Anna Liisa Covell resigns from First Hernando Republican Club and STARS, an organization for Republican women.
By WILL VAN SANT
Published September 13, 2004
Longtime GOP activist and former County Commission candidate Anna Liisa Covell has resigned in disgust as president of the First Hernando Republican Club.
Covell, who sits on the county Planning and Zoning Commission, has also resigned from STARS, an organization for Republican women. Both the First Hernando Republican Club and STARS are social groups chartered by the state GOP and sanctioned by the Hernando County Republican Executive Committee.
An angry Covell alleges that the Hernando REC, while publicly promising not to endorse any candidates in the Aug. 31 primary, allowed supporters of District 5 contender James Adkins to call voters from phone banks at REC headquarters and imply that Adkins had the party's backing.
Covell, who ran and lost in the District 5 primary, also alleges that victor Janey Baldwin and another of the six GOP candidates, Bobbi Mills, went too far in their attacks on her. When she asked local party leaders to intervene, Covell said, nothing was done.
Mills, Covell charges, characterized her to voters as crass and abrasive, while Baldwin and her husband, Tom, called her "a Hitler," she says.
"When the political speech turned to hate speech," Covell said, "they crossed the line."
Mills said she may have said things similar to what Covell alleges but that she did not make a point of it and that Covell, whom she said became unfriendly once the campaign began, had overreacted.
"I was not abusive to her," Mills said. "I did not try to spread rumors about her. I was doing my own thing."
Baldwin denies that she or her husband ever called Covell a Hitler and chalked up Covell's resignations to sour grapes after her primary loss.
"Anna Liisa can't seem to take defeat very well," Baldwin said. "It's so unfortunate."
Republican Executive Committee chairwoman Ana Trinque said Covell never made a personal request to her to turn down the heat in the campaign, but that she had been forced to rein some people in - with limited success.
"It's a political campaign, and things started to get rough there at the end," Trinque said. "You can't force people to stop being mean. The bottom line is that we can only do so much."
Covell said a supporter of hers had taken down the script of a call received from one of Adkins' campaign staffers. According to Covell, the script read: "I'm calling from the Hernando County Republican Executive Committee headquarters. I need you to vote for James Adkins on Aug. 31 in the Republican primary."
Trinque said that it was true the REC was not endorsing any candidate. The script Adkins used had been reviewed by the REC and did not read as Covell described it, she said.
"There was nothing wrong with the script," Trinque said. "We were very satisfied that everything was done on the up and up."
According to Adkins, the actual script was as follows: "Hi, my name is ... . I am calling from the Hernando County Republican headquarters to remind you to vote on Aug. 31, and to vote for James E. Adkins for County Commission, District 5. Thank you."
Adkins said the script could in no way be interpreted as an endorsement.
Covell charges that the REC only offered its phone banks to a select few contenders, keeping out those in disfavor with the local party. Trinque denies that, and Baldwin, at least, said it was her understanding the phone bank was open for use by all candidates.
According to Covell, Adkins had use of the party phones because GOP leaders in Brooksville had chosen Adkins as their preferred candidate. She said she was sick of old-guard Brooksville Republicans hanging on to their power at any cost, even as the local party's base has expanded to include voters in Spring Hill and eastern Hernando.
"There's a brave new world out there," Covell said. "That got lost on them in Brooksville a long time ago."
Adkins said he moved to the county in 1959 and knew a lot of people, old guard and new, but that he was nobody's back-door candidate.
"Nobody, I promise you, asked me to run," he said.
While leaving behind local party groups - Covell resigned from the REC months ago to run for office - she said she will remain a registered Republican.
