by Javier Manjarres

U.S. Senate candidate Col. Mike McCalister has fired back against the accusations made at  him by another retired colonel, Chuck Winn.  Winn recently made a post on his Facebook page charging that McCalister was not being honest about the extent of his service while serving in the U.S. Military, saying that McCalister was lying about his involvement in special operations, ie ‘black ops.’ See: Mike McCalister’s Military Record Questioned in FL Senate Race

The Miami Herald has picked up on the story, reporting that “an ad-hoc veterans group that calls itself  “Stolen Valor” has been asking McCalister about his record for more than a month. They haven’t gotten anywhere, but McCalister quietly changed facts and toned down his rhetoric on his website.“- Miami Herald

Colonel Mike McCalister’s full rebuttal, and Colonel Winn’s post can be read here: (Did Senate candidate Mike McCalister lie about his military record?– Marc Caputo,Miami Herald)

Because Winn had stated that he liked former Senator George LeMieux in the contested Senate race, some have speculated that Winn is not being up front about who he really supports and is actually favoring Adam Hasner.

The McCalister campaign is convinced that Winn is an operative of the Adam Hasner for U.S. Senate campaign after Senator LeMieux released a statement denouncing the “unfounded attacks”, while Hasner has not issued any statement regarding the matter.

Colonel McCalister’s campaign released the following statement regarding the recent attack on his Military record:

 “The fact is that as soon as Mike got a lead in the polls, the Hasner campaign started their negative attack politics against Mike, just as they did LeMieux previously.  The primary campaign they are running is not worthy of a Republican U.S. Senator, and that explains why they are dead last in the polls.”-Mike McCalister for U.S. Senate

As we pointed out in the prior post, Winn was an ardent supporter as well as the campaign manager for former retired U.S. Senator Bob Smith in 2010 when he ran against Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Charlie Crist for the vacant Senate seat.  That doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility that Winn is working on Hasner’s behalf, as Winn has consistently stated that he himself is a staunch conservative who only supports staunch conservatives.

But it also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Winn is actually a supporter of dark horse candidate Craig Miller.  Two central Florida sources have divulged to the Shark Tank that this is exactly the case- that the two men are friends.  But again, the candor and motives of all the players involved here are still uncertain.  We don’t really know who Winn actually supports, other than the fact that it’s not McCalister.  Perhaps Colonel Winn should make an official statement as to who he is supporting in the U.S. Senate race?

A statement like this would surely clear up a lot of confusion regarding his motives for the allegations he made against McCalister. We shall wait and see…

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The McCalister camp at this juncture has not provided concrete proof to support their assertion that Hasner is in any way involved with Winn’s charges against McCalister.