The Anti-Growth Tidal Wave Turned Out To Be A Faucet Leak

The political tidal wave that the social media junkies were attempting to recreate to take over the Republican party in Manatee county turned out to be a faucet leak. McClash and his commentators tried tirelessly to manipulate the voters into believing that defeating Ballard, Rahn, Poulton and Connerly would create “Nirvana” in Manatee county. 

The voters looked at the candidates that McClash was pushing and did not see a group that had the intellectual capacity to address the important issues in our county.

These candidates hung together like a pack of young teenage boys at their first middle school dance. The alpha of the pack was Eddie Spier who looked and spoke like a true-believer in a multi-level marketing scam. He could not figure out what costume he wanted to wear. He was pretending to be both a Revolutionary war soldier and a bad-ass extra on a Yellowstone episode. The majority of voters in our area could not imagine this character accomplishing anything in Washington D.C. except making our county look like a collection of rubes.

Spier was followed around by Glen Gibellina who has never been Tseriously by any mature politician. Gibellina continues to comment, by phone or in person, multiple times in county commission meetings. Gibellina never believed the maxim that “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” His lack of expertise on a subject never never stopped him from giving his opinion. His endorsement by McClash made voters question McClash’s expertise on other subjects.

The next member of the pack was Ed Ference who bragged about being a long-term county employee. Most voters are concerned about the growth of our local government and don’t believe a long-term employee is going to be able to cut the fat out of the work force. 

Another member of the Spier posse was Melton Little. A life-long Democrat with a history of serious ethical issues was not the candidate to help the posse gain the trust of the voters. 

Ed Bailey was another member of the group who seemed to still be in college and under the control of Commissioner McCann. His willingness to join this posse of social media quacks can be explained away by his youthful inexperience.

Captain Phillips thought that beating an experienced engineer who was an incumbent could be accomplished by merely claiming to be opposed to development. His membership in the Spiers posse gave pause to many Manatee voters.

How did this group expect to be taken seriously by the voters? If your whole campaign focus consists of one issue like development, you probably are not going to convince voters that you should be in charge of a multi-billion dollar budget. This motley crew also thought that they could gain political mileage by joining the looney fringe of animal lovers who wanted to dramatically increase the taxpayer funding of animal shelters. 

Manatee county is a growing area that is facing major issues associated with growth. Development is not the only issue on the mind of voters. Simply shouting “Stop Development” is the equivalent of saying that we can balance the federal budget by merely cutting spending. You might get a big round of applause at your political group meeting but not many voters are going to take you seriously.