“Baby-killers.”
“Pedophiles.”
“Fword-ing Democrats.”
​“Socialists.”

Those were some of the epithets hurled at me and my fellow poll watchers at the early voting site outside the supervisor of elections office on 301 Boulevard this past weekend. People who support another party’s candidate think it’s perfectly OK to curse out your fellow citizens for performing a civic duty.  

​The “pedophile” slur was uttered by a thin, heavily-tattooed woman who has obviously drunk the QAnon Kool-aid. Trying to reason with her about the absurdity of that group’s fantasy world was like talking to a wall. It only made her more agitated and set her off on a new tangent of Deep State ranting. READ MORE

As an opinion page editor for 30 years and a policy center director for 10, I moderated in excess of 75 candidate debates for local and state offices in Manatee, Sarasota and Pinellas counties. These debates were presented on auditorium stages before large audiences, on live TV without audiences, and in informal town-hall settings with no stage.

Not once in all of those years of moderating did I allow a candidate to hijack the debate as totally as Chris Wallace did in Tuesday night’s (Sept. 29) presidential debate. READ MORE