Memories in politics can be very short in some ways, long in others.”
Bishop said he doesn’t know whether he’ll support Brown, Curry or either of them in the coming weeks. That decision, along with his own future, is one he wants to discuss with his team this weekend.
Another person swings by Bishop’s table, a salon owner in Five Points.
“I’m really disappointed,” he said. “I know you are, too, but I think you made a lot of change.”
He said Bishop never followed the political script for this election, which caused a slightly energetic response.
“I never follow the script,” Bishop told him.
Another political office isn’t in the cards just yet, but he didn’t rule out such aspirations for the future.
For the moment, the Bill-ievers will have to hang tight. He’s not going anywhere.
@writerchapman
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