Tonight was the monthly casual get-together for Democrats in Pensacola. We have some good people here who are fighting hard to make some real, positive, changes for the Florida Panhandle and the United States.
Joe Roberts is running to replace Jeff Miller (R) as the Representative from District 1 of Florida.
Liz Campbell is running to replace Holly Benson (R) as State Representative in Tallahasse.
Both of these candidates are great people that I'd like to tell you more about on the flip.
The get-together started a little slow as the local candidates for Circuit Judge spoke about that race. I won't spend too much time on that race since it is local to this district, but there are 4 candidates running for 1 seat that may or may not be changing, depending on whether Jeb Bush signs some legislation or not. Judicial candidates are not allowed to be partisan, so they are limited in what they can campaign on. As a consequence all 4 gave a very nice speech, but it got a little slow.
Liz Campbell woke us right back up again with her impassioned discussion of the issues here in Northwest Florida. Our current Republican representative is literally a rubber stamp Republican who has voted the party line even when her constituents have wanted her to vote otherwise. Liz, on the other hand, has fire. She just retired from the Navy after 22 years of service, and wants to continue serving her country in the Florida Legislature. She has strong and well-formed opinions about how to improve the schools in this district, which are in need of help. Teachers here are paid an average of $6000 less per year than their peers in the rest of the country, and we face class size problems that limit the effectiveness of the teachers we do have. Liz also talked about the 1/3 of the homeless population in Florida that are Veterans, and how she want to make sure they get the health and disability care they need. This is very important in our highly military district. Link to more about Liz below.
Joe Roberts is taking on Republican Jeff Miller. Like our state representative, Miller is as rubber stamp as they get except that he has also taken money from Jack Abramoff. I spoke with Joe Roberts for a few minutes after the meeting and he strongly supports national health care. He is also an advocate for renewable fuels, and has some good thoughts about Ethanol on his website. He is a Veteran who fought in Vietnam and has served in the Air Force Reserve and Army and Air National Guard. Again, this is very important in this district.
Joe recently returned from a trip to Washinton where he discussed funding issues with the DCCC. Because the Panhandle of Florida is very conservative the DCCC has been hesitiant to send money here.
Joe Roberts can use some help with Jeff Miller's voting record. If anyone here has it compiled please email it to Joe through his website. I thought I saw something about it here the other day.
But neither Joe nor Liz had neard much about the blogosphere, and the power that this group of people here can bring to bear. Until tonight. Now they are both interested to hear more. I feel that Daily Kos has been greatly enhanced by the various candidates that have blogged here, and invited both candidates to consider contributing. I'm sending them a link to DKos and hopefully you will hear from them soon!
Speaking of contributing, because of the current lack of support from the national party, both of these cadidates can use some support from the blogosphere. I'll be emailing them the link for ActBlue, but in the meantime here are their websites:
Liz Campbell: www.lizcampbell2006.com
Joe Roberts: www.joeroberts.us
Stop by and drop them an email to let them know you heard about them on DailyKos! And if you have Miller's voting record compiled please send that along as well!