http://www.theledger.com/article/20081030/NEWS/810300342&tc=email_newsletter (Podcasts of Both Brown-Waite and John Russell's editorial board interviews are found at the link shown above).
< U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, DIST. 5 >
U.S. Representative, Dist. 5: John Russell
Published: Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 1:10 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 8:01 a.m.
U.S. House District 5 comprises all or parts of eight counties in Florida's West Central region, including Pasco, Hernando, Lake, Citrus, Levy, Marion and Sumter counties, and the northwest corner of Polk County. For the past six years, the seat has been held by Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville.
PODCAST: go to link above...
In her bid for a fourth term, Brown-Waite, 65, faces a rematch with John Russell, 51, an acute-care nurse practitioner. Russell, D-Dade City, was defeated by a 3-2 ratio by Brown-Waite two years ago.
Brown-Waite first gained congressional office after serving 10 years in the Florida Senate, where she developed a reputation of being able to break from the Republican Party line when the vote really mattered. Her siding with the late Gov. Lawton Chiles over an important tobacco-issue vote that resulted in a multibillion-dollar settlement with the tobacco companies comes to mind as one of the most significant.
Her political epiphanies recently: She voted to raise the minimum wage. She has supported increased federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Those epiphanies don't come very often any more. She has been a strong supporter of the war in Iraq. Drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - and even off the coast of Florida - is fine by her. She has opposed mandatory funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Indeed, she has turned cantankerous. Consider her tone-deaf positions on social issues: Lower-level sexual offenders (such as one convicted as an older teenager of having sex with a younger teen) deserve no consideration in housing access; it's a local matter. There is no difference in rights between homosexual couples and gay couples (unsaid is that gay couples often have to hire attorneys to assert their rights).
And of most universal application in Polk County, there is no barrior to affordable health care. Federal funding has been awarded in Polk for this purpose, Brown-Waite told The Ledger's Editorial Board. The site: the Polk County Health Department in Bartow. Tell a family that lives in Kathleen that their treatment worries for a sick spouse or child are over - just head down to the Health Department.
The trip is 22 miles and takes 45 minutes to drive, one way. The Health Department is a fine operation, but - regardless of federal funding - it is not the sole health-care solution for a county the size of a small state, with a population of 560,000.
Brown-Waite has also refused to make joint appearances with Russell, who is considerably knowledgeable on the issues. She has not been at political forums in Citrus, Pasco and Hernando counties, and turned down an invitation to be on a televised debate on WEDU, Channel 3-Tampa.
A campaign spokesman said it was because Congress had to have an extended session over the financial crisis. But Brown-Waite has make it clear she doesn't want to encourage such encounters. "Well, quite honestly, being in the same room with him isn't exactly on my top tier of things I want to subject myself to," Brown-Waite told the St. Petersburg Times' Editorial Board on Oct. 9, the newspaper reported. "Nor would anybody in their right mind."
She writes off Russell as temperamental. Yet his challenge this year can't be dismissed so offhandedly. Like Brown-Waite, Russell opposes the federal financial bailout, but presents an alternative: "They should first have required all the companies to sell off their junk for whatever they could get," he said. "Then we could have injected liquidity into the firms, requiring that the government get senior preferred stock in exchange. That would mean the United States would be at the top of the list for being repaid," he said.
He also faults Brown-Waite for being asleep at the switch because she sits on the House Financial Services Committee with subcommittees in Capital Markets, and on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.
Russell also is well-grounded on health-care issues and, doesn't buy the argument (asBrown-Waite does; remember the Kathleen-to-Bartow trip) that increasing federal funding for health-care centers will provide better access to health care.
Russell offers a thoughtful alternative: "Worst-case scenario," he says, "you can vote me out in two years." The Ledger recommends John Russell, representative in Congress, District 5.
< Note: Audio and video podcasts accompany this editorial at TheLedger.com/podcast - no iPod necessary. Listen to interviews with this race's candidates, or watch a "One Tough Question" excerpt. The podcasts may be played directly on a standard personal computer. Or download free at the iTunes Store for use on an iPod or similar player, search: Lakeland Ledger. >
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