Drop trow at candidate forum last year, right to left of me, Craig Cates, Morgan McPherson and Mike Mongo looking on
From yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph bitch and whine page, bigpinekey.com:
To Sloan – Here’s a suggestion, people who live in glass houses should not throw rocks. If the incumbent even slightly fears that you are competition he will be airing your dirty laundry. I’m a recent arrival and a faithful voter, but I hear your laundry is really dirty.
As a recent arrival, this poster could not know how often I have aired my own dirty laundry under the quaint notion that before God we all are naked and have no secrets. Being a recent arrival, this poster could not know how many people I have turned off by airing my own dirty laundry. As a new arrival, this poster could not know I answer any questions about myself that are posed, regardless of the consequences to me. Of course none of this is news to any regular reader of the Coconut Telegraph where my posts have appeared ongoing since mid-2006 at the instigation of its Ed, one of my prime provocateurs in the Keys.
Whenever I start talking about tossing in the towel and moving to parts unknown, because I feel like I’m talking to the terminally blind, deaf and dumb, or to the terminally corrupt, ED butts heads with me and says my work here is not finished, I’m needed around here. He is hardly alone in butting heads with me over that, but I mention him, since the Coconut Telegraph is his creation where the recent arrival gets to post for free, but I do it the old fashion way: I pay Ed for posting my drivel daily and linking it over to one of my websites, goodmorningfloridakeys.com and goodmorningkeywest.com, both of which Ed built and designed for me after he told me I needed my own website.
Something else the new arrival may not know, being a new arrival, is I don’t accept campaign contributions. I pay for everything out of my own pocket, because I think raising and spending money on a run for office is obscene, and because I do not want to owe any favors if I end up getting elected. I don’t use campaign signs, buttons, bumper stickers, media ads, and so forth, either. I don’t like the litter, and what does that stuff say about a candidate? It says zip about a candidate, other than the candidate spent money saying zip about the candidate. I post rocks and nuclear bombs and carnivals and spoofs to the two good morning websites and to my ”spam” email list, I attend candidate forums, and I cooperate with media interviews. I am of the quaint view, as someone told me day before yesterday, that anyone who wants badly to be elected should not be.
As for the incumbent taking out after my dirty laundry lying in plain view, George Neugent won’t do it, although the Republican Party might do it for him, like the Republican Party took out after Ron Saunders in 2006 for David Rice. When I asked David to lay off the attack ads the Republican Party was running, he said he had no control over the Republican Party. I said, ”You have control. Tell them you will pull out of the race if they don’t stop the attack ads. Then, if they don’t stop the attack ads, pull out of the race.” David didn’t do that, the attack ads continued.
When day before yesterday, on US 1 Radio, Bill Becker took Morgan McPherson back to to 2006 and asked if he was going to campaign against Ron Saunders in the way David Rice had campaigned against Ron, Morgan said he had no control over the Republican Party. I laughed; it was the same dodge-ball answer David Rice had given to me in 2006.
Several people who heard Morgan’s interview with Bill told me Morgan sounded really screwed up. Like a cliche, sound bytes strung together. A preacher pulling Bible verses out of the air. One observer, deeply involved in Keys politics, said Morgan is not well liked in Key West and the Keys, and it is not out of the question that Matt Gardi will beat him in the Republican primary. “A Bold Plan,” Morgan keeps saying the people need, but he never says what the bold plan is, other than it’s him.
When Morgan ran for mayor of Key West last year, his campaign slogan was “Start to Finish,” and he used small black and white checkered raceway flags as campaign banners. I said at a candidate forum that ”Start to Finish” sounded like a Viagra ad. Morgan’s prepared spiels were canned, full of cliches and sound bytes run together. After he spoke, I remembered nothing he had said but “Start to Finish.” He was like a robot, an automaton. As someone said day before yesterday, a hollow man. Morgan sounded that way with Bill Becker.
Morgan was different when he ran in the Key West mayoral and defeated Jimmy Weekley in 2005. But something changed toward the end of his first term, and what I think changed was Morgan became identified with being an elected official. He became unable to separate himself from the office and could not imagine himself not being in office. And, I sort of suspected, a good bit of Republican money was somehow flowing into Morgan’s family, to enable them to pay the bills and enjoy life. His home and a rental property were both in foreclosure. He wasn’t making any money in the real estate business. He earned $10,000 a year as mayor.
In that vein are excerpts from an email I received yesterday from Matt Gardi, addressed to Morgan: