In The Florida Senate Race, Conservatives David Jolly And Patrick Murphy Are Wall Street's Two Peas In A Pod

We've said it before but others are catching on now too: if Florida Democrats vote to nominate conservative New Dem Patrick Murphy in March, they will have essentially no substantive choice in November. Murphy has far more in common politically with lkely GOP nominee, David Jolly, than he does with progressive Alan Grayson. And Murphy and Jolly are pals or, as the National Journal put it, "close friends and fre­quent le­gis­lat­ive al­lies dur­ing their short time in Con­gress, spon­sor­ing more than a dozen of piece of le­gis­la­tion to­geth­er since Jolly was elec­ted in early 2014, dur­ing Murphy’s first term."

Jolly admits that he thinks he and Murphy, a "former" Republican himself, who votes with the GOP on crucial issues far more than almost any Democrat in the House "ap­proach Con­gress and gov­ern­ing the same way, there’s a nat­ur­al af­fin­ity there."

Ac­cord­ing to Quor­um Ana­lyt­ics, no mem­ber of Con­gress-- Demo­crat or Re­pub­lic­an-- has co­sponsored more of Jolly’s bills than Murphy, while Jolly has signed onto more of Murphy’s bills than any oth­er mem­ber this Con­gress. While none of those bills passed, they let Murphy and Jolly tout bi­par­tis­an co­oper­a­tion on en­vir­on­ment­al and vet­er­ans is­sues, among oth­ers.

Along with fresh­man Reps. Car­los Cur­belo (a Re­pub­lic­an) and Gwen Gra­ham (a Demo­crat), Jolly and Murphy are part of an in­form­al group that meets monthly, away from the con­gres­sion­al din­ing hall, to dis­cuss is­sues im­port­ant to Flor­ida.

Gwen Graham-- the extreme Blue Dog and one of the only "Democrats" to vote more often with the GOP than Murphy himself... what a foursome of anti-progressive fanatics!

Yesterday, Mitch Perry, writing for the SaintPetersBlog, wrote that a Democratic Establishment arm controlled by Chuck Schumer "is firmly behind Murphy, believing the centrist-leaning Democrat has a better chance of winning the open seat next year than his most significant party opponent, Congressman Alan Grayson." Jolly agrees and is constantly on the attack against Grayson, while making nice with ideological-twin Murphy.

That prompted Florida Politics to ask Jolly if he has some sort of non-aggression pact with Murphy?

“If you look at the other side of the aisle, the area of greatest disagreement is clearly with Alan Grayson,” Jolly said on Monday, laughing at the question. That disagreement revolves around Jolly’s advocacy for his “Freedom Card” legislation, which would remove regional and provider restrictions on where veterans can access care, allowing them to use federal benefits to access private care. Although it opens a door for the privatization of VA services, Jolly is insistent that’s not the intent, saying that nearly all the veterans he has spoken with want to keep the Department of Veterans Affairs vital and robust as is.

“Alan Grayson has chosen to attack me for trying to shut down the VA, which I have said I do not support,” Jolly says. “Alan Grayson is now suggesting he doesn’t trust veterans with true choice.”

In a recent fundraising email to supporters, Grayson wrote that “My GOP opponent David Jolly has a plan to gut the Veterans Administration, but he doesn’t want you to know it. And he sure doesn’t want me to tell you about it.” Grayson also characterizes Jolly’s bill as legislation “which privatizes the Veterans Administration’s healthcare system, forcing taxpayers to pay for healthcare outside that system.”

“Why would Alan Grayson come out against my proposal to give veterans a true choice of where they receive health care?” asks Jolly. “Unless he is taking the statist, progressive mentality of putting the bureacracy and the government before the veterans, and so I am calling him out on that,” he said earlier this week.

“I’m going to continue to hammer him on it,” Jolly says, adding that he won’t stop until Grayson comes around on his bill and/or distances himself from a comment that Hillary Clinton made last month on Rachel Maddow’s show, where she suggestedthat the VA scandal was slightly overblown (Since then Clinton has appeared to back away from that statement, and on Veterans Day last week unveiled a proposal that allows for the government to contract with the private sector for surgical, mental health and substance abuse services, and for times when the VA is unable to offer timely care).

“In other words, Jolly and Murphy have agreed not criticize each other,” says Kevin Franck, a spokesman for Grayson’s senate campaign. “David Jolly has admitted that he has a ‘natural affinity’ for former Republican Patrick Murphy and that he and Murphy have the same approach to governing. While Rep. Grayson has spoken out about David Jolly’s dangerous plan to privatize the VA, Patrick Murphy has been silent.  I guess dismantling the VA is just another example of an issue on which Patrick Murphy and David Jolly agree.”

The Patrick Murphy campaign did not respond to our request for comment.

Not responding? Maybe he was too busy scooping up more money from Wall Street. In fact, the Financial Sector has given more money to Murphy than any other House Democrat this cycle, by far, and more money than any House Republicans other than Boehner and McCarthy, even more than they've given Paul Ryan. Democrats in Florida need to ask themselves why Wall Street is so desperate to get Patrick Murphy into the U.S. Senate-- and why Chuck Schemer is helping them with that goal. Democrats running for the U.S. Senate worth supporting, like Alan Grayson, can be found at this page.

Should Florida Democrats wonder why Wall St is giving more money to Patrick Murphy than to Paul Ryan?