Taylor-don't get it.I drove out to the Clay Hill forum last night. The sign wars haven't reached that far out, and you see about an even ratio between Newman, Beseler, and Taylor signs. About half-way between Middleburg and Clay Hill I actually a guy with a Newman sign waving from the side of the road. That motivated me. I got to the forum about twenty minutes early, so I got my sign out and did a little bit of waving. I figure that maybe 50 people saw me. That leaves about 110,000 voters to go. All the local politicians have definitely picked up their game as far as delivering e minute speaches. To me, that makes it a little harder to decide a vote because everyone sounds good. They need to have some questions to throw them off their game, but with so many candidates that would have taken all night. This is the second forum I've gone to where I expected Ron Bradley and got his wife instead. This time he was meeting with a state senator, last time I think it was the Northeast Florida development council. It would be funny if you found out his wife was just a better public speaker and he was really at home watching reruns of LA Law. Mike Heemer gave a good speech, I guess he's running as a common sense fiscal conservative. What he should have done, in order to one-up Bradley, was to send someone in his place who could claim that Heemer was meeting with the governor. Of course, the next time Bradley would be meeting with the President, so Heemer would have to be meeting with the Senate to fix social security and oil prices, and I don't know where it would go after that... It's funny when you meet someone from the blogs in real life. Even though they have their pictures on their posts they always seem to look at little different. Marsha is taller than her picture, Heemer is balder. The order of speaking for the Sheriff candidates was Newman, Taylor, Beseler. Newman gave the strongest 3 minute speech I've heard from him so far. He also opened with a joke, "You see I have a broken foot. My wife says that's a good thing, because it keeps me from putting my foot in my mouth." People laughed, and he got some good applause afterwards. Then it was Taylor's turn. I had thought that after the extremely negative flyers, and the vandalism, and the Folio article, and the press conference, and after canceling the Fleming Island forum for fear of protesers, that Taylor would be about done. I thought that he might even get some boos from the audience. Nope. Wild applause, and not just from the people in the Taylor shirts either. Beseler gave a good speech. The high point was that there had been three robberies in the county this week, and they caught all the robbers. That's good news for all of us, but it makes it hard for Mr. Newman to run a positive campaign against the Sheriff of an office that is doing what it is supposed to be doing. The Sheriff's applause was louder than Taylor's, but not by much. I am questioning myself in that I had so misjudged the public opinion. Maybe I am getting tunnel vision from spending so much time on the blogs. Everybody here is against Taylor, but I guess that doesn't measure the sentiment accross the county. It could also be neither is a forum a good place to measure popular public sentiment. There are several things you can look at, but I don't know that any or even all together can accurately measure how 110,000 people are going to vote. I am also questioning myself as to why I dislike Taylor so much. The first thing that made me suspicious of him were all his union endorsements. However, there are a number of candidates with about the same endorsements as Taylor. The negative flyers annoyed me, but not all that much. For me a big Taylor negative is that his arguments are so baseless and self-contradictory. I think the real reason I dislike Taylor is his speaking style. Hearing him speak creeps me out. He reminds me of Peter Popoff. If I had ever been a Taylor supporter and had gone to hear him speak, I would have done some real hard thinking right then about changing my vote. I hope that the wild applause doesn't mean anything. I once heard Katja Palmer speak in a forum at the Middleburg Civic Association Building, they raised the roof when she finished. From that response I thought that she was guaranteed to win, but she didn't. Of course, she was running as a Democrat, Taylor isn't.
Submitted by Marsha on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:14pm.
Felix, I was not at the forum last night, were you at the press conference? Are you one of those bloggers who don't tell me who they are till after the fact? From what few forums I've gone to you have candidates, supporters of candidates and a very few others who're actually trying to make up their minds. I always meet bloggers though!!! Actually Mike had a stand in for the Green Cove Springs Merchantes Forum and that was me! Rob Bradley was at that one and that was the first time I got to speak with him. He's a great speaker, very cordial and friendly man, charming even. I don't dislike him personally at all and he is obviously enough of a stand up guy to understand not everyone wants him to be Chairman, I personally believe he reads these blogs. I don't want a Chairman at all and if we we gotta have one I think Mike Heemer will do a better job for the PEOPLE. I've only been around Mike Taylor once and he appeared the same as Rob Bradley, courteous, pleasant, great presentation, very personable etc, he made me laugh a couple of times at the Dukes BBQ. I still won't vote for him either. I think the applause at any forum is based upon who has the loudest supporters, they don't have to have the most.
Submitted by PrincessLeia on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:14pm.
Felix- I don't think that everyone on this blog is against Taylor, in fact I know they aren't. I think it may just seem that way because for the most part all you hear out of the Taylor supporters are insults and name calling. I tune that out, mostly. You have to decide for yourself. I trust my instinct in a lot of cases, until I am able to investigate something more substantial to go on. What matters most to me is the safety of myself and my family, and I truly feel that the current Sheriff is doing an outstanding job in that area. I read your other blog about the policy that is in place in the CCSO regarding having to use personal leave/sick leave before a person can go on light duty if hurt outside of the job. While I don't agree with that policy 100%, I would like to find out more about it. One of the first thoughts that struck me is, how many jobs can there be in the SO that a deputy could be assigned to? But I would like more information on it. I do know that there is a sick leave pool at the CCSO, but don't know much more than that. I think the policy may be on a case by case basis. Bottom line to me is, nothing/nobody is perfect. But I think the CCSO is doing a great job.
Submitted by Walt on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:21pm.
I didn't get to attend the forum last night but maybe you can answer a question for me. Since you met with Mike Heemer, is he really a "Big Fat Bully"? I had always imagined that he was a pretty fair minded individual.
Submitted by oneguysview on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:36pm.
I met Mr. Heemer last night before and after his 3 minutes and while not the thinnest guy in the room, I think he was thinner than me. But a bully? No way! He was cordial and then fired up. He really has the fire you need to run aginst the status quo and he is real firm on the beltway project. It does smell. Too much dough for too few to gain by it. The public is damned so a few insiders can reap windfall profits. Here's hopin the good guy wins for a change.
Submitted by finder on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:48pm.
Hey I resemble that remark! Felix; Thanks for the kind words. That was pretty much my first real opportunity to speak. The Forums are usually Republican things and because I'm not on the ticket as a Republican I don't get a time slot. common sense fiscal conservative That would be me. As for the Taylor/Beseler response it was loud. But that place was LOADED with both Green/Yellow (Taylor) shirts and Green/White (Beseler) shirts. When I first got there they were pretty much in one spot on opposite sides of the room. But after the break they seemed to kind of spread out through the entire audience. Lots of FOP shirts running around too. I thought Gary gave the best speech. Unfortunately he gets overshadowed by the big press big boys. But I would not write him off. I'm still convinced that he may be the best choice of the three at this point in time just because of the infighting at CCSO between the Taylor/Beseler factions. Mike Heemer Submitted by green-goblin on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 6:11pm.
Was it me or did Mr. taylor appear as if he was going to cry? I heard him talk about himself and his accomplishments but not about the real issues in the county. I actually thought that Mr. Newman and Sheriff Beseler did very well. Submitted by FelixKulpah on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 9:11pm.
Princess, I'm not really that sure about that information. It is the FOP side of the story, and the stuff on their website is from 2007. I was hoping that some deputies or FOP guys would weigh in and tell me how the light duty policy really works, but no bites. There doesn't seem to be much interest in the blog, I don't really think that labor issues in CCSO are anything that could swing many votes towards Newman. Mister W: By important, do you mean watching new episodes of LA Law? Kidding. While you are here, I do have a question for you. Now that Catchpole has been disqualified, and the primary opened up, does this swing the odds towards any candidate? Of course, I understand that you might not wish to speculate on an election in which you are running. I don't know about Rob Bradley. I have speculated on the Chair issue that there has been an ongoing attempt to consolidate the legislative power around one person. I'm catching hints from the CRC and CPVR sites that there is some kind of master plan to get the county moving; Bradley seems to be engaged in a number of activities, and like you Mrs. Bradley says that RB was detained on something important but was not giving out details. I feel that Bradley is behind a number of plans, but not knowing what those plans are makes me uneasy. Even if they are good plans, the whole chair thing seems to put a lot of committee power in one person. Marsha, you have to understand that the Kulpahs are a secretive race, that shine the brightest from the shadows... No, I didn't go to the press conference, we spoke at the Dukes bbq. You gave me a campaign pamplet and asked if I ever went on the MCS site. You might remember me, I look like a cross between a taller, more muscular Brad Pitt, and Mike Heemer, but with visible hair. Goblin: I got the same thing, at that one point when he was bent over the podium it did look like he was going to cry. Counting on-line, this was the fourth time I'm heard him speak, and every time he is like a different person. The first time was at the Dukes BBQ. He was actually very animated and gave a pretty motivating speech. It did have a football pep-talk quality that made you wonder if it was a bunch of bs, but it was still good and made me feel that this guy was allright. The next time was at the Ridgeview forum. I was shocked at the change. He was so subdued I was wondering if he was sick. The third time was on his website. Typical pandering politician. Last night was similar to Ridgeview, but was more in a type of preacher mode, hence my reference to Peter Popoff. The weepy aspect of his speech also reminds me of the "forgive me I have sinned" speech from another televangelist whose name I can't recall. I'm going to do a little googling and see if I can find some Popoff videos to compare to Taylors video clips. It's been a long time since I visited the Popoff ministries website, but I can probably find something funny.
Submitted by FelixKulpah on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 10:16pm.
Forget that last. The resemblence to Popoff is not as great as I had recalled, Popoff is much more animated than Taylor. Submitted by pioneer on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 9:02am.
Felix Mike was "subdued" all right at the Ridgeview forum 2 weeks ago! As it happens, on his way to the forum, T-U Mary Maraghy interviewed Mike. He knew that her article in the Times-Union would reveal his shaving of his son's head as punishment, and the beating he gave Adam that resulted in Adam calling authorities.
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I told my wife she shouldn't cut my hair so short. She says there is plenty there, it's just clear.
Felix,
I can verify Rob's whereabouts last night. I was at the same meeting and it was
mportant and necessary for the well being of some of the people in my district.
JD
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Pd. Pol. Adv. Paid for and approved by JD Weisenburger, Republican, for County Commission