The first Republican Party of Florida quarterly meeting with Blaise Ingoglia in charge kicks off Friday night in Orlando.
The two-day event includes a number of seminars for party members on items such as dealing with campaign finance issues and how to deal with the media.
We are hearing a lot of buzz and excitement from those attending the RPOF quarterly meeting about that media and messaging tutorial because it will be led by GOP-fabulous Sarah Bascom.
Anyone who knows Bascom knows she is an entertaining speaker and can engage an audience, but what we like most about her speaking engagements like this is she does not give the stock “how to speak to the media and get your message across” talk. She keeps it real and gives the audience the good, the bad and the reality of these types of engagements and usually gives some case studies involving the late Senate President Jim King and other humorous real stories, and even some of her honest interactions with media that didn’t always go as planned, which beckons us all back to laughter, good times and an honest sigh of relief of a time when no social media, blogs and camera phones exist. But, alas they do, so those attending should pay attention and take notes!
The meeting comes just after the RPOF has announced a number of moves within the past couple of weeks, including the unveiling of a new website design and new logo.
There’s been an introduction to new members of the finance team, as well as the hiring of Brad Herold as executive director, Wadi Gaitan as communications director and Mallory Deason as press secretary.
Gaitan is bilingual, fulfilling a goal requested by Fort Lauderdale Latina activist Evelyn Perez-Verdia, who argues that, with a growing Latino community that thirsts for information about the political climate, both state parties should hire bilingual communication directors. (The Florida Democratic Party will not follow suit; Perez-Verdia says that party chair Allison Tant says there’s no money in the party’s budget to do so.)
The meeting is the first that Ingoglia, who in his day job serves as a member of the Florida House, has presided over since he stunned the Florida GOP establishment by upsetting Gov. Rick Scott’s hand-picked choice for party chair, Leslie Dougher, back in January.
