Via The Hill:
Tim Canova wants you to know he didn’t just come out of nowhere to challenge the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for her House job.
The law professor says it has been years in the making, sparked by multiple phone calls to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz that weren’t returned.
But what makes this David and Goliath story noteworthy, more than the fact that Canova is the Florida congresswoman’s first primary challenger, is that he says he has raised more than $1 million since kicking off his campaign in January.
That total comes despite him being relatively unknown compared to the woman he is challenging.
“His name ID is higher among D.C. reporters than actual voters,” said Ashley Walker, a Florida Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “My sense is he’s kind of come out of nowhere, not somebody who’s been involved in the community or party or this area.”
But while Canova has not been involved locally, he was an aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) and says he has volunteered on numerous political campaigns. He also has a history of taking positions on issues that differ from Wasserman Schultz’s.
“I’m not somebody who somehow jumped on the bandwagon recently,” he said in an interview with The Hill. “The stuff I’ve been campaigning on I’ve been writing about and preaching about for decades.”
Now a professor at Nova Southeastern University’s law school in Fort Lauderdale, he has taught international trade law for 20 years and been a vocal opponent of President Obama’s signature trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which has enraged liberals.
This is one of his biggest policy differences with Wasserman Schultz, who was one of 28 House Democrats to support legislation giving Obama fast-track trade authority for the TPP.
That issue propelled him to run against the lawmaker he voted for two years ago.
Canova was lobbying the Florida congressional delegation with Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition of groups founded in 1992 to fight the North American Free Trade Agreement, to oppose the TPP.
He said the group was unable to get a response from Wasserman Schultz’s office. Her campaign pushed back on his account. “Tim Canova is misleading you,” campaign spokesman Ryan Banfill said Tuesday. “Canova was a member of a group that met late last year with the congresswoman’s office to discuss TPP.”
Canova, 56, said his experience with the trade coalition was enough to push him into politics.
“I never thought I was going to run for political office, so it really came out of a sense of frustration,” he said.
Canova’s bid has gained fuel from the popularity of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and the charges that Wasserman Schultz and the DNC are working unfairly to help Hillary Clinton become the party’s presidential nominee. Several progressive groups have called for Wasserman Schultz to resign her DNC post.