Editor

Each election year, The Bradenton Times strives to provide the most comprehensive coverage of local elections for the government bodies our publication covers. We begin with the primary, providing candidate profiles, followed by in-depth analyses of each race, while also inviting all candidates to speak to our readers in their own words. Our intention is simply to help inform the public on the most critical component of our democratic process.

During our primary coverage, we do not cover candidates who are uncontested in their party’s primary or running without party affiliation, as voters will not be asked to weigh in on their candidacy until the general election, for which our coverage will begin shortly after the primary has ended.

After transitioning from a daily to a weekly in 2017, we made the decision to cease providing endorsements to candidates. As a small, independent publication with very limited resources, we did not feel that it was viable to maintain an editorial board and do the process justice. As editor-in-chief, I have always provided an in-depth analysis of each race and continue to do so.

As is the case with endorsements, my writing reflects the editorial ethos of our publication and prioritizes the matters we hold dear. TBT has always been a publication primarily concerned with good governance, of the people, for the people. We are particularly wary of deep-pocketed special interests that have come to dominate even smaller local races. We champion candidates whom we feel will bring a requisite level of independence to the position, while best representing the interests of the community in all matters that come before them.

Sustainable development and the protection of our community’s vital natural resources and their role in our tourist-dependent economy have also been at the forefront of our concerns for the community. We have and will remain critical of developers having an outsized influence when it comes to decisions that can deeply affect the community at large for generations to come. Sometimes my analyses will produce a clear favorite, while other times it will contrast candidates who I see as comparatively qualified while attempting to parse the areas in which they most notably contrast, as to allow the reader to interpret the gravity of what such differences amount to based upon their personal ranking of issues.

Most importantly, we do not approach our coverage from an ideological position. In our 10-plus years as a local publication, we have consistently endorsed and championed candidates and public officials from all across the ideological spectrum because–and I cannot stress this enough–we are, above all, proponents of good government, which we believe most often comes from robust and respectful debate among committed people of varying backgrounds, perspectives and ideological beliefs. Such is our commitment to those values, that in the 2016 presidential election, we made the controversial decision not to issue an endorsement, noting that we did not find any party’s candidate worthy of being recommended to hold the highest office in the land.

Our publisher, Joe McClash, served for 22 years on the Manatee County Commission. A lifelong Republican who championed a long list of conservative issues, he nonetheless remains the only member of his party to have won the endorsement of our local Sierra Club chapter throughout his career. This happened because he recognized the long-term value and moral imperative of being a good steward of the wealth of environmental resources our region is blessed with. An avid sailor and fisherman, he’s had no interest in fouling our waters for the sake of short-term monetary gain or creating other costly, long-term problems that inhibit the quality of life of residents, just so that someone with political influence can turn a quick buck.

No matter whether environmental conservatism has come to be seen as a Democratic trademark in recent decades, that same ethos has been held by Republicans from Teddy Roosevelt to Richard Nixon and is reflected in everything TBT does, not because of loyalty to any ideology, but because we here at this publication believe it to be in the best interest of our shared community. That is not to say we are anti-development. We simply believe that development must be driven by a coherent, long-term strategy that strongly considers the future impact on existing residents, especially when a developer is asking for concessions to our county's rules in order to build the project.

As editor-in-chief, I routinely face condemnation from die-hard devotees of both political parties who accuse me of either secretly or overtly favoring one’s ideology over the other. To tell you the truth, I like it just fine that way. I consider my ideology to be responsiblepragmatism, plain and simple. Public officials who’ve served this community over the past decade know quite well that I’ve personally championed everyone from Tea Party conservatives to left-wing progressives, along with everything in between, even if I favor moderates who are radical only in the sense that they have managed to maintain independence in an age where fealty to an increasingly-narrow spectrum of ideological litmus tests has become the norm.

At the end of the day, it is ultimately the voter’s responsibility to collect and analyze all of the information and perspectives available to decide which candidates best represent the values and issues they hold dear. For the considerable number of engaged citizens in this community who continue to trust The Bradenton Times in informing the public opinion, we thank you for entrusting us with a responsibility we take with the utmost seriousness. We will continue to do our best to reflect our stated values in providing critical information to help you navigate your way through participating in the democratic process and salute you for being among the members of our community who also take that responsibility with appropriate gravity.