Sometimes it’s the little things that can end a candidacy.

Nobody in Sarasota should be surprised to learn Martin Hyde has an attitude. Honestly, it’s long been a part of his brand. He’s often seemingly basked in pushback from city and school officials who balk at his words at government meetings, where for years he impugned the actions and motives of public officials. There’s people who love that, and revel in the unvarnished expression of contempt for government waste and overreach.

For a period, it looked like he could bottle that kind of sentiment up in a primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota. But it’s honestly little surprise that in the end, the same abrasive temper and “how dare you” approach to argument would incinerate his candidacy. Everything came to a head on Valentine’s Day when Sarasota Police Officer JJulia Beskin pulled him over for speeding and he threatened her career after taking immediate umbrage. He initially said written reports overstated his hostility. Then body camera footage shot from Beskin’s shoulder surfaced and confirmed his worst instincts overtook his senses. Hyde not only threatened her badge but insulted her eastern European heritage — “Is it your Russian immigrant status that makes you talk to people like this?” — all while dropping names of local dignitaries from the driver’s seat of a Range Rover.

The footage managed to get a surprising amount of national media attention from Newsweek to Huffington Post. On Friday, Hyde made clear through a letter in the Herald-Tribune that he was now a former congressional candidate.

Apparently in a year when Republicans at the national level plan to run on law and order, there’s little appetite for this kind of bullying. Plus a rich guy shouting down a woman in uniform just doesn’t play well, in high-definition video no less.

It’s worth asking, though, precisely how we got to the point where Hyde seemed a viable mouthpiece for so many in the region. There’s lots of reasons many in Sarasota could have discarded him as a mascot before now. This is his second viral video moment; he was captured on film less than two years ago telling Puerto Rican teenagers to “cut some grass,” angry that use of racquet courts was interfering with his reserved time. Yet as his screams at the Sarasota County School Board about the evils of mask mandates made a Lincoln Project supercut of people going nuts at school boards, Hyde’s antics had awarded him a significant political cache in certain quarters.

He twice won the endorsement of Sarasota’s police union while he ran for office. Now he’s in trouble for confronting a cop. But a less discussed portion of the footage may be how successful at ringing up connections he was during the short traffic stop. That bit about Beskin’s nationality? He dropped that after an apparently successful call to her supervisor, leaving one to wonder if he just received the personal information about the officer over the phone. Other cops openly wonder if reports of his belligerence over the radio were overblown after arriving on the same scene that in the past few days outraged viewers around the globe.

It's worth stepping back and asking, as Hyde falls once again from a perch of local notoriety, what elevated him in the first place? Strangely, one can’t shake the feeling he could easily ascend again to the level where, if he can’t win a political campaign, he can at least get someone on the phone who can get him out of a ticket.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor of SRQ MEDIA.