San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Gaetz vows to fight as investigations widen
The mere whiff of a scandal once unraveled political careers with stunning speed. Not now.
Embroiled in a federal sex trafficking investigation, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has denied the allegations, rebuffed suggestions that he resign and sent fundraising appeals that portray him as a victim of a “smear campaign.” During a highprofile appearance Friday night at former President Donald Trump’s Doral golf club in Miami, he vowed, “I have not yet begun to fight.”
“I’m built for the battle and I’m not going anywhere,” Gaetz said. “The smears against me range from distortions of my personal life to wild — and I mean wild — conspiracy theories.”
The thirdterm congressman joins a growing list of politicians from both parties — almost exclusively men — who are defying the traditional response to controversy. Rather than humbly step back from public life, they barrel ahead, insisting they did nothing wrong and betting that voters will forget alleged misdeeds once the news cycle eventually shifts.
“Clearly this is a new strategy people are employing in crisis response,” said Brent Colburn, a Democratic strategist and veteran of President Barack Obama’s administration. “It is a new chapter in the playbook.”
Gaetz’s political future remains in question and could fully disintegrate, depending on how the federal probe unfolds. On Friday, the House Ethics
Committee announced it would pursue its own investigation.
But after spending the past several years as one of Trump’s fiercest public defenders, Gaetz’s game plan strongly mirrors the former president’s approach.
After a video emerged in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign of him boasting of grabbing women by the genitals, Trump apologized “if anyone was offended” and dismissed the episode as “locker room talk.” He refused calls by some in his own party to leave the presidential ticket and won the election just weeks later.
As president, Trump would respond to one burgeoning scandal after another by constantly moving ahead, making it harder for the public to linger on one issue for too long, even if that meant stirring up fresh controversy on another topic.
Gaetz is emulating the former president’s approach and appealing to his most loyal supporters. The sponsor of Friday evening’s event also organized the Jan. 6 “March for Trump” rally in Washington that ended with a mob storming the U.S. Capitol in a deadly insurrection.
Gaetz repeated baseless claims that the election was stolen from Trump and suggested for the cheering crowd that he was a “wanted man by the deep state.” “When you see the anonymous sources and insiders forecasting my demise, know this: They aren’t really coming for me. They’re coming for you,“he said. “I’m just in the way.”
Gaetz isn’t alone in refusing to bend in the face of a political storm. Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has steadfastly refused to resign despite several sexual misconduct allegations that spurred calls from some of the most powerful members of his own party for him to step aside.
Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam balked at resigning in 2019, when a picture surfaced from a 1984 medical school yearbook showing one man in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. Northam apologized while acknowledging he was the one in the robe. But days later, he denied it was he.
The political fallout eventually calmed and staying put allowed Northam to win praise for handling Virginia’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
But even if pushing forward helps elected leaders weather immediate crises, it doesn’t always leave them with much political standing. Trump, of course, lost last year’s election to Biden. And Cuomo finds himself increasingly isolated. Northam is termlimited and won’t have to face reelection.
Top Republicans have been conspicuous in failing to speak out in defense of Gaetz. The Floridian’s attentiongrabbing style has often antagonized both parties.
“If your goal is simply to maintain your position, it might be an effective strategy,” Colburn said. “If your goal is to have an impact, it’s probably not the way to go.”