As we’re all mourning the weekend and reaching for another cup of coffee, there’s at least one person out there who is happy it’s Monday – Congressman John Mica, who is no doubt desperate to close the book on his no good, very bad week last week.
If the 23-year incumbent Congressman just manages to make it through the week without opening his mouth and putting his foot right in, he’ll already be head and shoulders over his performance last week.
To recap:
- Mica’s reelection prospects were lowered by two leading elections experts in two days. Both the Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg & Gonzales report moved Florida’s 7th to “toss-up” status last week. As both prognosticators note, Mica has never faced a tough general election in his decades-long incumbency. It’s starting to show…
- As highlighted by the Huffington Post and Washington Post, Mica looked downright foolish on MSNBC on Friday morning when asked to respond to Donald Trump’s tweets about Alicia Machado. Despite being an enthusiastic Trump supporter, Mica could barely muster a response, and pretended not to know who Machado is, weakly claiming “I don’t tweet, and I don’t retweet.” Not to mention, Mica was bizarrely in DC for the interview on Friday, and not in his district, two days after Congress adjourned.
- Also on Friday, the Orlando Sentinel published embarrassingly out of touch comments from Mica disparaging his highly accomplished opponent, saying: “She [Murphy] was put up as a strong candidate, but she doesn’t have much of a background in the community or in the professional world.” Mica actually said that someone who worked as a strategy consultant at Deloitte, after 9/11 became a national security specialist at the Department of Defense, works as an executive at Sungate Capital, and teaches at Rollins College…“doesn’t have much of a background… in the professional world.”
- The Orlando Sentinel report also highlighted how truly competitive Mica’s district has become, so the stakes for the gaffe-prone incumbent are higher than ever. From the Sentinel: “The heightened interest in Mica’s seat comes in the wake of recent court-ordered redistricting that makes the 7th Congressional District seat more evenly split between registered Republicans and Democrats. The district now covers all of Seminole County — including heavily Democratic Sanford — and northern portions of Orange. It no longer includes a portion of southwest Volusia that is heavily Republican.”
- And not to mention that the week started off with Mica’s Republican Party standardbearer Donald Trump’s debate performance on Monday night, which proved once again that he is unfit for the presidency and that Mica is putting party over country by enthusiastically supporting him. Although on the bright side for Mica, Trump did shout out the luxury D.C. hotel project Mica helped him out with!