by Joe Courter
With early voting already in progress, the Iguana strongly endorses Craig Lowe for Mayor of Gainesville, and encourages support for his campaign in getting out the vote. Craig is part of a team of forward-looking individuals on the Commission, and, while not a gifted public speaker and encumbered by the fallout of a recent DUI arrest when he dozed off behind the wheel and ran off the road, all this pales compared to his opponent Ed Braddy, a right-wing talk radio jock with his own DUI history (a 2006 accident where he blew a .18—double the legal limit). According to other Commissioners who served with Braddy his first time around, he was very bad on civil rights and homelessness issues, slack on attendance, and generally difficult to work with, both with fellow commissioners and staff. This isn’t just the Iguana talking; in a recent letter to the Gainesville Sun, 19 (nineteen!) present and former elected officials sent in a letter endorsing Craig Lowe. This is the opening paragraph:
“As mayors, city commissioners, county commissioners, legislators and school board members who have served collectively more than 150 years in office, we recognize that like most normal people, neither of our current candidates for mayor is without flaws. Both have violated the law, and both have apologized and accepted the consequences the legal system has assigned. The difference is that Mayor Craig Lowe has been an active advocate for the positive efforts of the City of Gainesville for the past decade, and Ed Braddy has been a relentless, inflammatory, and often dishonest critic.”
You can read the full letter here.
The idea of a glib and abrasive Tea Party libertarian as a Gainesville mayor is not an attractive picture. A mixed bag of anti biomass activists have jumped into the Braddy campaign to continue their bashing of the Commission and Lowe in particular, but we hope the big picture and common sense will prevail.
Run-offs are all about getting out the vote, and that’s what we hope happens on Tuesday, April 16.