The Democratic primary race for Florida governor turned ugly this week with a flurry of mudslinging.
The nastiness began when Leslie Wimes, an African-American woman who supports Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, called former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham a "skank" on Twitter and then dug in further by penning a column for the Sunshine State News headlined "Skank, Oh, My!"
Politico reports EMILY's List, a group backing abortion-rights Democrats, demanded Gillum "make clear to supporters that "negative, gendered attacks have no place in political discourse," and blasted him over a negative ad campaign launched by a pro-black super PAC ripping Graham as a fake progressive.
Wimes then slammed EMILY's List's for having stayed neutral in the 2014 gubernatorial Democratic primary when abortion-rights liberal, former state Sen. Nan Rich, faced former Gov. Charlie Crist, a a "pro-life" Republican before leaving the GOP.
According to Politico, she said that, in 2014, Graham ran for Congress as a "very conservative Democrat" and was not the "progressive" that EMILY's List calls her.
"So when a true progressive runs against a fake Democrat, EMILY'S List does nothing. But when someone who described herself as a 'very conservative Democrat' runs against a black man who's a true progressive, they jumped in waist deep for her," Wimes said.