GOP primary escalates into ugly, in-party squabbling
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published August 29, 2004
The heck with the national stuff. Tuesday is Florida's primary election, and there are some great state and local races on the ballot.
If you're looking for a theme, try this: Republican-eat-Republican. A lot of venom is getting spewed by the elephants against each other. How long will they keep poisoning the well before they learn they all have to drink from it?
The big enchilada is the race for U.S. Senate, featuring a cast of thousands. Almost certainly the top two Republican finishers will be Mel Martinez and Bill McCollum. If we are to believe their own ads against each other, the winner will be a moron.
Here is how silly the M&M fight has gotten: This past week their supporters fought over whether the other side was employing any gays. All of this is great for the probable Democratic nominee, Betty Castor.
Onward to the local front.
In Pasco County, there's an increasingly nasty Republican primary for school superintendent. To repeat: A nasty race for school superintendent. A state representative, Heather Fiorentino, is running against a longtime school employee, Chuck Rushe.
As the saying goes, payback is unpleasant. Pasco Republican leaders are still mad that the schools got Pasco voters to pass a sales tax in March. Because Rushe wanted to raise money for education, he is obviously a crazed liberal, so the party is backing Fiorentino.
Yet details keep coming out that Fiorentino double-billed the taxpayers for serving in the Legislature and doing school work at the same time. I am certain no one in the School Board offices took the slightest pleasure in releasing those records, no sir.
In north Tampa, a loyal Republican state representative named Kevin Ambler (who broke my heart by voting for the phone companies) is getting challenged by another loyal Republican named Bill Bunkley. One of them is not conservative enough; I forget which. Again, some party leaders are taking sides for Ambler, which is a fine way to pay back Bunkley for being, you know, loyal.
In Citrus County, there's a hot fight among Republicans for the post of ... state party committeeman. This normally routine contest has turned into a fest of anger and even TV commercials. Two candidates are bitter rivals from past squabbles; the third guy's platform is that at least he isn't one of the first two guys.
Pinellas County has an interesting (albeit much more civil) County Commission race on the Republican side to replace my favorite three-named commissioner, Barbara Sheen Todd, a Republican who is retiring.
There's J.J. Beyrouti, who is favored by the city-mayor types (Pinellas has a lot of mayors running around). There's Safety Harbor Commissioner Neil Brickfield and former School Board member Lucile Casey. The big fish is party fundraiser Ronnie Duncan, who probably is the favorite.
Lastly, on the nonpartisan ballot, there are interesting races for judge, two in Pinellas and one in Hernando.
One Pinellas race features Circuit Judge George Greer, best known for the Terri Schiavo case. His opponent, Jan Govan, is a man who for a while didn't get around to mentioning his gender or using his photo, while using the slogan that "women have choices, too." Now Govan has made an unusually crass last-minute appeal to churches.
Another Pinellas judge race features an incumbent named Sonny Im, being challenged by John Carballo. It is possible Im might make it to Tuesday without self-destructing any further.
Im got in hot water after making wisecracks about public defenders being public "offenders." Yep, that's what I want in a judge, a guy who jokes about letting poor people be protected by the Constitution, too. Also, he can't remember how many trials he actually had as a lawyer.
In Hernando, 15-year County Judge Peyton Hyslop is getting challenged for the second time by a prosecutor named Don Scaglione. Hyslop is not what you would call a hanging judge; they even yanked his power to set bail at felony first appearances because he kept lowering it.
There's my roundup. Save your complaints of bias! The answer is, you're right. And in conclusion, this being Florida: Be sure to vote early and often.
