I wanted some new blood in the U.S. Congress in the Florida Fifth District seat, and it's going to happen. It's too bad that incumbent GOP Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite didn't handle her retirement in an open and honest way. Rather, it looks like more "politics as usual" will determine the Republican candidate in the November election. Here's an article...

http://www2.hernandotoday.com/conten...-selfish-exit/

So, who are choices to replace Mrs. Brown-Waite?

Republicans

• Jason Sager, who calls himself a "Jeffersonian Republican" and is a local tea party activist. He lived in New York City for a number of years where he was a street organizer for conservative street activists called the Protest Warriors. He is a high school graduate and a former Navy enlisted man and is employed as an audio-visual engineer. He has no prior experience in elected office at any level. He has a website, but other than saying he's for state's rights, strictly following the Constitution and supporting the military, he takes no position on any other issue.

• Dick Nugent is the Hernando County Sheriff from Mrs. Brown-Waite's hometown of Brooksville. Nugent never publicly announced his candidacy for Congress, but filed just before the deadline last Friday, the same day Mrs. Brown-Waite announced her retirement after having been secretly encouraged to file to run as her replacement. Until Brown-Waite's retirement announcement on the filing deadline, no other Republican candidates chose to run against the four-time Congresswoman. Obviously, Nugent is Brown-Waite's attempt at hand-picking her replacement. Nugent is almost completely unknown in Florida politics. He has issued no statements on his political beliefs, his bio isn't even listed on the St. Pete Times "Know Your Candidate" website, and he has no website of his own.

Democrats

• Jim Piccillo is a small business consultant and mortgage re-negotiator, a retired Army paratrooper, and holds an MBA degree. He is a former Republican who changed to the Democratic party. He has no prior experience in elected office. He has a complete website that describes his position on a wide range of issues.

• Tom Doolan is a lawyer, a Chicago native with degrees from Northern Illinois University and a law degree from Florida A&M. He has no experience in prior elected office and has a website explaining his positions on a variety of issues.

• H. David Werder is running for Congress for a third time. He is a retired truck-driver and describes his home as "out on Powell Road where the chickens and the outhouse are". Wherever Dave lives, he explains that he has no toilet facilities in his house because he couldn't afford the county impact fee and that he believes that 99 cents a gallon is too much to pay for gas. He has no experience in prior elected office.

So there you go. Our next Congressman from Florida's 5th District will be one of these candidates. We can't really get into a discussion on the campaign platforms of the candidates--that might be tough because three of the five haven't said where they stand on the major issues facing the country. The candidate "hand-picked" by our incumbent Congresswoman hasn't said anything about anything. He has yet to make a campaign appearance.

Lots of time until the election in November, but if the candidates in the other 434 Congressional districts aren't any more distinguished than this group, it's easy to see how 90%+ of incumbents get re-elected--and scary too!

Good Lord VK!!! Are you saying that a politician loyal to her own party played the system in place to try to give an advantage to an agenda of her own liking? Scandalous!!

I can't imagine that if a Democrat held this office that he/she would play politics in trying to hold their agenda into the next term.

No experience!!; Wow!!; That could be almost as bad as say a former community activist and novice Senator with absolutely no executive experience being elected to an executive office like say, (I know this would be ridiculous), President of the US.

Originally Posted by RichieLion

Good Lord VK!!! Are you saying that a politician loyal to her own party played the system in place to try to give an advantage to an agenda of her own liking? Scandalous!!...

No, she played the system to eliminate other candidates from her own party who might have run for her seat had they known she would retire. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing there might have been other GOP candidates other than Dick Nugent, who other than being Ginny's buddy from Brooksville, no one seems to know much about.

Right now, Nugent won't say much about his positions. It's impossible to know how much he will be willing to compromise his legacy for the sake of political advancement.

On the one hand, he says he wants to listen to voters and "won't take well'' to party leaders trying to tell him what to do.

On the other, he agreed to Ginny Brown-Waite's devious, last-minute qualifying plan that gave him the inside track for her seat.

It wasn't a good start. Not a start that would cause people to have the confidence in him that he will actually do a good job of independently representing the people of Florida's Fifth.