John Morgan does not appear to have learned his lesson from Amendment 2.
Morgan was back in the news last week as he wrote a check for $150,000 to get another medical marijuana amendment on the ballot in 2016. Amendment 2 lost by a narrow margin, just failing to get 60 percent in a year when conservatives came out in droves to vote. Medical marijuana supporters hope they’ll have a better shot come 2016.
Florida voters back medical marijuana but they had concerns with Amendment 2. Opponents ran numerous ads pointing out loopholes in Amendment 2, leaving enough room for doubt in the voters’ minds.
Morgan proved to be a double-edged sword for Amendment 2. Without his financial support, Amendment 2 might have not have made the ballot and Morgan fought hard for it to pass.
But somehow he became too linked to Amendment 2 and ended up hurting it. He became the face of Amendment 2, not suffering patients whose pain could be alleviated by marijuana. Opponents were more than happy to let Morgan take center stage, especially after a video of the apparently-inebriated trial lawyer crudely urging supporters to back Amendment 2 went viral.
Morgan should have known better. But the trial lawyer, whose face is plastered on billboards and buses across the state. couldn’t stay out of the limelight. Morgan was everywhere for Amendment 2: on bus tours across Florida, on the radio, talking to the media. It backfired for him and Amendment 2 supporters. Morgan might be well-known across Florida. That does not mean he is well- liked. The fact that he floated his son’s name as a possible candidate to take on Pam Bondi shows Morgan’s clueless on this front. It got so bad that some proponents of Amendment 2, while thanking him for his financial contributions, said they hoped Morgan would take a back seat in the future.
As events showed last week, Morgan has no intention of doing that. After writing a check to help medical marijuana, he had to let the world know about it, appearing in a Web video and talking to the media.
Morgan needed to get off center stage during the Amendment 2 battle. He didn’t do that. As he gets ready to start his new efforts, he shows no signs of taking a back seat this time out, either. That’s not a good sign for the latest medical marijuana effort. The electorate should be more open to backing medical marijuana in 2016 with younger voters coming out for the presidential election, but medical marijuana supporters need to hope Morgan plays a lesser role and doesn’t repeat his buffoonish antics from last time. So far, he is showing no signs of giving up the spotlight.
Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this analysis exclusively for Sunshine State News
