Getting to know Greene
Democrat says he’s best candidate to run for governor
Jeff Greene, the newest and perhaps least known of the five Democratic candidates for governor, was hustling Saturday as he sold himself to activists as a champion of all the party’s key issues — and the only candidate who can effectively compete with the Republicans in the general election.
Many party activists, gathered at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood for the state Democrats’ annual June conference and fundraising dinner, said they were impressed with what they heard from Greene.
That doesn’t mean they were prepared to declare their support.
“I’m still weighing and learning as much as I can about his candidacy,” said Edgardo Hernandez of West Palm Beach, after a long one-on-one conversation with Greene.
Until a month ago, Greene has been absent from the Florida political scene since losing the 2010 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
He emerged June 1 to announce a fully funded — very fully funded — campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, shaking up a race in which Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, former Congresswoman Gwen Graham, Winter
Park businessman Chris King and former Miami Beach Mayor have been competing for more than a year.
As he made the rounds on Saturday, visiting caucus gatherings of various Democratic Party constituency groups, Greene checked off key issue positions: champion of education, proponent of increasing the minimum wage; supporter of a law banning anti-LGBT discrimination.
And the man who’s been a member of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club vowed to stand up to the president.
It’s Greene’s wealth — he’s worth $3.3 billion — that makes him a serious candidate even with his late entry to the race. If he’s the nominee, Greene said he’d match the spending of the Republican nominee for governor. “I will put up whatever it takes, dollar for dollar, toe to toe.”
He downplayed the suggestion that he might spend as much as $100 million or $200 million of his own money on the race. “I certainly could afford it but I don’t think that I’m going to spend anything like that. I’m going to spend as little as I have to but as much as I need to.”
State Rep. Evan Jenne, of Broward, a Graham supporter, said if the other candidates dismiss Greene as a latecomer without the networks of support many of them have been building for years, they do so at their own peril.
For anyone thinking just forget about him, you’re making a grave mistake,” Jenne said.
Greene barely registers in the polls — 4 percent in an NBC News/Marist Poll released Wednesday — but said he’s poised to win the Aug. 28 primary. He pointed to the big leader in the same poll: the 47 percent of Democrats who are undecided.
Greene, who lives in Palm Beach County, said that would soon change.
“They’ve seen our TV commercials. Now they’re seeing me up front and close,” he said. “We’re going to be traveling the state aggressively and making ourselves available so that every Floridian who wants to can see me and meet me and make a decision if I’m their best choice.
Despite the long time the others have been in the race, no one has “been able to inspire the electorate. The leader in this race is undecided, still today, less than two months before the [primary]. I think I’m going to change that.”
All the other candidates except King have experience in elected office, but Greene, 63, said he has a “much stronger resume and background than any of them do. There’s no question about that.” (He added he has “a great deal of respect for all of them.”)
On Saturday, he met with pockets of voters and oneon-one with activists. He listened as long as people wanted to talk.
And, at one point, when none of his competitors was in the room where a “meet the candidates” event was taking place, he jumped into the group photo a group of Lee County Democrats were about to take — and made sure they knew he was the only one there.
Richard Cahoon, of Fort Lauderdale, said he encountered Greene — without an entourage — in a hallway of the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood on Saturday. Cahoon said he’s still supporting Graham, but after talking with Greene he termed him, “Very nice, very engaging, very smart. I thought he was sincere.”
Deidre Newton, the Democratic state committeewoman for Palm Beach County, said she heard the same reaction from other people who met Greene for the first time.
Sylvia Sharps, of West Palm Beach, said she likes Greene’s working class roots. After his father’s business in Worcester, Mass., went under, Greene’s family moved in the 1960s to West Palm Beach, where his father had a vending machine delivery route and his mother waited banquet tables at The Breakers resort in Palm Beach.
But, Sharps said, she still wants to make sure before deciding how she’ll vote whether Greene — who made his fortune in real estate and development — would “still remember us” if elected.
Greene’s response: “Every day when I wake up I remember exactly where I came from. It wasn’t that long ago,” he said. “It’s in front of me all the time because I see people over and over again who are facing the same struggles my family faced.”