Blair is the *only* candidate running for *anything* this cycle who seems to care more about doing the job she seeks than having it. She is more serious than anybody else- and my only endorsement.
By Billy Townsend
I voted early on Tuesday as a Republican for the August 20 primary. I was the only person in line; and it felt like I was voting in world’s dumbest, lowest-energy dictatorship. Welcome to Florida and Polk County.
My GOP ballot, riddled with useless, status-hungry candidates with no personal agency or sense of public service, was a bleak experience. We’re supposed to care which soulless ATM machines for gross, thirsty “political consultants” like Anthony Pedicini and Dena DeCamp and Eric Robinson win their GOP primaries?
Bleeechh. Yuck. Gross.
This is, by far, the most pathetic and pointless election cycle of my 25 years in Lakeland and Polk County, especially on the GOP side. It has the least dignity and self-respect.
Unless ya’ll punish Jennifer Canady in the general, literally nothing will come of this election cycle that matters to anyone but the candidates themselves, their Pedicinis, and their sense of status.
And bless my heart, I just could not choose between gross fake Christian Ed Shoemaker and January 6th Capitol Lynch Mob enthusiast J.C. Martin for Republican committeeman. A 0-0 tie would be the best outcome; and that’s how I voted.
I have personal moral limits on what I’m willing to inflict on you, my weak fellow Republicans. Ed and J.C. cross those limits.
Except for Blair Allen, who is awesome
There was one exception to all that gross, though— one moment of joy: blackening the oval for my fellow Republican Blair Allen for Public Defender. She will matter.
Blair is already a dedicated public defender, taking on a large active caseload along with significant management responsibilities. She has an idealistic view of the law and an ability to get along with everyone.
Blair has run a great, extended campaign. It pulls together a diverse political and social coalition of folks who understand that a Public Defender is the “quality control,” as Blair likes to say, for the power of prosecution. Blair advocates ceaselessly for the importance of that function and the office itself.
How important is the Public Defender? Well, Leo Schofield says that his greatest mistake as a wrongly-convicted murder defendant was following an inmate’s advice and firing his public defender in favor of an expensive, prominent, has-been lawyer.
Blair is eager to brand the office in a way that prevents such a tragic mistake in the future.
The ranks of the serious Republicans need reinforcement
There are a small handful of public and/or institutional leaders in Polk County who actually care about doing their jobs more than having their jobs — who do not, in one way or another, grift the public they serve. They know who they are. And they keep the wheels of this county turning and the lights on, as the cliche goes.
The grifting clowns — the Ben Sasses and Richard Corcorans and J.C. Martins and Ed Showmakers and Seth McKeels and Pedicinis — who dominate GOP leadership would call all these people “libs,” whatever their party, precisely because they care about their jobs as a public good, rather than a self-congratulatory grift.
“Lib” is just another word for “serious” in the modern political vocabulary, even for a GOPer. In my view, my fellow Republican Blair Allen would instantly belong to that class of serious leaders. That’s a vanishingly rare quality in a Polk County leader/candidate. We need more of it.