It doesn't matter if you elect Phillip Walker or Jennifer Canady as District 50's valet to the prom king

I will probably vote against Canady because I dislike nepotism and being "ruled" by Lakeland Christian cool kids; but honestly, both of them want to be meaningless cogs in a dictatorship club.

Wednesday night I had the misfortune of watching Jennifer Canady and Phillip Walker perform in the worst candidate forum I have ever seen in the most pointless political campaign I could ever imagine.

This is not because of the forum itself. The NAACP and moderator Rick Maxey did an excellent job. They asked very good questions that would have helped inform the voting public across the political spectrum if the candidates cooperated and took representative government and citizenship seriously.

Instated, the candidates spit on those things — and ruined this forum with their extraordinarily passive and sophomoric view of elected public service, honest campaigning, and representative democracy.

If you can stomach it, here’s the whole useless thing.

Contempt for all voters — whatever your party or ideology

I’ll show you an example of this in a second.

I’ve never seen more contempt for all voters from any two candidates of any party — ever. As a former candidate, who won and lost elections while never cowering from a tough question or the public, it’s difficult to convey how little respect I have for what I witnessed.

I took my responsibility to voters very seriously; because I take the well-being of my community and state and country seriously. These are two people on personal vanity projects, to whom voters are an obstacle to confuse or avoid.

I truly wish I did not have to vote in this Republican primary, which has now become an open, essentially non-partisan, campaign. My aversion has nothing to do with ideology; it has to do with lameness.

We’re being told its our civic duty to pick the specific ceremonial clerk through which Florida’s corrupt government will torment and/or grift us. And I really don’t want responsibility for sending either of these incoherent political automatons to Tallahassee.

Yay.

15 weeks. Total ban. Abortion on demand for any “challenge to the woman”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ All of the above in one answer.

Canady and Walker illustrate this in their answers to two questions about how they would vote to apply state power to abortion if elected. This answer sequence cannot really be described or paraphrased. It can only be witnessed.

I started taping just after Rick Maxey asked: “Do you support keeping abortion legal at 15 weeks in Florida?”

Canady answered first. When this tape picks up, she has just said a couple of empty platitudes, including the obligatory “I believe life begins at conception,” which, if she is serious, means she thinks every one of the 80,000 Florida women who terminate pregnancies each year is a pre-meditated child murderer. (Hint: she’s not serious.)

That’s where you pick it up. The follow-up question is: Do you support a total ban on abortion with no exception for rape or incest. (That’s policy now in Florida after 15 weeks. Kelli Stargel and Colleen Burton et. al. force rape and incest victims, at state power’s gunpoint, to risk their lives to give birth their rapist’s fetus.)

Pay close attention to Phillip Walker’s expansive, incoherent answer to the rape/incest question. And then note Canady’s answer, an astoundingly weak, lame, cowardly, and voter-contemptuous: “I agree with Mr. Walker.”

If I were on the “pro-life” side, I might clearly conclude that both advocate abortion-on-demand for any “challenge” a woman faces from her pregnancy.

So I tried to clarify later. You can see this on the Lakeland Now video above at about the 1:20 mark, with 14:15 left.

The candidates would not answer beyond the same mushy platitudes. Canady got snippy because I had the audacity to cut in on one of her meaningless platitudes that I asked her not to answer me with.

Florida has 80,000 abortions a year; that’s 80,000 fetuses forced into birth and/or killed, depending on your point-of-view; and 80,000 women who would be made criminals based on the legislative power that Canady and Walker claim to want you to give them to act on your behalf.

And they won’t tell you their position on this awesome question of life and death and crime and punishment and state violence. Roll. your. eyes. It’s the only correct reaction.

A very smart, serious advocate of forced birth-at-state-gun point came up to me afterward and said: “We’re on opposite sides of this issue; but they should have answered your questions.”

That was the most successful civic moment of the night, I think.

Walker and Canady will do whatever DeSantis tells them to do to make him president — fetuses be damned

The best, most likely answer I can infer from this mush is that both candidates are running to get appointed Lakeland’s official valet to Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign.

This awesome question of life and death — 80,000 legal abortions or none, and all the moral and human consequences that come with it — will hang entirely on what Ron DeSantis thinks is most likely to get him elected U.S. dictator.

Ron DeSantis could not give a shit less about the fate of those 80,000 fetuses and women. But he does care about getting elected U.S. dictator; and Canady/Walker are eager to help.

So they will “vote” however DeSantis tells them to. There will be no free will, even in an issue of this human and moral enormity. That’s why they’re running from the question now.

I tend to think DeSantis considers a Florida abortion ban bad for his election to U.S. dictator. And Mr. and Mrs. “Life begins at conception” will happily ignore that “life begins at conception” nonsense, which they don’t actually believe, to help DeSantis get elected dictator.

Being a personal part of the club is far more important to Candy and Walker than the 80,000 fetuses or the 80,000 women. Prove me wrong.

And that’s actually a Florida woman’s best protection as of now. Isn’t democracy grand?

If you doubt me on this, consider that Walker literally compared state legislators — including himself — to the employees at Walker’s insurance agency. As in: legislators answer to the governor like Walker’s employees answer to him.

You can see this starting about 40:50, when Maxey asks about the governor overpowering the legislative branch in the redistricting process. Canady answered the same question with four words: “I support the governor.”

Vote against nepotism, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, I think a Phillip’s a nicer person

For Canady, this is hardly a new thing. Her husband, Chief Justice Charles Canady surrendered the Florida Supreme Court as an entity independent of DeSantis long ago. He helped DeSantis and Richard Corcoran wipe out any local school district independence in the 7069 lawsuit a few years back.

The Supreme Court is as much a tool of DeSantis dictatorship as Canady and Walker will be.

The Canadys seem quite superficially similar, from what little I can see, to the Stargels. Political lawyer nepotism and distant contempt for local communities. That’s why I’ll probably vote against her. Also, I’m pretty tired of the narrow religious oligarchy club cool kid table of Lakeland Christian School, where Canady works, dominating the seats of Lakeland public life. (I have no problem with Lakeland Christian itself. Don’t confuse public cool kid table Harrell-fatigue with any kind of distaste for the actual normal people of Lakeland Christian.)

And honestly, Phillip just seems like a nicer person. I’ve him known for a long time. I think he means well-ish. He’ll make a more pleasant ceremonial clerk, I think.