These publicity-stunt "minimum wage challenges" the Democrats love to stage never work. Remember the legislators in Florida who tried last September to live on $8.05 a day but threw in the towel on the second or third day?
All they did is make real poor people mad.
Now it's happened again. Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, a candidate for Marco Rubio's Senate seat, decided to "go liberal" -- build a little empathy, see what it feels like to live poor. At least, that's what he told the media when he joined the latest "minimum wage challenge."
“Far too many people in this country are working full-time jobs yet still living in poverty,” Murphy said in a video he promoted on his Twitter account Wednesday.
Well, the poor guy got unlucky. There he was enjoying the media attention, tweeting scenes from living on Florida's $8.05-an-hour minimum wage, attracting admiring paparazzi even -- when ... boom! ... he decided to stray from the path of poverty and messed up.
On Day 2 he slipped away to a port-and-caviar-style fundraiser thrown by wealthy supporters, and little did he know (but probably should have suspected it could happen), a Republican opposition group found him and filmed him livin' lush and large.
Murphy would have been wiser to fess up rather than exposing his silver spoon to voters.
Here's what he did: On Thursday afternoon, he tweeted a photograph of himself using cash to pay for a ticket on Washington’s subway system. He wrote, "Day 2 of my Minimum Wage Challenge -- take public transit. Rode the DC metro to work this morning.” And on Friday, Murphy tweeted, “Minimum Wage Challenge, Day 3 -- groceries with my $17 daily budget was a challenge. #FLfor15 #FightFor15”.
What actually happened was, a few hours after sharing the subway station photograph on his congressional social media account, Murphy boarded a plane for Florida and attended the fundraiser at the Tampa home of former City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena, and her husband Mark.
To make matters worse, Murphy left the fundraiser in a car with a driver, causing the man who had photographed him, Ian Prior, the communications director for Republican groups American Crossroads and the new Senate Leadership Fund, to quip, "Minimum wage goes a lot further than I thought!"
But not to worry, the Democrats covered for him later.
"We do not intend for the challenge to cause participants to miss work, suspend their campaigns or interfere with their normal job duties,” said Jackie de Carvalho, communications director for the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU sponsors the challenge events.
Last September in Florida, 20 state legislators took the challenge, four from the Senate, 16 from the House. But struggling Floridians by the dozens tweeted and posted their disgust on Facebook pages.
"You know, they get to go to their nice homes every night," Orlando's Shekila Walker posted, "eat their nice food, they don't have to worry while they're eating if they're gonna get sick and have to go a doctor or die without insurance. They got it all. When you're poor you don't get that good peace of mind. ... plus you know it's all gonna be over in a few days & you can drive your Lexis again."
No doubt some of the legislators who participated in the 2015 challenge could have told Patrick Murphy it wouldn't end well.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
