“Cracker Bay,” Team Romney’s Big-Money Party Yacht

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/23501684@N00/3364575346/">Bill Ward</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Wednesday morning, ABC News ran a story on one of the “Romney party yachts,” a 150-foot yacht hosting an exclusive event in Florida for donors who raised more than a million bucks for the Romney campaign. The article (video report and all) highlights the irony that the yacht flies under the flag of the Cayman Islands.

But that’s not even the funniest or most tone-deaf thing about the boat. Check it:

The exclusive event, hosted by a Florida developer on his yacht “Cracker Bay,” was one of a dozen exclusive events meant to nurture those who have raised more than $1 million for Romney’s bid…The Cracker Bay is owned by Gary Morse, developer of the Villages retirement community…Registered in the Caymans, the Cracker Bay has an impressive art collection and can seat 30 for dinner. 

Yes, you read all that correctly: Team Romney threw a party at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina, where extraordinarily rich people fraternized aboard a boat called “Cracker Bay.”

If you need a refresher on exactly why this is odd, click here now.

For the record, the colloquial term “Florida cracker” refers to the colonial English settlers of what is now the Sunshine State, as well as their descendants. The Democratic 41st governor of Florida, “Walkin'” Lawton Chiles (a now-deceased buddy of the Clintons), famously quipped about winning the “cracker vote“—meaning down-home white voters. Chiles also praised Bill Clinton’s ability to fluently “speak cracker.”

Cracker Bay is also the name of a road in South Africa.

So there you go.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate