(Photos provided by the Stanley Campbell campaign)
U.S. Navy veteran and businessman Stanley Campbell is feeling optimistic about his chances of being the democratic candidate who will go up against Sen. Rick Scott in the November general election.
Campbell is currently one of four democrats vying for votes in the Aug. 20 primary election for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida currently occupied by Scott. The others are Army veteran Rod Joseph, former state representative Brian Rush and former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the candidate who currently seems to be the frontrunner.
Mucarsel-Powell has more than 40 endorsements from state officials and democratic leaders, as well as more than two dozen from progressive organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign. Campbell comes with his own state endorsements as well including the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida, The Latino Vote of South Florida, the Broward County Deputy Sheriff’s Association and the Florida AFL-CIO, the state federation of the largest federation of unions in the United States.
“I bring the full package,” Campbell says. “I’m not so far to the left or so far to the right that you’re gonna get me confused on either side. I am that straight in the middle guy but it’s that level of conservatism and the way I was brought up in church, brought up to treat everybody as an equal, that makes me the best choice to defeat Rick Scott.”
Campbell, who was “born, bred, raised, educated and professionalized in the State of Florida,” grew up in the Liberty City area of Miami. He went to college at Florida A&M University where at the age of 19 he created the data reduction algorithm and aero-analysis for the Voyager 2 spacecraft. After he graduated, he joined the U.S. Navy where he became a test pilot and served on NASA’s executive advisory board.
“When you’re in those positions, you gain a lot of experience,” Campbell says. “My Democratic opponent just doesn’t have that level of experience.”
While Campbell says his level of experience makes him a better candidate than Mucarsel-Powell, he is also looking past August, into the general election, laying out why he thinks he is the best person to replace Scott.
“[Rick Scott] has voted twice against the budget, which means that he’s standing in the way of the military getting paid and he also didn’t say one word when [Sen.] Tommy Tuberville was holding up military promotions,” Campbell says. “There’s a lot of games that they play but you should not use the most powerful military in the history of the world for that kind of thing.”
Campbell says when he is Florida’s senator, one of the first things he plans to do is introduce a bill that ties military pay to Congressional pay.
Another concern that Campbell has with the current Congress is the lack of knowledge most lawmakers have when it comes to artificial intelligence. Campbell says that his background in cyber security, his tenure at the Defense Intelligence Agency and his 14 patents in AI make him more than qualified to speak on the growing world of AI.
“Artificial intelligence is going to change all of our lives,” he says. “Those are the kinds of things that we have to think about because we don’t have one person in [Congress] that can even spell AI. So when those laws are being written, who’s writing them?”
Campbell says he is also going to be a champion for the LGBTQ+ community when he is elected. Cambell, along with Joseph and Rush, expressed his support for passing the Equality Act and the Biden administration’s Title IX revisions when asked during Watermark’s 2024 LGBTQ+ primary voters’ guide. Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign did not respond to Watermark’s questionnaire.
“I was brought up to treat everyone as an equal,” Campbell says. “There isn’t going to be a person on Capital Hill or any hill that is going to support your right to be who you are more than me. My brother [Uncle Luke from 2 Live Crew] went to the Supreme Court twice, and we know how to fight. We know how to fight in the streets of Liberty City and we know how to fight in the courts for what’s right.”
Florida’s 2024 primary election is Aug. 20. You can check out Watermark’s LGBTQ+ voters’ guide here.
