A.G. Gancarski
Despite repeated protests from State Attorney Angela Corey’s re-election campaign that her campaign manager filing the election paperwork for a write-in candidate was “perfectly legal and write-in candidates have filed in multiple races across the state,” evidence continues to mount that her campaign’s position in this matter is the most laughable of farces.
Consider the latest data point.
On May 5, when Melissa Nelson filed her paperwork in Tallahassee to challenge Corey in the 4th Circuit race, directly above Nelson’s name on the sign-in sheet at the Florida Division of Elections is the name of Alexander Pantinakis, Corey’s campaign manager.
You can see that sheet at the bottom of this post.
This new and incontrovertible evidence raises several questions.
The first is why Pantinakis, a Duval state committeeman, drove three hours to file a Clay County candidate’s paperwork, still hasn’t been answered … but likely will be answered in a court of law.
Was it fraud? Or was he just functioning in his other role as a “committeeman”?
The question of why Corey, who said earlier this month “there’s not a thing [my opponents] can throw at us that we can’t say is legal, moral, and ethical,” countenances this kind of bush league chicanery from her political ops, likewise still hasn’t been answered.
Nor has the question of what part of this sorry mess, this disgrace to the concept of fair and free elections, is “legal, moral, and ethical.”
Some believe Corey should have to run on her record.
Through most of the campaign, Corey was able to point to her achievements in office, and take the high road against Republican challenger Wes White.
But since her campaign manager brazenly filed a joke candidate’s paperwork, apparently fearing Nelson’s challenge, the discourse of the campaign has shifted, exposing a political machine devoted to perpetuating itself, no matter what the costs to the democratic process itself.
This knavery casts a pall over even seemingly innocent actions, like the decision to give pay bumps to 80 percent of her staff — a staff which has contributed $27,600 and counting to her campaign.
The voters of the 4th Circuit deserve answers.
But Angela Corey doesn’t want to provide them.
She assumes that, in a closed GOP primary, the power of incumbency will carry her to four more years. Without the write-in candidate, Democrats and independent voters could have voted for Corey, White or Nelson.
Nonetheless, voters have questions.
And those questions grow with each passing news cycle, in which the incumbent refuses to come clean about a campaign tactic that is beneath the dignity of her office.
