Two weeks ago, we discussed their attack ads. Last week, we looked at actual facts and their voting records. For the final installment (maybe), we’re looking into their actual goals and what that means for the future of Manatee County.
This Substack is coming out on Monday, July 22. If you’re reading this as soon as it hits, this date is important because today is the last day Manatee County residents can register or switch their party affiliation for the August 20th primary elections.
Those who are actively committing real election interference through ghost candidates to close primaries, fraudulent voter guides and bought endorsements are criticizing your right to a voice in your government. They are trying to dissuade you, the informed voter, from using your knowledge of their candidates to vote for sensible options next month.
If you’d like to register or adjust your party affiliation (in any direction), you can do so here TODAY.
But, you have to ask yourself, why are they so fundamentally against democracy? Why are they trying to suppress the votes? What is their end game for Manatee County and why aren’t you a part of it?
Our great nation was founded as a Representative Democracy. The intent was for all United States citizens to vote for who they felt best represented their values and their views and to allow those representatives to vote in the collective majority of citizens’ best interests. However, those seeking power and seeking to personally control government realized early on that the citizens’ best interests were not always (rarely) aligned with their best interests.
When government and elections can be easily manipulated by money due to Citizens United, dark money PACs, closed primaries and limited citizen engagement, those that could afford to buy a government have started to do so. (See Cathy Antunes’ Substack at the end of this post.)
As you can see on financial statements on the Supervisor of Elections site, the same few donors select their candidates and flood them with endless funds to buy their seat. They are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They’re doing it because these are the candidates who will do as they’re told. It’s a blatant play to control the very government responsible for the future of our county.
These funds, and even more so the funds coming from dark money political committees controlled by SIMWINS, are not used to expand their reach to tell you the truth. They’re used to expand their reach to lie, manipulate and con you into voting against your own best interests. The sole intent is to push desperate, incompetent, submissive candidates through the system and into positions of power to do their bidding.
Once they’re elected - with their new six-figure salaries, waterfront offices and sense of self-importance - it’s very easy to dangle the carrot of reelection in front of them to keep them “taking suggestions” about how to vote. Dare to have one independent thought or view and they could be back on the streets as a failed Realtor or preacher for a congregation of one.
Once they’re elected, however, they are told to be part of the “team”. That’s how you get invited to the best parties. That’s how you get the best meetings in Tallahassee. That’s how you get REELECTED. And the team circles the wagons. They’ll endorse each other. They’ll vote on items against the public interest for each other. They’ll lie for each other because as the team gets stronger, so does their hold on the county.
I can assure you, if all this money was simply to help elect the “best” candidates for YOU, you wouldn’t have the government you do now. You’re shown options on the ballot. You feel like you have a choice. But the cards are stacked against you and they make sure it stays that way.
A few election cycles ago, you were promised a new Board with a new, refreshing way of thinking. The narrative fed to you was of storming the castle and taking control of your government TOGETHER. These were like-minded candidates who would govern in ways like-minded with you.
What you got was a board only like-minded with the special interests who will sell out Manatee County’s future for a few extra bucks in the present.
But the BOCC isn’t enough. To have full and total control, every level of government has to be owned. That’s from the state level down through the smallest municipality.
In 2024, you are now seeing the end game for what’s been set up over the past few election cycles. The special interest side of the ballot is running candidates in every single race. They are working to take full control of the BOCC. Once that occurs, you will never have a voice at the county again. Public records will be nonexistent. Call-in comments, townhalls and advisory boards will be permanently lost. Every item on an agenda will become a Consent Item to hide information and discussion from the public. Your government will cease being your government.
They are working to take over the remainder of the School Board. They are working to lock down control of municipalities. They are working to take over Constitutional Officer positions. They are starting their process of taking over our State Delegation in Tallahassee.
Once all this happens, the real collusion will begin. Not just landscaping the City of Bradenton medians stuff. Now they can pass Local Bills at the state to override the local citizens. They can coordinate the take over of development codes and make tax dollars fungible between independent entities. They will control the budgets and they will control the oversight of those budgets.
Their limited impact fees will be steered toward the needs of future development, not the needs of current residents, through thoroughfare plan changes. Schools, parks and fire stations will go to maximize the value of future home sales, not to maximize the qualify of life of you and your neighbors. The staff will start pushing more “county initiated” comprehensive plan changes after “suggestions” on white papers. Without dissenting voices and oversight, the focus of your government will no longer focus on you.
You, the residents of Manatee County, who they pretend have an equal say in our county, will lose all control of every level of your “representative” government. And once it is thoroughly locked down, you will NEVER get it back.
They used you in 2020 and 2022 to get power and control. They are trying to use you in 2024 to get absolute power and control. Once they have it, they will not need to use you again because they will no longer have any use for you.
You were, and are, the workhorse to their special interest pigs. Animal Farm was about Joseph Stalin’s rise to power. Go back and re-read it and see if you can find any similarities to how a few people with selfish economic interests used the conservative, Republican voter base to reach full power only to push them aside when they reached the top.
You now have ONE chance to stop this complete take over of your government, your lives and your future. That chance is on August 20, 2024.
There are two options in every race.
One option is a puppet who kissed the ring and has promised to do exactly as they’re told for four years. They will read the scripts texted to them on the dais and vote the way they planned as a team. Their financials are full of LLCs with addresses on Whitfield, Covenant Way, Lakewood Ranch Blvd, Cooper Creek, SR 64 and elsewhere.
Their entire campaign is to avoid the public at all costs; sitting in their proverbial basements while hoping their big signs on developers’ properties and endless glossy lies in your mailbox can sucker just 51% of you.
They won’t even waste the time to tell you the truth and publicize the REAL endorsements they get. The ones they rightfully earned by destroying your county and wasting your tax dollars. Like the development-lobbyist trifecta of BIA, GCBX and Realtors awarded to Kevin. (Congratulations!)
The other option on your ballot will be candidates trying to run a local race the right way. Collecting donations from individuals. Speaking in your living rooms, at your HOAs and to your organizations. You’ll find our signs on your neighbors’ front lawns and in front of small businesses. You’ll see positive messages about local policies that directly affect your quality of life. We’ll be endorsed by local papers and groups looking out for a brighter future for Manatee County.
This is the last chance. Manatee County will never have so much collective outrage as we do right now. The wetland buffers, the SOE appointment, the impact fees. The blatant favoritism and corruption has woken up so many citizens. Our grassroots efforts are seeing a response that we may never see again. This is our BEST chance to halt the take over efforts and put competent people in government positions who will actually represent you and fight back against the special interests and their feelings of invincibility.
We CANNOT lose in 2024. If the other side wins, in spite of the outrage, the incompetence of their candidates and the grassroots efforts, they will prove - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that the ONLY path to election victory in Manatee County is through developer money and consultant-led manipulation and attacks. The remaining board members will slide even further to their side to ensure their victories in 2026. No competent, honest candidate will run in the future if they know it’s a lost cause.
They will have won. Permanently.
We, the citizens of Manatee County, cannot let that happen. We need to stand up and show them that good can prevail. That your votes at the ballot box are worth more than their LLC checks on the financial statements. That running a campaign the right way can be the successful way.
If we do, then we’re giving hope to future candidates. We’re showing qualified, engaged residents that they too can run a clean, grassroots campaign and win in our county without selling their soul and selling out their neighbors.
We, the voters of Manatee County, need to take back our community and once again bring control, representation and a voice back to the citizens on August 20th!
George Kruse is the District 7 (at-large) Manatee County Commissioner. He faces the incumbent District 3 commissioner, Kevin Van Ostenbridge, in the Republican primary. This article was originally posted in Commissioner Kruse's blog, For Lack of a Second. Click here to subscribe.
