“During the guest speaker, I’d never been more proud to be a Republican. After those other guys took the stage, I’ve never been more embarrassed to be a Republican.” – 18 year old Micah Kahler

Micah and I were attending Hernando County Republican’s Lincoln Day dinner. He’d just been able to vote in this first election and was (and still is) an avid follower of political news and philosophies. I thought it would be fun for him to see our local party in action.

“Fun” turned out to be the wrong word.

Following the featured speaker, two local elected officials took the stage to tell everyone how utterly amazing the two of them are. Even in a room full of people who’d help them get elected, it was a painfully uncomfortable display. The over-full room began to pretty rapidly empty out – but the speakers were too pleased with themselves to notice they weren’t pleasing the audience.

Conversely, the absence of narcissism was one of the reasons I was looking forward to this year’s John Allocco/Marvin Baynham primary. Two principled men battling it out in the arena of ideas is everything I love about election season. I didn’t know Marvin before he entered the race, and he said things that showed he had a lot to learn before he could do the job well, but he showed eager to educate himself.

I’ve known John personally since before either of us were elected to public office. His in-laws were members of the church Jason and I pastored so John and his family came periodically (they were faithful members of another church). I could see he took his faith seriously, deeply loved his family, and endeavored to serve his community. Voting for him in 2016 and 2020 was an easy “yes.”

After we both entered public service, we worked together on several projects. John took his public service seriously and did his best to contribute to problem-solving. He and I took the same approach of explaining in meetings why we were voting a certain way so the public could see how we made decisions. I didn’t always agree with him or his approach, but as John has always said, just like marriage, there’s no politician you’ll agree with 100% of the time. Even 70% agreement makes a good match.

I was a bit surprised when he decided to run for County Commission since he’d made such a big deal for years about only serving two terms, but I was willing to hear him out on his reasons.

Then came THE MAILER. I’ve previously blogged about my frustration with the dishonesty of mailers, but this one was beyond anything I’d seen. It featured a photo of Marvin wearing Biden/Harris shirt & hat with a creepy X over his chest like you see on crime shows in a murder suspect’s flat.

The photo was a fake. His hat & shirt were actually part of his Tampa Firefighter uniform. And the creepy X covered up his lanyard that showed Marvin was serving as a volunteer for our community’s Art in the Park.

I was sad for Marvin but I was also sad for John. Some evil person had hijacked John’s campaign for his own “good.” I expected John to denounce it and apologize to Marvin.

But so far to my knowledge no one in party leadership has apologized.

In fact, party leaders have been commenting on social media defending the rest of the mailer’s content.

The content of the mailer is irrelevant. As I said to a party leader, “Let’s imagine I posted a fake picture of you peeling off your human skin and said you were a Martian here to kidnap the Weeki Wachee mermaids for a theme park on Mars. Would you care about anything else I said? No. Because I would clearly be a liar and therefore, not a credible source. There is no ethical argument to be made for this mailer and I hope using AI images will become illegal. It’s beyond reprehensible.”

As one of our own elected officials retweeted, context matters.

When did my party stop caring about Truth with a capital T? When did honorable men decide honor was less valuable than power? In their song, “Selling the News,” Switchfoot lyrics say, “When nothing is Sacred there’s nothing to lose.” That’s the moment it feels like we’re in.

The good news is:

• many voters are reading the mailer’s legal paragraph and finding out the photo is a fake. They understand the fake photo isn’t just insulting to Marvin, it’s insulting to the intelligence of voters.
• The Hernando Sun is covering the story and calling out the dishonesty.

So now what?

In my ideal world, the following would happen:

• John Allocco would publicly state that he had nothing to do with this mailer and would condemn the tactic of intentionally lying to voters. He would then apologize to Marvin, his fellow Republican.
• The Republican Party Executive Committee would publicly denounce the tactic of intentionally lying to voters and reiterate their commitment to not using their influence to tamper with primary elections. They would then apologize to Marvin, their fellow Republican.
• Our Florida Senator Blaise Ingoglia, who has already vowed to address campaign mailer reform, would sponsor a bill banning ban Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated content in mailers.

This is no longer about John & Marvin’s race for Hernando County Commission. This is about the soul of the Republican Party. A really smart guy said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?” In this instance, “What does it profit a party if their candidate wins, but they violate everything they stand for to get there?”

Let’s not be the party that empties its own Lincoln Dinners because of narcissistic self-love and an obsession with power.

Let’s be the party of Lincoln that does the right thing because it’s the right thing.

At the Lincoln dinner, those politicians disregarded the good of their constituents for their personal benefit.

Lincoln himself disregarded personal cost for the good of his constituents.

Let’s commit individually and corporately to be like Lincoln.