Anthony Pedicini
Peter Schorsch hunkers down with his good friend Anthony Pedicini, a political strategist and Ella’s godfather, who is preparing for the coronavirus pandemic in style — plenty of good cigars, pastina and rum to last a while. “If the Governor decides to put us in a statewide lockdown, I think I’d survive,” he says. Pedicini talks about how his brother was exposed to COVID-19 at work but didn’t tell him for 7 days. Now he’s in self-isolation for another 5 days. “This is not a fun thing, and I think people aren’t taking it seriously until it hits them in the head.” Peter and Pedicini discuss how Florida — like Italy — is broken up into individual “city-states” with each responding to coronavirus in their own way. As for Florida’s political class, a reminder: It doesn’t matter whether it is worse than the flu — it’s doesn’t get those lives that have been lost. Pedicini says he realized the seriousness of the situation when he started seeing politicians (a group with which he is very familiar) start having worried looks on their faces: “You can just see something has changed.” Coronavirus is something in magnitude that no one alive has ever seen, Pedicini says, whether it’s in the economic situation or in a possible meltdown of health care. He also talks about releasing low-level criminals from the jails to alleviate overpopulation, because if coronavirus hits the prison system it would be “devastating. And as a political strategist, Pedicini says everything they were ramped up to do in 2020 is now put on hold — fundraising, campaign, grassroots and so on. “If you’re not an elected official, you should be not be talking to the public about things,” he says, using as an example Rep. Jackie Toledo of Tampa calling out the Seminole Tribe for keeping the Hard Rock open. She couldn’t do that as a candidate, but as an elected official. Special Guest: Anthony Pedicini .