Democratic Senate hopeful says experience of being key witness in Trump’s first impeachment makes him right choice for Florida
Alex Vindman is not a man to hold a grudge. Ask him about the bullying, intimidation and retribution meted out by Donald Trump and Maga acolytes following his appearance as a key witness in the first of the president’s two first-term impeachments, and he almost shrugs it off.
“For people that know anything about me, I basically smile all the time,” he says.
“I’m an optimist by nature. I’m more focused on the future than the past, and this idea of vindictiveness or grievance is completely opposite of my personality. Now, accountability is essential … ”
Vindman was speaking about his renewed sense of purpose in a candid interview with the Guardian several weeks after launching his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Florida’s seat in the US Senate in November’s midterms.
He knows it’s an uphill battle in a state whose most recent Democrat in the chamber, Bill Nelson, was elected in 2012; and where the party’s last member to win a statewide election, Nikki Fried, now chair of the Florida Democratic party, became commissioner of agriculture in 2018, the year Nelson lost his seat to Republican Rick Scott.
But the retired army lieutenant colonel and Purple Heart recipient is certain his experience makes him the right person to lift the party here out of its funk. Years of Trump, and the extremism of Florida’s hard-right governor Ron DeSantis, he...
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