Our endorsements, what they mean, and how we arrive at them

The Bradenton Times covers a wide variety of local, state, and national races in each election cycle. We sometimes endorse a specific candidate in the primary or general election races. We take this role in informing the public opinion quite seriously, especially given the amount of special-interest money spent to mislead the voting public.

When we are unable to reach consensus on a single candidate we believe is best for a given race, or when there is a gap too large between the leading candidate and our positions, we provide readers with an analysis of the race. Like endorsements, these are editorials and are published in our Opinion section. They are meant to give the voter as much information as possible about the candidates, short of endorsing one. 

To understand our positions, consider that, from an editorial perspective, our publication has always been a champion of sustainable growth policies, adequate investment in the infrastructure it necessitates, the preservation of our environmental resources, and respect for the Old Florida lifestyle that is becoming so rare as our green spaces are paved over for the sake of more new homes in our rural hamlets.

We also prize responsible fiscal policies and good governance, in which elected officials are responsive to the will of their constituents and understand that the public's business should be conducted in the sunshine, with public input, rather than behind closed doors and for the benefit of the deep-pocketed special interests that have long funded puppet candidates eager to do their bidding. 

There exists a deep and well-financed cabal of developer-aligned special interests that routinely use blatantly false accusations to malign grassroots candidates aiming to prevent the further ravaging of our community. They not only attack those candidates, but also independent publications like ours whose presentation of factual information threatens their ability to control the narrative in order to continue pillaging Manatee County for financial gain.

Because Manatee County is dominated by Republican voters, these interests typically resort to trite and tired attacks to label our publication and the candidates we support in Republican primaries as "RINOs," or "liberals," or "radicals," and even "socialists." In reality, the candidates we endorse espouse the values I've mentioned: sustainable growth, fiscal responsibility, responsible environmental policies, and good governance. We emphatically do not find these principles to be incongruent with conservatism and believe most Republican voters feel the same.

An ideal candidate, in our view, is not financed by Big Development and their dark-money PACs or represented by their political propagandists. If they are an incumbent, they did not vote to eviscerate our wetland protections or to give developers hundreds of millions of dollars in impact fee giveaways, or to pass state-level legislation that impeded local officials' ability to reverse course on such policies. They run honest, issue-based campaigns focused on what really matters to Manatee County residents.

If you read our rationale for each endorsement, inspect who is financing their opponent(s), and hold similar principles as to what issues matter most and what you want from your elected representatives, we believe these opinions will be useful as you navigate the upcoming ballot. When you see other interests attack our editorial coverage with sophomoric name-calling rather than answering it with substance, we hope that you will recognize it for what it is: self-serving propaganda meant to maintain the status quo at the expense of our community, citizens' quality of life, and our critical resources.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch's new novel, Fish Kill, is currently available here, along with his previous books. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.