“The thing you have to understand about Andrew is he’s been told he’s going to be president someday his entire life,” an aide who worked on his campaign for governor and has spoken to Gillum recently told BuzzFeed News.
Donors and activists have spoken to Gillum trying to gauge his interest, in some cases asking for even a wink and a nod, but they’ve been unable to get a sense of Gillum’s thinking one way or another, the campaign aide said. Privately, though, Gillum is telling friends and associates that he’s finding it hard to get into the right frame of mind to make another monumental decision, after the challenge of running for office in a state as big as Florida.
Gillum is an avatar of the frenetic pace of politics, and an example of how a young politician can struggle to adapt to lofty expectations, and the demands and deadlines of a party desperate to beat Trump. Unlike in an ordinary climate, when most losing candidates would be licking their wounds, Gillum has felt compelled to launch into a flurry of political activity. In public appearances and on Twitter, he looks and sounds more like an aspirant rather than as a defeated malcontent. This is all after losing a race many political observers believed he’d win going away, and a messy week-long period where he first conceded the race, then walked that back, and then re-conceded once it became clear there was no way he’d overcome his small margin of defeat.
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