Tag Archives: elections

November Elections Update

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | Leave a comment

by joe courter

We’re two months from Election Day on Nov. 6 as this Iguana goes to print. We will have another edition out in early October, but now the campaigning has moved from the primaries to the main elections.

From our point of view, the primaries went well with one exception. There was one surprise in the District 21 race, and on this I must apologize. Both candidates in the race were good, and, without a lot of research, I went with the candidate who had more name recognition and money – Aaron Bosshardt – as the incumbent Republican Keith Perry was going to be hard to unseat.

Well, Andrew Morey (Bosshardt’s opponent) knocked on a lot of doors with a grassroots campaign and beat Bosshardt in the primary, and we couldn’t be happier.

We have subsequently found Morey to be an excellent candidate, and Bosshardt has rolled his campaign into Morey’s. This is a winnable race, and we encourage volunteers to help out.

Locally, we also hope people will jump in on the County races listed below with whatever support they can give. This is a pivotal election for both the Alachua County Commission and the Alachua County School Board, and these candidates will make a big difference in the coming years for our County.

The U.S. Congress District 3 had a surprise on the Republican side when the Tea Party’s Ted Yoho knocked out long time Congressman Cliff Stearns. Yoho will now face JR Gaillot, a Democrat who had no primary opponent. This is a pretty stacked conservative district, so it’ll be an uphill battle. It’ll be interesting if the talkative Yoho will agree to the rigorous debate schedule Gaillot is requesting.

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Posted in Articles, September 2012

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Note from the Publisher

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

by joe courter

Okay, the primary elections are behind us, and come November the voting begins.

This election is pivotal on both the national and local levels. With the selection of Paul Ryan as Romney’s VP, this presidential race may be a referendum on how government should work in America; in the words of Ryan, individualism vs. collectivism.

This Ayn Rand inspired libertarian ideology has been bubbling, some might say festering, below the surface of American politics for decades. It opposed FDR’s New Deal from the get-go, and still seethes at the welfare system, and any thought of a national healthcare system. It hates regulation on business, be it banking, energy or commerce. It wants privatization of the public sector, from government programs like Social Security to drilling by corporations for oil and gas in our National Parks.

Its adherents have been very successful in using their money and connections to get their ideology into the mainstream, creating the Heritage Society and the Cato Institute and many other “think tanks,” which the docile corporate media has come to accept as the third voice in our political debate. It can generate huge campaign donations from the rich and corporations because its policies, if enacted, will save and make them even MORE money.

This is a wake-up call that brings to mind the old bumper sticker/button slogan, “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.”

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Posted in Articles, September 2012

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The Iguana Guide To The Aug. 14 Election

Posted on July 14, 2012 by | Leave a comment

by joe courter

There’s Election Day, when all should cast an informed vote, and then there is the Process and all the varied ways one can participate in the build-up to the day(s) when votes are cast.

Those who don’t vote because of their disappointment in the national races hurt all those local candidates whose term in office will affect you directly and for whom your vote is significantly more powerful. Like I said last month, people died for their right to vote; it is not too much to ask for you to participate.

So on the big scale, where are we? On Nov. 6 there will be a Democrat and a Republican. We know them. There will be the Green party and the Libertarian Party, both small, principled and, as usual, ignored by the media. The proposed other third party effort – one Dem and one Repub in an online-determined primary ballot called “America Elects” – quietly collapsed in mid-May. That kind of killed the idea of a major third voice getting into the D&R party-controlled debates.

What we will have is a pretty sharp contrast between the disappointing but eloquent Obama and the less articulate and tied to a hard right party Romney. And a tsunami of right-wing money unleashed by Citizens United muddying the discussion to a point of potential disgust for most sane people.

It will be a long 18 weeks from press time in July to the vote. Money and greed have us in a bad mess. Military Madness has the world hating us.

Locally we have City and County governments hamstrung from Tallahassee budget cuts, trying to deal with the shortfall amid much squealing about paying taxes to make up for it by the Republicans (whose own party did all the cutting in Tallahassee in the first place). Add to that the poisoned political climate fostered by hate radio and the corporate media, which focuses on the simplistic and sensational.

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Posted in Articles, July-August 2012

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Elections Matter!

Posted on May 25, 2012 by | Leave a comment

BY JOE COURTER

Dr. Martin L. King Jr. said in his “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” “One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”

Suppressing voter turnout is but the mirror image to ballot box stuffing, same effect. Unfairly drawn districts, negative advertising powered by huge corporate donations, an election campaign process that keeps many great potential public servants from running,  a news media focused on the shallow and sensational, and a right-wing talk radio industry all work to increase cynicism. These are forces that put us to sleep. People died to get the right to vote, and now we have a majority of voters sitting on their hands come election day. It is not a healthy situation.

Has Obama been a disappointment? Heck yeah. But do we give the steering wheel back to the ones who drove us into the ditch last time? Hell no! Three words: The Supreme Court. This is not a time to stay home to “send a message,” we did that in 2010; it wasn’t that the Rs came out big, it was the Ds who stayed home. I’ll take a disappointment over a disaster.

But there are other reasons to vote, and that is the power of the vote locally needs to be ready to counter the attempted Republican takeover of the Alachua County Commission. The voting in the primaries takes place August 14.

The Iguana strongly endorses Byerly, Hutchinson and Chestnut for the County Commission, and Wheeler for the District 20 State House seat, who faces a tough Primary race. You can find links to the candidates’ info through the Supervisor of Elections website.

If you’ve got the time or resources, plug in in any way you can; there are a lot of really good folks in this town who participate in the electoral campaign process regularly. And if you are a student, or a temporary resident, there’s been talk of suppressing your vote by some in the Republican legislature. You are representing the future waves of students, get registered and vote!

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Posted in Articles, May-June 2012

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Upcoming Important Elections – County, State and National

Posted on April 11, 2012 by | Leave a comment

As we look forward to the elections season this year, it is obvious that big money is flexing its muscle. In the presidential race, Romney (or “R.money”) has simply buried his opponents with his huge war chest and all the negative campaigning that large money permits – the ads, the robo-calls, the opinion research and push polls.

Well, get ready Alachua County. The Republican Party is gonna be trying to buy seats on the County Commission. Even though the qualifying period for candidates isn’t until early June, they have their high-funded candidates picked out. and they are piling up the money.

In District One, Mike Byerly’s seat, Brandon C. Kutner already has $11,000. In District Three, which pro-science environmentalist Robert Hutchinson will be running for, the

R’s have Jean Calderwood with $13,000. And then in District Five, local developer’s son Dean Cheshire already has $25,000!

And this is before the April 10 reporting period information comes in; all this money came in before February. The Supervisor of Elections site is very handy to follow the money.

That is not to say the Dems won’t raise some serious money, but from where and what increments is significant to study.

There will be primary elections to thin the field down on Aug. 14. The main election is, of course, Nov. 6.

It is not too early to volunteer and get the word out about the good candidates. We’d suggest in Alachua County support for Byerly, Hutch and Chestnut.

One other candidate needs a mention. Maryhelen Wheeler will (as of now) face Clovis Watson in a Democratic Party primary on Aug. 14 for the District 20 Florida House of Representatives seat. She is a newcomer to electoral politics, but a woman of great experience in education issues, trying to get things done in Tallahassee as an advocate for our schools. Watson has a record of questionable conduct from his time in the City of Alachua as City Manager, and at one point renounced the Democrats and very publicly joined the Republican Party. Now, supposedly, he is back to being a Democrat. Please support Wheeler. Again, the supervisor of election’s site has contact info for the candidates. If you’ve got time, do what you can.

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Posted in April 2012, Articles

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