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    • The Democrat trying to unseat Rick Scott brings star support to Delray
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    The Democrat trying to unseat Rick Scott brings star support to Delray

    Kathleen William Posted on

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    • Murcarsel-Powell, a one-term congresswoman, is seeking a seat in the Senate, citing her unpopular positions on abortion, Social Security and Medicare.

    DELRAY BEACH – Former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell's bus drove the message that democracy is on the ballot – along with her Senate candidacy – on Friday with a friend others would call “the enemy within.” on Friday in this Democratic stronghold.

    Mucarsel-Powell wants to replace Florida'S Junior Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott was re-elected after one term, and she brought some national star power to energize the crowd in the form of U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California.

    Polls show Scott leading the race, but some voter polls put both within the margin of error of defeating the incumbent. Circumstances are on the Democrats' side, Mucarsel-Powell told the group.

    “That's what's exciting and why I'm so optimistic about this election: …Rick Scott has never run in a presidential election, only in the midterms. He has never won by more than 1% and he has never stood against millions of men and women who will march to the ballot box to protect people's rights,” Mucarsel-Powell said, referring to Amendment 4, which would Enshrining the law would lead to abortion in Florida, as it had for nearly 49 years until 2022.

    And she added: “He’s never competed against a Latina like me.”

    Mucarsel-Powell's bus tour began last week in The Villages and next heads to Miami. Schiff, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat on Nov. 5, joined Thursday.

    Party loyalists demanded that they be taken out

    Mucarsel-Powell, Schiff and U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, were treated like rock stars by a group of about 70 people who crowded into the Palm Beach County Democratic Party office, leaving standing room only, many of them waved signs. Loud cheers from the mostly female crowd triggered smartwatches that warned of loud, potentially harmful noises.

    Outside, about a dozen counter-protesters waved signs and flags in support of former Republican President Donald Trump and drove vehicles decorated in red, white and blue through the parking lot.

    Trump this week specifically called Schiff, of California, “a madman” who is a greater enemy of the United States than its foreign adversaries Russia and China. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff became the face of the first impeachment trial against Trump, which was related to an alleged pressure campaign on Ukrainian leaders for domestic political purposes in the United States.

    Trump was acquitted in the subsequent trial before the US Senate. In, in which Scott voted “not guilty.”

    Fighter for democracy

    “Adam Schiff is one of the strongest fighters for justice and democracy,” said Mucarsel-Powell. “He had the courage, the courage, to never stop fighting against one of the greatest threats we currently have to democracy.”

    Asked about Trump's threats against him after addressing the group, Schiff said he wanted to keep the focus on Mucarsel-Powell's Senate run, but added: “I think if a would-be dictator tells you “Whatever he’s going to do, you should do it too.” take it seriously.”

    He offered the group a broader statement about the upcoming election, predicting that Mucarsel-Powell would be “a damn good U.S. senator” and saying the country's hopes rest on Florida. “They can make a difference,” Schiff said, recalling the days when Florida had a more purple hue and Democrats far outnumbered Republicans in Palm Beach.

    Ship: The moral arc bent in the wrong direction?

    He also said that no one realized how things could change as drastically as they did after the 2016 presidential election.

    “We all grew up in this post-World War II generation when our freedoms increased, when we saw democracies emerge, and we saw walls come down,” Schiff said. “We thought it was like the laws of gravity…that it was Martin Luther King’s moral arc of the universe moving toward justice.”

    This curvature appears to be moving in the other direction when considering contemporary circumstances such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the restriction of women's reproductive rights, which Schiff called “a dangerous moment in history.”

    “When democracy is in trouble, people lose their rights instead of gaining them,” Schiff said.

    He said he, like many others, found it shocking that it was such a close call between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump.

    “This is a guy who literally sat in the Oval Office, behind the Resolute Desk, signing hush money payments to a porn star,” Schiff said, prompting some laughter. “She appears to be the only contractor who was paid.”

    The pro-Trump crowd also gathers

    Dianne Kaplan, 71, of Delray Beach in the crowd, won't take this election lightly. For them, the Democrats' victory is the only resistance to fascism.

    “People read the Holocaust books and nothing rings a bell,” she lamented. “There are no corrections for people who don’t tell the truth.”

    Meanwhile, outside France, Miko from Boca Raton, who declined to give her age, was among the protesters wearing a T-shirt that said she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as in “Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats.”

    “I came out to show my support,” she said. “I’m for Trump.”

    Anne Geggis is an insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. YYou can reach her at [email protected]. Support our journalism. Subscribe today.

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    Kathleen William
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