Drew Wilson
Another wave of mailers went out in Hillsborough County blasting HD 58 Republican candidate Yvonne Fry for her alleged lack of conservative bona fides.
Both mailers were paid for by “Hillsborough County Conservatism Counts,” a political committee formed at the end of last month by Ash Mason, who worked as a legislative aide in the Florida House from 2006 to 2011 and is now the regional director in the southeast for the Christian Coalition Of America.
The same committee was behind some other anti-Fry flyers that hit Hillsborough mailboxes last week, just days after the committee was formed.
The committee’s first campaign finance report, detailing who is funding the group, won’t be available until after voters head to the polls to decide whether Fry or fellow Republican Lawrence McClure will be the GOP nominee in the special election to replace former Rep. Dan Raulerson.
The first of the two mailers slams Fry, a Plant City businesswoman, as being against gun rights and claims she outright told the Tampa Bay Times last month that “she doesn’t support our Second Amendment rights.”
The front of the mailer says she “joined the ranks of Obama, Clinton and Pelosi in declaring war on the Second Amendment,” while the backside brands Fry, who has picked up support from many Republican officials including the entire Plant City Commission, as a “liberal” who wants to “take away your God-given gun rights.”
The second mailer targets Fry’s support for the infrastructure sales tax in Hillsborough, which it dubbed “the largest tax hike in Hillsborough County history.”
“Liberal Yvonne Fry’s billion dollar tax hike benefits a few people in downtown Tampa at the expense of hard working families in Plant City, Temple Terrace and the rest of East Hillsborough County.”
That mailer also pulls quotes from the Tampa Bay Business Journal coverage of the sales tax. The Plant City Economic Development Coverage, which Fry had a seat on, supported the sales tax. Fry has publicly supported the tax as well, calling it an “investment” in the county’s infrastructure that would benefit Plant City even though rail isn’t slated to come to the city under the plan.
The second mailer is largely similar to one of a handful of other mailers sent out last week, one of which railed against her opposition to expanding the homestead exemption, a move Fry sees as a home rule issue that the state should leave be.
The winner of the primary between Fry and McClure will advance to a Dec. 19 general election against Democrat Jose Vasquez, Libertarian Brian Zemina and no-party candidate Ahmad Saadaldin. District demographics give the Republican nominee the best chance to win on Election Day.
