Nikki Fried is officially running for governor of Florida, having filed the requisite paperwork today. She’ll face Charlie Crist in the primary, and, if successful, will run against Governor DeSantis next year.
I wrote at length last week about Fried, whom I consider to be an entirely preposterous figure. To this I would only add that she’s a fraud, too. Consider this, from the New York Times’ write-up of her candidacy:
Before winning the 2018 election by just 6,753 votes, Ms. Fried, 43, worked as a Fort Lauderdale-based lawyer and medical marijuana lobbyist. She boasts that she holds both a medical marijuana card and a concealed-weapons permit.
This is typical of Fried’s approach. When “boasting,” Fried likes to pretend that she’s one of those moderate Southern Democrats who would be a Republican if they weren’t so extreme. Look! She has a concealed-weapons permit! When acting, however, she shows that she is nothing of the sort. Fried may indeed have a concealed-weapons permit. But she’s no friend of the online application system that, as agriculture commissioner, she is in charge of running. Indeed, last year Fried used the pandemic as an excuse to shut it down for three months, and consented to its reopening it only after she was widely criticized and threatened with a lawsuit.
At some point in the near future, the image of Nikki Fried and the reality of Nikki Fried are going to clash. And when they do, it’s not going to end well for her.