As you know, I'm a big supporter of Representative Keith Fitzgerald down in Florida State House District 69.
In 2006, he and his campaign manager, Duncan (my wife), ran one hell of a race, and won in a predominantly Republican district. He won despite the fact that they ran a very nasty campaign against him, at one point saying he was going to shred the fabric of democracy, or something along those lines. Keith responded by running a clean campaign, talking about the issues, and about what he was going to do in Tallahassee.
This made the Republicans very, very angry.
So this time around, they have decided to run Keith's opponent from last time, Laura Benson, again.
And they're using pretty much the same playbook. Nasty, personal attacks that are grossly unfair and remarkably far from true. And they're going to have spent nearly a million bucks to do it.
The Pelican Press has a pretty good article on just how awful this has been: Benson campaign turns ugly.
They launched a remarkably obscene web site a week or so ago, but since they pirated the copyrighted code from Keith's current site, they had to take it down. Well, now they've re-launched it.
That's okay.
Keith has a site which responds -- but responds appropriately.
Check it out: WeDeserveHonesty.com
Some people are willing to say anything to get elected. I’m not. Believe it or not, after two years in Tallahassee, I still care about the truth. In fact, I care about it more than ever. Anybody can run a sleazy, negative campaign. What takes more guts is NOT to. I still run a positive campaign. The people of this district chose me over Laura Benson in 2006, despite an onslaught of her vulgar ads distorting my views and positions. It did not work for her then. And with your help, it won’t work for her now either.
We've seen at lot of nastiness in this campaign -- from the top of the ticket on down to races like Keith's.
Every Floridian ought to be proud of Keith. It'd be real easy for him to go on the attack. In fact, it's tempting. But that's not what the the people of District 69 -- or Americans -- want or need. They want their politicians to engage in a dialogue about their differences, and they need them to find solutions to the real problems they're facing today.
visit the site. And after you watch that fantastic ad starring Keith's wife, Angela, do me a favor: sign the petition urging Laura Benson to stop these despicable smears against Keith. Then forwarded it to your friends.
Let's stand up for honest and decent politicians like Keith. After all, he stands up for us.
Cross posted at The Spencerian.