At the Florida State Democratic Party Conference on Sunday morning was the hotly-anticipated debate between Attorney General candidates Dave Aronberg and Dan Gelber. Although both campaigns had an active presence throughout the Conference, Sunday morning revealed a Gelber juggernaut in the debate hall. Several hundred dollars worth of glossy yard signs and perhaps gratuitously pandering palm cards littered the venue, while Aronberg’s hand-drawn signs filled every other seat. Gelber supporters in vivid t-shirts crowded the halls and the venue, pasting Gelber stickers on the slow-moving and cooperative alike. There was a pretty obvious attempt to project the aura of inevitability.

The aura was interrupted by Gelber’s opening shot on vouchers, which was returned by Aronberg equating the comment with Republican smear jobs. After that, the two candidates couldn’t say too many times how much they liked each other. Aronberg’s answers were consistently, if not overwhelmingly, sharper and more coherent than those of his opponent. Senator Gelber felt it necessary to mention three times that his wife was also a federal prosecutor, seemingly implying that prosecutorial talent can be sexually transmitted and that he was thus twice as qulaified as Senator Aronberg to be AG. Aronberg made the risky move of calling for reforms in sex offender laws but didn’t seem to lose the audience. The crowd, which seemed like a Gelber fan club at the beginning, definitely warmed to Aronberg by the end. One leading YD looked at Sen. Aronberg and said “future Governor.” I think the YD might be right.