He's running: South Florida mayor announces 2020 campaign in new video
MIAMI _ South Florida Mayor Wayne Messam announced that he's running for president Thursday by releasing what may be the most meta campaign video of the young 2020 presidential cycle.
Messam, the 44-year-old mayor of Miramar, dropped a two-minute biographical video intended to introduce the former Florida State Seminole wide receiver to the country. It begins with a wide-angle shot of Messam _ an avid runner who grew up the son of a contract sugar cane cutter in a rural Lake Okeechobee town _ running on a road along a cane field.
"The promise of America belongs to all of us," Messam says. "That's why I'm going to be running for president."
Produced by Seven Knots _ the firm that cut astronaut Mark Kelly's Arizona U.S. Senate launch announcement _ the video lays out Messam's back-story as a small-business owner and the suburban mayor of a southwest Broward city of about 140,000. It hits his main campaign messages: that "Washington is broken," and that Messam's first-generation Jamaican-American story is the epitome of the "American Dream."
Messam, who after months of consideration announced the formation of an exploratory committee two weeks ago, released the video ahead of a formal campaign announcement Saturday at Florida Memorial University.
_Miami Herald
