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Politics

Reform Party's Darcy Richardson Open to John Morgan on Florida Supreme Court, Reels in Mike Gravel's Support

October 22, 2018 - 6:00am
John Morgan, Darcy Richardson and Mike Gravel
John Morgan, Darcy Richardson and Mike Gravel

Historian and political activist Darcy Richardson, the Reform Party’s gubernatorial candidate in Florida, said he was open to having prominent leaders from various political factions--including trial lawyer John Morgan--on the Florida Supreme Court and reeled in the backing of a former presidential candidate. 

With a little over two weeks to go, Richardson is not making much of an impact in the polls--including taking 2 percent in a St. Pete’s Poll taken for Florida Politics last week.

Still, Richardson has been ramping up his activity in recent days. Last week, he cheered the state Supreme Court’s ruling that the next governor--and not current Gov. Rick Scott--will get to name three justices to it. 

Richardson insisted the “vacancies could be used to bring a wider variety of perspectives to the court” which he maintained he could provide. 

“In an ideal situation, I would want to be able to consider qualified individuals from across the political spectrum. Perhaps personal injury lawyer and marijuana advocate John Morgan or intellectual property and patent attorney Dan Ravitcher,” Richardson said. 

Richardson also pointed to Tallahassee attorney  Bill Wohlisfer, best known for being the Libertarian attorney general candidate in 2014, Erica Selig of the Florida Justice Institute and Chris Crowley, a Republican running for a state attorney post in Southwest Florida. 

At the end of last week, former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, announced he was backing Richardson and his running mate former state Sen. Nancy Argenziano in Florida. 

First elected to the Senate in 196 after leading the state House in Alaska, Gravel made headlines for reading the Pentagon Papers on the Senate floor and for nominating himself for vice president during the 1972 Democratic convention. After losing his Senate seat in 1980, Gravel took a low profile, pushing to get power out of Washington and into the hands of the people with the National Citizens Initiative for Democracy and calling for decriminalization of marijuana. He resurfaced on the national stage with a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Failing to gain traction, he jumped over to the Libertarians but ended up defeated by former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., for that party’s presidential nomination. 

"I am pleased to put my full support behind Darcy Richardson and Nancy Argenziano on the Reform Party ticket in Florida," Gravel said on Thursday. "Republican and Democratic elites have rejected the empowerment of regular citizens at every turn.

“During my own presidential campaign, I was repeatedly marginalized in both national debates and in media exposure by the Democratic leadership,” Gravel added. “They worked in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media. Both major parties have completely failed the people. Floridians deserve better, and thankfully they will have a better choice on the ballot this year.”

"I've admired Senator Gravel since the early 1970s and I'm deeply honored and humbled to have his support," said Richardson.

Richardson, who lives in Jacksonville, is a familiar name to many activists and political junkies across the nation. Besides serving as the campaign manager for former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s, D-Minn.,  independent presidential campaign in 1988, Richardson is an expert on third-party politics, having written a multivolume history on them and he also writes in various media outlets. 

In 2016, Richardson ran for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination but he came up short at the convention, losing to businessman Rocky de la Fuente who has run in more than a half dozen states in various U.S. Senate contests this year. Back in August, Gov. Rick Scott routed de la Fuente in the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

Back in 2010, economist and gubernatorial candidate Farid Khavari tapped Richardson as his running mate as they ran with no party affiliation. Richardson took on President Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primaries but ended up dropping out to support former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer’s short lived presidential bid outside of the major parties which included seeking the Reform Party nod.  

From having backed Ross Perot, Roemer and Ralph Nader, Richardson is no stranger to the Reform Party. After Roemer ended his presidential bid in 2012, Richardson sought the party nomination and, after losing out to de la Fuente in 2016, he did encourage supporters to back the Reform Party. 

The party had some highs back in the late 1990s with Perot almost taking 10 percent on its line in the 1996 presidential election and Jesse Ventura winning the Minnesota governorship as a Reform Party candidate in 1998. But party factionalism and in-fighting limited its impact as the party swang to the right to nominate Pat Buchanan in 2000 only to swing over to the left to back Nader four years later. Some of its more recent presidential candidates--Ted Weill in 2008 and Andre Barnett in 2012--each pulled in less than 1,000 votes but De La Fuente pulled more than 33,000 votes last time out. 

Comments

Darcy Richardson for Florida Mayor with his financial expertise: to keep florida land and waters clean(oil free) and to promote green energy and to insure quality medical care for all residents and to come up with solutions, methodologies to end the poverty. And write in Bruce Stanley for the Florida u.s. senate. Florida requires an environmental activist to promote green energy. Solor power etc and to protect our beautiful state. Is how I want to vote. So you two need to use Twitter facebook whatever to get above the dirty advertising on the two front runners. Who knows what to believe on what they are saying. I want Florida and her residents to come first. If you two believe in that too use your phones and get your names and what you believe you can contribute to all of Florida and the united States of America.

If we've got to have political parties, I think it would be a plus if we could have three, four, or five VIABLE political parties. As it is now, the Republican Party has turned totally anti-democratic and fully authoritarian (fascist?) and special interest orientated ... and the Democratic Party has become totally ossified and ineffectual. Both of these parties need to return to their traditional mid-20th century roots on a working bi-partisan basis if they're going to remain relevant in terms of the general public good. The dinosaurs and the the freaky extremists with no interest beyond "winning" need to be replaced.

Morgan dont even have a law license anymore, he's only a picture on a roadside sign

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