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Campaigning
Candidates Playing Dirty
Campaign tricks range from the creative to the sinister.
Sham opponents?
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a top GOP target in 2010, is facing stiff competition in his re-election bid. But would the first-term Democratic lawmaker go so far as to lend his support to a "sham" Tea Party candidate to try to siphon votes from Republicans to boost his own chances?
Grayson says no, but that's what some Grayson critics, Republicans and self-proclaimed "bona-fide" Tea Party activists believe is happening.
Supporting their conclusions, they say, is the fact that Grayson's campaign paid $11,000 to an Orlando-based political polling shop called Public Opinion Strategies. The company was formed by Victoria Torres, who recently declared herself a Florida Tea Party candidate for a seat in state House District 51. Torres, 44, has said she created the company in 2008 with help from Doug Guetzloe, a controversial political consultant who, along with Windermere attorney Fred O'Neal, created the official "Florida Tea Party" last year. Republican Tea Party activists, however, have sued Guetzloe and O'Neal, claiming their party organization is not affiliated with true grassroots Tea Party movement and that the duo hijacked the name for their own purposes. Guetzloe and O'Neal deny those charges, and Guetzloe filed a defamation suit against his detractors.
A June 14 article by the Orlando Sentinel points out several connections between Grayson and Guetzloe: Grayson appointed Guetzloe to a small-business advisory panel; one of Guetzloe's sons interned in Grayson's congressional office; Grayson's campaign has purchased several thousand dollars worth of campaign ads to run during Guetzloe's radio show.
Grayson's campaign says that any suggestion of a link between him and the Tea Party is preposterous and nothing more than a "conspiracy theory." Peg Dunmire, the Tea Party candidate running against Grayson in November, also denies that she's a spoiler candidate in the race.
Sign of the times?
 Greg Brown and his wife were caught removing an opponent's campaign signs.?Go to the next page to see video of the incident. |
Campaign yard signs are easy targets. In North Miami, vandals defaced several "Scott Galvin for U.S. Congress" signs with anti-gay slurs. Galvin, an openly gay Democrat who serves on the North Miami City Council, was seeking the Democratic nomination for Congress in Florida's 17th district. Meanwhile, across Alligator Alley, someone defaced three campaign signs for Collier County Commission candidate Georgia Hiller, changing the first "l" in her name to a "t" so that it would read Hitler. The perpetrators also painted a small black mustache on a photograph of the GOP candidate.
In July, Doug Broxson, a Republican candidate in Florida state House District 1, videotaped his opponent, Greg Brown, and Brown's wife removing several signs by Highway 87 in Milton. Broxson says signs had been disappearing for some time and that his son put an infrared video camera in the bushes to see who was responsible.
Brown says the Broxson signs in question were located on the property of one of his supporters, and that Broxson did not have permission to place his signs there so he and his wife were removing them. Brown told a Pensacola TV station that the video was "deliberately taken and distributed" to the media, various e-mail lists and the sheriff's department to make it appear as if he had "participated in some type of juvenile campaign trick." The sheriff is looking into the matter.
Next page: Video of the incident with state Sen. Al Lawson and the Broxson sign-stealing.
