I've looked. I'm sorry, I just don't see Blaise Ingoglia the way Politico does. Ever since Aug. 19, when reporter Marc Caputo came out with his story, "GOP chair takes lead in House coup," I've been looking for the coup. Caputo gets most things right, so I looked extra hard. He's got an anonymous source, a "top Florida Republcan" who's telling him the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida is leading a coup to take out future speaker Eric Eisnaugle. This must be a rock-solid source, I'm thinking, or else Caputo would never let him/her go unattributed.
Ingoglia is engaging in "palace intrigue" in a tough election year, the source claims, when he should have better things to do.
Writes Caputo, "By taking the lead role in undermining Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, Ingoglia has furthered divisions not just in the state House but in the entire state GOP, where Republicans from the grassroots to the governor’s mansion have already found him to be untrustworthy."
They have?
I guess I'm not talking to the same anonymous sources. Mine think Ingoglia is only following through on reforms he talked about before he was elected party chair. Heck, he ran for the chairmanship on party reforms, even speaker reform, before Eisnaugle was a glint in any member's eye. And, I'm thinking, if Eisnaugle is the real deal, with real leadership qualities, he'll come out on the other side of the "reform storm" smelling like a rose.
"This is what the process needs," one lobbyist told me after nine members of the House's freshman class -- including Ingoglia, not just Ingoglia -- produced and circulated a declaration decrying the current flawed process of choosing speakers. See the declaration in the attachment below.
"This current process is not merit based, it is inefficient, and is not in the best interest of the State of Florida nor the Chamber," the document states. "Instead of it being an informed discussion among members, currently it is riddled with the influence of donors, special interests, lobbyists, regional alliances and consultants. These outside influences are putting political pressure on potential future members to select a Speaker long before they are even elected to public office manifested by pledges secured by the 'honor of their word'; while holding these future members hostage to this flawed process."
"What's not to agree with?" the lobbyist asked me.
"House members need to make sure they have a leader who can stand up to pressure so the process works for everybody, in a fair and effective manner," he said. "The members who produced this document didn't need Blaise to sell them on reform -- it's been waiting for somebody to come along and get the ball rolling."
I must admit, I've always thought choosing future leaders in the Legislature was a little like ordering a wedding cake before anybody proposed. Legislators constantly find themselves having to live with that pot-luck cake.
Ask former Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings. She put it this way to the Orlando Sentinel: The current system, she said, is like "the tail wagging the dog -- except, in this case, the tail is so far ahead of itself, it can't even see the dog anymore."
Even Bay 9 News' Troy Kinsey tweeted, "For all the lobbyists slamming @GovGoneWild (Ingoglia), I've shared cocktails with others who say he's the best thing to happen to TLH in a long time."
While I'm not ready to start a Blaise Ingoglia fan club, I am compelled to protest his portrayal as "untrustworthy" because, again, somebody's going to have to show it to me -- I just don't see it.
Show me some proof Ingoglia wants the speaker job for himself, as some have suggested. The document signed by the nine House freshmen looks to me like an effort to reform the process on an internal caucus matter. Period. Ingoglia has repeatedly denied he is running for speaker. Has he ever asked even one member for a pledge card or pushed his name forward? If I'm wrong, freshmen, call me.
The guy doesn't even take the $150,000-a-year salary at RPOF. He's paid nothing. He even rents his district office in Spring Hill from himself -- for a penny a year.
In an environment where he is hardly Gov. Rick Scott's choice for party chair, Ingoglia has stayed above the fray, kept his head down and managed to reach a number of milestones that make it difficult for me to see why on earth we shouldn't trust him. Here are the ones I know about:
- Hired the first Hispanic bilingual communications director in RPOF history. Read this.
- Invested millions into the Lenny Curry Jacksonville mayoral race, which Curry won. Read this.
- Reformed the way RPOF quarterly meetings are held by setting the tone of education and training for grassroots activists whom the party has never seen before. In fact, the party is expecting more than 500 people at its weekend meeting in Tampa. Read this.
- Built a digital infrastructure that even Democrats envy. Read this.
- Has embraced millennials in a new way, thank heaven. Read this.
- Announced a particularly stellar finance committee. Read this.
- Is beating the Democrats at their own game -- social media -- including bilingual Facebook and Twitter pages "Somos GOP." There are now more than 183,000 page "likes" on the party Web page. That's an organic accomplishment reaching millions in Florida on social media every week without paying money for it. Read this.
- Built out a large data-sharing platform with all 67 counties -- in fact, this is an accomplishment that hasn't been publicly announced yet.
- With a year still to go, signed up more than 1,000 volunteers on the party website to deliver the state to the Republican nominee.
- Hired some 20-plus staffers in key regions of the state to begin building the 2016 ground game.
And if you think I'm just over here shilling for the RPOF, you're wrong. Frankly, in the last five years, the party overall has been less than helpful -- sometimes downright dismissive -- when Sunshine State News has called asking for information. We have no special relationship with Ingoglia or anyone else at RPOF headquarters. It's just that the criticism of Blaise Ingoglia as a self-serving, disruptive troublemaker we shouldn't trust just doesn't compute.
Reach Nancy Smith at sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
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