There's kind of a nice feeling about that. The paper's actually excellent endorsement declares John Russell more knowledgeable and declares him more fit than his opponent, longtime incumbent Ginny Brown Waite.
Here is their endorsement yesterday for John Russell in FL District 5.
U.S. Representative, Dist. 5: John RussellBrown-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 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.
John has been shunned by the Florida Democatic Party leaders. This is the same state Democratic party that encouraged the attacks on Howard Dean, when in reality they knew he was right all along about having rules that a party must follow. They evicted John from the state convention. Here is autorank's very thorough post about it. The reason? John had made Karen Thurman mad by questioning some party donations to her son who was running in another district. John also questioned Karen's lobbying connections with the former head of the Florida Republicans.
Pro Wrassler used to toss progressive candidate from FL Dem ConventionHow weird Florida has become. The Florida Democratic Party Chair gaves her son campaign contributions in 2006 for a minor state race while denying any money to 8 progressive Dems running for congress. She denied it. But then she was caught when hard evidence verified the contribution. The guy who exposed her was 2005 Democratic Congressional candidate John Russell.
So Russell shows up at the Florida Democratic Convention and what happens. He's tossed out by a former professional wrestler, Ivan the Terrible. What a joke! The Chair of FDP has a $3500 monthly retainer with the leading Republican power broker in Florida's law firm, has raised just 1/3rd the funds of the Republicans, and has created so much chaos, we'll probably lose the state in 2008.
On October 27, 2007, John Russell went to the Peace Rally in Orlando, then he went to the annual Florida Democratic Party Convention. After walking in the doors carrying signs promoting John Edwards for president and saying hello to Clint Curtis’ supporters who know John from his work on election reform, Mitch Kates rushes over, pushes John, and says, "Why are you here. You weren’t invited. You have to leave."
Then, Mitch realizes that John has supporters with him and the camera is on, and Mitch takes his overly aggressive behavior down a couple of notches. John had been invited to the convention as he is a Democrat who has worked to help Democrats get elected for years and as he won the Party’s nomination for Florida’s district 5 Congressional seat in 2006.
However, this is not the first time that John has been told that he cannot attend a Democratic function. After John confirmed the Miami Herald’s reports that former Florida Republican Party chair, Al Cardenas, had arranged to provide lobbying fees for Florida Democratic Party chair, Karen Thurman, and after John had asked why the FDP leaders had not helped him and other anti-war Democrats get elected, John was informed that he was not allowed to attend the Pasco County Democratic Party’s fundraiser. See the Tampa Tribune article - Dark Horse Raises Fist at Democrats
http://www.tbo.com/pasco/MGB82X2KW7F.html Autorank's post is long.
John has been treated very badly by Florida bloggers who often tend to side with the party no matter what. He is controversial? Yes. So am I. So is anyone who speaks out on issues that make people squirm.
There is no change without controversy.
John was also not permitted to attend a
fundraiser being held in his county. Here is more of what happened when he wanted to attend a fundraiser for a county. This is another email from another Florida Democrat. It is referring to the same county chair, but this time the statement is made he can not attend the fundraiser. Permission to share, but I am leaving out names. This is a very bad situation.
"As a firm believer in freedom of speech and our democracy, I feel I must make people aware of a recent action taken against a formerly nominated Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, John Russell, by the Chair of the _____ Democratic Executive Committee. I had mailed a check in the amount of $150.00 to cover the costs for myself and two guests to attend the "United We Stand" fundraiser being held on October 12, 2007 at __________. I received a call from one of the organizers asking for the names of my guests and provided those names, one of whom was John Russell. Within 10 minutes, I received a call from the Chair of the _________. She informed me that John Russell would not be allowed to attend and that he would be "stopped at the door" if he showed up. Her reason was that he was "disruptive".
Let's summarize this. A former candidate whom the party shut out before, with a state congresswoman even praising his opponent, Ginny Brown Waite....was told he could not run again, and also was told he could not attend a fundraiser or he would be stopped at the door.
Something is very wrong with that picture.
The Sunshine State Democrats need to start letting more sunlight into the party.
I guess I am feeling a little guilty pleasure that The Ledger saw qualities his own party had denied. I think it is impressive that the paper is endorsing him over a long time Republican incumbent Ginny Brown Waite....whom incidently Debbie Wasserman Schultz and several other major Florida Democratic leaders informally endorsed.
Congratulations to
John Russell
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