And so it begins.
Fresh off announcing his bid to reclaim his old congressional seat, Alan Grayson is out with his first political ad which features himself and others talking about his past time serving in Congress.
The ad portraying Grayson as a “Progressive Warrior” features MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, actor Martin Sheen, filmmaker Michael Moore, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
“More Grayson bills are now the law of the land from the last Congress,” Grayson says in the ad.
The ad does not mention current Orlando-area Congressman Darren Soto who Grayson is challenging in the primary.
Speaking of the primary...
News 96.5 WDBO’s Gene Wexler spoke with Soto about Grayson at the beginning of May.
“This is going to be a classic uniter versus divided type of race,” Soto said at the time.
Soto said he won his last seven political races running on a strong, positive, inspiring message.
“While we see [Grayson] start off with his attacks and the similar smear-fest we saw during his failed bid for the Senate.”
In 2016, Grayson was defeated 59 to 18 percent in the Democratic primary by fellow Representative Patrick Murphy who went on to lose the general election to incumbent Senator Marco Rubio.
Soto called his current race against Grayson, “Soto - Grayson match up part two,” in reference to Soto defeating Grayson’s wife Dena int he 2016 primary for the seat he now holds.
“There’s a clear contrast here of a doer, somebody who’s accountable and works hard to get the job done, and someone who’s gonna make a spectacle - a circus - of this race again,” Soto said.
News 96.5 WDBO’s Gene Wexler also spoke directly with Alan Grayson about his new opponent at the beginning of May when he first announced his run.
“When you were talking to Darren, did he actually mention anything he had accomplished,” Grayson said. “Because I’m having a lot of trouble identifying a single thing.”
Soto mentioned his focus on getting better jobs, affordable housing, hurricane recovery, protecting the environment and society security and medicare for seniors.
Grayson said he thinks Soto has a "miserable record" and is the "least effective member of Congress who has to pass a study of a river in his district to claim that he's doing something useful."
Grayson claims he was one of the most effective members of Congress when he held the District 9 seat.
"I'll tell you that it's a fact that I passed more legislation than any other member of Congress," Grayson said. "PolitiFact checked that out and confirmed it."
He also touts how Slate Magazine rated him the most effective member of Congress.
“I don’t just bring home the bacon, I bring home the whole pig,” Grayson said.
While in office, Grayson said he doubled the amount of competetive grant money coming in to his district.
“We don’t have somebody like that in Congress now,” he said.