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Candidates Should Not Have To Choose

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 1, 2008

Leave it to Pasco County Republican Party Chairman Bill Bunting to use a hammer instead of gentlemanly diplomacy to promote GOP candidates this election season.

As the Tribune's Julia Ferrante recently reported, Bunting wants local GOP candidates to pledge, in writing, to support the winners of their August primaries in the general election - no questions asked. It's an unfair request that puts party politics over the ability to support candidates best able to serve the public.

On the surface, Bunting's move may seem reasonable because his goal is to ensure that Republican-controlled posts in the county stay that way. And that's his job as head of the county's GOP Executive Committee and the party.

But it's a strong-arm tactic that intrudes upon Republican candidates' personal freedoms. Republican candidates - any candidate for that matter - should be free to support any candidate they like should they lose their races, regardless of political party affiliation.

If Republican candidates truly care about an office's constituents, they will support the best candidate, period. This open-mindedness is especially important on the county level, where bipartisanship is crucial to productive governance, and where party politics rarely affect policy decisions.

And face it, the average working resident doesn't care whether county commissioners or other elected officials on the local level are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or independent. They just want good public officials.

Requiring written guarantees smacks of a way to weed out moderates and others who, though registered Republicans, may agree with other political principles that help make them successful officeholders and candidates. It's a forceful approach that even the most loyal Republicans should ignore. Such a stance is one reason Congress gets gridlocked.

Bunting should be satisfied that he has built the local GOP into a strong and highly organized force, one of the best in Central Florida and perhaps the state, with a major hold on elected positions in Pasco - all of which has been accomplished without a written mandate. There's no need to risk pushing Republican candidates away from the party.

But his approach isn't surprising, considering he has inserted the party into nonpartisan races and once yanked a former east Pasco GOP club's charter for not being Republican enough.

Voters should be extremely leery of Republican candidates who sign the pledge because it would indicate they're not being open-minded. And all Republicans Bunting has put on the hot seat would be wise to follow the advice of County Commissioner Michael Cox, a former Pasco Democratic Party chairman.

"I think you've got to look at who is the best person for the job, and sometimes those people are from different parties," Cox told the Tribune. "I'm not going to let the party line influence my vote - ever - and I'm not going to let party politics get in the way of what's good for Pasco County government. It's too bad some people have such a parochial view."

Yes, it is. Being a responsible elected official should be all about what's good for the public, not the political party.

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