The open seat in Florida’s 18th congressional district will probably be one the most, if not the most hotly contested races in the 2016 election cycle.
The Republican congressional candidates vying to win their party’s nomination for a chance to face off with whomever wins the Democratic Party nod, attended a forum in St. Lucie County hosted by the Lipstick Republican club, hoping to garner more support for their respective congressional campaigns.Of the seven declared GOP candidates, only Rebecca Negron, Brian Mast (pictured), Rick Kozell, and Paul Spain, attended the forum.
Because there were some fireworks between a couple of the candidates in the first forum hosted by the Jupiter Tea Party, I expected to seeĀ more of the same, but was disappointed in the end. After all, it was Veteran’s Day.
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All four held their own, speaking more substantively than they did during the first forum. Surprisingly enough, in talking about elected officials that he believes have been corrupted in Washington, D.C., Paul Spain called out Senator Marco Rubio during his opening remarks, stating,” you see some of our House people, and even Marco Rubio, who wants to be something else, and he hasn’t served his first term.”
Not sure why he did this, but just as the forum was beginning, Brian Mast took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, saying that he was making himself more comfortable.
All of the candidates stated their case for why they were the best choice to win the GOP congressional nomination in that district. Negron said that she was running against those “politicians who mislead us,” the “policies that fail us,” and the “special interests that try to control us.”Negron’s congressional campaign is all but fully funded by special interest campaign donations. Read more here.
The first question posed to the candidates asked if they would pledge not to attack one another in the primary.
While Negron, Spain, and Mast said that they looked to run a clean race, Kozell, who stated that the focus of the campaign needed to be on “policy and meaningful experience” and not on attacking each other, may have forgotten that he had already fired the first attack salvo against Rebecca Negron shortly after the first forum.
Kozell dinged Negron over her lack of knowledge regarding revenue neutrality in the first forumĀ with a nifty little campaign video, and posted the following statement on his campaign Facebook page:
Does Rebecca Negron understand the issues? āThat I couldnāt tell youā¦ā
Q: Which caucuses will you caucus with?
Negron, Spain and Mast all say that they favored caucusing with the House Freedom Caucus, Mast adding that he most identifies with that group of conservative-minded members of Congress. Kozell said at the Freedom Caucus has played an important role in the House, but had not decided on which caucus he would caucus with.
While all of the candidates agreed on just about all of the issues, Mast called out Paul Spain for suggesting that the federal government should consider selling off land it owns to pay for military spending or anything else, Ā and does not address the real problem of overspending.
Spain responded to Mast by doubling down on his “selective sales of property” argument, which then prompted both Negron and Kozell to back Mast opposition to Spain’s suggestion.What’s next, we sell off Mount Rushmore, that we sell Yellowstone Park?”-Brian Mast
Aside from Spain confusing Carly Fiorina with Singer Carly Simon in talking about the recent GOP presidential debate, which was an honest mistake that made everyone chuckle, there really weren’t any memorable moments to report on from this debate.
Again, all of the candidates were on point and sounded substantive in making their respective cases for why Republicans should vote for them in this congressional primary race.
Read more about the first debate here.