A.G. Gancarski
Though our poll from a couple of weeks ago has Bill Bishop at around 9% support in the March Jacksonville Mayoral election, there still are appearances that the insurgent candidate is building momentum. Today, for example, he won the Southside Businessmen’s Club Mayoral Straw Poll with 71% of the vote. Perhaps in an effort to check any momentum Bishop may be gaining, Lenny Curry‘s Together for a Greater Jacksonville PAC just sent out a mailer informing voters that “Bill Bishop calls himself a conservative but taxes like a liberal.”
The front of the mailpiece juxtaposes that claim with a quote from Folio Weekly, in which the writer — Susan Eastman — claims that Bishop “is, by any measure, the most progressive candidate in the race.”
Bishop’s progressive bona fides are a matter of dispute in some circles, given that the candidate was co-chairman of the Florida 2012 Herman Cain campaign. Despite this connection, Bishop has been a stalwart voice in favor of a revival of the Human Rights Ordinance to extend protections to the LGBT community — a measure which failed by one vote three years ago.
When asked about this mailpiece, Curry Spokesman Brian Hughes said that “like the mayor, Bill Bishop is a career politician saying one thing and doing another. The mailer presents the facts about his record to inform Jacksonville families that Bill Bishop wants to raise their taxes.”
In response, Bishop had this to say regarding the flyer and the claims made therein.
“I suppose the fact that they put it out and put it out now means they are taking our campaign seriously. We will have our own response in our own time.” Bishop said.
Regarding the meat of the flyer — its claims that Bishop voted for a garbage tax hike in 2010, a millage rate increase in 2013, and has advocated for a sales tax increase this year, Bishop said the following.
“It is challenging to address something from the deliberately uninformed,” Bishop stated. “I’ve explained my decisions. The question should be ‘How would you have addressed those situations differently?’ If recent history is any indication, you’ll get a blank stare.”
The former Council President also dispelled the recurrent talk about his connection to Cain. “The Herman Cain thing is from the Alvin Brown supporters from what it appears. I was an early supporter of his economic policies regarding taxation (forget the specifics of 9-9-9. That’s not the point),” Bishop wrote in an email. “Our tax code has gotten out of control and has become a disincentive to investment and economic progress. I have never changed my views on that. The rest of Herman’s baggage came out later and he got out of the race. This is an attempt at a distraction and I am not really paying attention to it.”
