Sarasota County GOP House Primary Turns Bitter

By DARA KAM
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, August 11, 2014.......... Accusations about "death panels," military service and links to Democrats are scalding a GOP primary in Sarasota County for an open House seat in one of the state's most-watched legislative races.

The battle over the District 74 seat, now held by term-limited Venice Republican Doug Holder, is likely one of the most expensive House races in recent history and ranks among the ugliest as well.

Groups backing Venice doctor Julio Gonzalez and Venice attorney Richard DeNapoli are expected to spend up to $1 million in the fight over the south Sarasota County seat, which takes in all of Venice and North Port.

Gonzalez and his team are painting DeNapoli as a "carpetbagger" who moved into the area solely to run in the Republican-dominated district in which the winner of the Aug. 26 primary will be sent to Tallahassee. Two write-in candidates also are in the contest.

DeNapoli's supporters accuse Gonzalez of running away from his own words and distorting DeNapoli's aborted attempt to join the military.

Both candidates accuse the other of twisting the facts.

Republicans in the district have been inundated with ugly mailers and television ads in the scorched-earth campaign leading up to the primary.

DeNapoli, a financial planner, spent most of his life in Broward County, where he raised money for and also served as chairman of the Republican Party. He moved to Sarasota County last year in search of a better environment in which to raise his daughter, according to campaign manager Anthony Pedicini.

Gonzalez has spent a decade in Venice as a physician and has been active in the local Republican political scene since 2009, meaning neither candidate has longtime ties to the area.

It's hard to find much to differentiate the pair on the issues. Both wear their conservatism as a badge. But they've also both been targeted as liberals for supporting Democratic candidates such as Broward County Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who received money from the House hopefuls when he was running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was the eventual winner of that 2010 race.

A recent scrap on the airwaves and on the Internet focuses on DeNapoli's military background. The skirmish revolves around reports from a South Florida blogger --- who is on Gonzalez's payroll --- who accuses DeNapoli of wrongly misrepresenting his military service.

The waifish DeNapoli enlisted in the U.S. Marines in late 2002 after he graduated from law school. He was released from the program months later after he was hospitalized with hypothermia during training at Quantico, Va. Gonzalez and his backers are capitalizing on the embarrassing episode in mail and television ads questioning DeNapoli's alleged claims regarding military service.

Gonzalez has nailed down major endorsements, ranging from Rubio to U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.

Local legislators Holder and Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, have remained mum on their candidate of choice.

Gonzalez is fending off attacks about a self-published book he wrote in 2009 supporting, among other things, health index rankings for patients, which DeNapoli supporters have likened to "death panels."

"Once the patient reaches that health index score, government and insurance funding designed to cure major illnesses such as cancer should be discontinued," Gonzalez wrote in "Health Care Reform --- The Truth." "For the sake of the patient, his loved ones and our economy, efforts should be redirected from curative to supportive."

Gonzalez blames DeNapoli's campaign manager Anthony Pedicini in large part for the scorched-earth election operation.

Gonzalez won't directly call his opponent a "carpetbagger" but relies on others' labeling of his opponent.

"Although I haven't really used the word carpetbagger … I think that pretty much fits the description of him," Gonzalez said.

Neither candidate has run for public office before.

The battle has also morphed into a grudge match between long-term enemies, the Florida Medical Association, which has thrown its clout behind one of its own in Gonzalez, and the Florida Justice Association, whose affiliates are supporting lawyer DeNapoli.

Gonzalez said he rejected Pedicini as a campaign operative and that Pedicini may have misrepresented the nature of the race to DeNapoli before going to work for him.

"I'm not on the ballot and I'm not running for office. I'm flattered by the attention that Julio gives me," Pedicini said in a telephone interview. "Anyone who gets in a race two years out and thinks they've got it locked up is clearly unfortunately delusional. If Julio had it locked up, he wouldn't be in the race of his life right now. He wouldn't have needed the FMA to put $500,000 behind him and smear Richard and lie about him, and he wouldn't have to bemoan to you about me in the story. So clearly the problem lies with Julio and he should look in the mirror and not point fingers."

But Gonzalez said he was taken off-guard by the brutal primary attack after he thought he had the nomination in the bag.

"I've raised my hand to serve this community with the most altruistic intentions and selfless drive," an impassioned Gonzalez said in a telephone interview last week. "Yeah, I'm completely surprised. This was never supposed to be like that. This was supposed to be at most a race between two people from the community. … Obviously this is somebody coming from outside with funding from outside the community with motives that have very little to do with the community, to try to get a seat."

But Pedicini said that a Gonzalez win would be a "pyrrhic victory" for the doctors' association.

"This is not about one race. This is about how far one group will go and how many stories will they tell to win," Pedicini said.