Chicken?

The political mailer wars have begun which means that political season is in full swing. As voters, we usually do not pay attention to campaign mailers because the messages they contain can put even our brand of un-news to shame. But with the local media not capable of covering the elections, except for the ads they are happy to get paid to print, mailers are sometimes all we see of our local candidates. Many times, trying to track down a candidate phone number that actually works or is answered by a candidate is as tough as finding the lids to plastic food containers after you run them through the dishwasher. The lids, like the candidates, can never be found.

Again, we emphasize that mailers are not the best judge of any candidate running for office. They are usually filled with tabloid-esque fairy tales that do little to explain a candidate's understanding of the issues. A good example is a mailer sent out by Mayor Jim Swan of the City of Kissimmee who is seeking re-election. On his mailer he proudly states that "While Mayor of the City of Kissimmee, we have worked diligently to reduce the financial burden on home owners," which is only true because the the State of Florida and the voters forced the local governments to cut property taxes. The city, including the Mayor was a vocal opponent of the tax cuts, and wasted meeting after meeting explaining why the voters should vote against Amendment 1. We guess when you claim that you have "Honesty and Integrity," no one will notice when you stretch the truth a little.

Another piece we got our hands on was a mailer from County Commissioner Bill Lane who is also running for re-election in the District 5 race. His piece is great because it drives home the point of prayer at public meetings and how he believes so strongly in it. The piece is great because it is being used to cover up a flip-flop on this issue once held by Mr. Lane. This is not his first flip-flop of course. He flip-flopped on the necessity for the "Preserve" project that originally he supported and then was against. We assume that we will see a mailer defining his position on this issue as well, and we will hope that this one will look a little nicer.

The newest mailer in the mailer wars that we have seen come out is one by Thomas Chalifoux who is trying to run for State Representative in District 79. Thomas Chalifoux has ended up in a real mess of a situation by not making sure he did everything possible to comply with a vague law that describes when a sitting candidate has to resign before they can attempt to run for another seat. Rumor has it that Mike Horner helped someone file a lawsuit against Mr. Chalifoux to stop him from being able to run. The WayneWho staff believes that if Mr. Chalifoux has broken the law, even if it is a horribly vague law, he should not run. If Mr. Horner happens to be the one to catch the mess-up, then so be it, he should not take flack for pointing out a law that is on the books. What we find sad is that Mr. Horner does not have the political will to stand up on his own and point out the issues and instead has decided to hide behind someone else for fear of his campaign being derailed. If he is going to hide on an issue like this, then we have to wonder what he will do when his friend Randy Johnson comes in and tries to bully his way around to suck our county dry for his beloved "Destiny" housing project. Will he go hide when tough decisions need to be made?

Regardless of all that, we think the mailer that is being sent out by Thomas Chalifoux is great. As you can see it has a picture of Mike Horner and it has a picture of a chicken. No one can miss that symbolism now can they? We also like the fact that he points out that Mr. Horner was once a democrat but has changed parties to run for office? Seems like there is a lot of that going around these days. Maybe the Democrats just need to change their name to the "Formerly Republican Party."