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•👤 Who: Nine Republican candidates for Florida’s 1st Congressional District, including Jeff Macey, Jimmy Patronis, and Michael Dylan Thompson.
•🗣️ What: Candidate forum to present platforms and address voter questions.
•📅 When: Tuesday night, three weeks before the January 28th primary election.
•📍 Where: Eglin Golf Course, Niceville, Florida.
•❓ Why: To provide voters with insights into each candidate’s qualifications, policy positions, and vision for the district.
An Admission of Gerrymandering, Throwing Rocks at the Leader, and Everything Else Said at the Republican Candidate for Special Election for Congress Forum in Niceville
While he may not have engendered himself to the crowd or candidates – U.S. Congressional Candidate for Florida’s First District Jeff Macey hit the nail on the head when he quipped that all of the candidates “have the same agenda and platform” as the others at the Republican Women of Niceville’s candidate forum on Tuesday night at the Eglin Golf Course.
Nine of the ten candidates who wanted to be the Republican candidate to replace Matt Gaetz in Congress made it to the forum. John Mills did not make it to the forum.
The night was mostly civil, with a couple of candidates making jabs at one another (“Alphas don’t have to announce they are alphas” – Macey to candidate Greg Merck and “You’re only running here because you couldn’t win in District Two” Michael Dylan Thompson to Jimmy Patronis) and a couple of members of the crowd booing certain candidates.
Also, Patronis noted that the State Legislature, since as far back as the term of Florida Speaker of the House (Now Congressman) David Webster has actively gerrymandered congressional districts to get favorable results for Republicans in Congress.
But, without further ado, here’s what the candidates said about themselves and their candidacies just three weeks before the primary election on January 28th.
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Aaron Dimmock opened the evening talking about his defeat in the Republican primary against Matt Gaetz last summer. He stated that 26,788 votes were cast for him in the primary (to Gaetz’s more than 70,000).
In an apparent jab at Jimmy Patronis’ recent move to the district, he, like many others on the forum, noted he’s lived in district one for two decades. While he wouldn’t get a lot of shots throughout the night, he was able to close the evening and open it.
He reminded people that he had been a Navy pilot and was a Naval Academy graduate and that he was one of the naval aviators who flew missions near New York City after the 9/11 attacks.
Gaffney, a former federal government employee and current government teacher at Rocky Bayou Christian School in Niceville, told the more than three hundred attendees at the forum that he wanted to appeal to all people, regardless of their political affiliation, as a “selfless leader, not another self-proclaimed politician, this district deserves a Christian educator and true humble public servant. One who will represent godly values, both personally and in the House of Representatives.”
Gaffney said he wanted to support typical Republican planks like curbing illegal immigration and cutting spending. Unique among the candidates, he mentioned enforcing the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires the president to engage with Congress before committing troops abroad. He also noted that he initially supported warrantless wiretapping in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks but has since changed his mind and believes they are too invasive.
Jeff Macey told the assembled Republicans at the forum that he was responsible for writing some of the software on all of their phones.
He also told them he wasn’t putting any money into his campaign for Congress. “Everything I own is going for my daughter,” he told the crowd, which fell into a still silence, “for custody support. And if you want to see the stock.. If you want to donate to me, it’s going to charity.”
Chief among his concerns was the battle he says the United States is currently locked in with China and Russia. “Everyone up here has the same agenda, same platform, the difference between us is what makes us special. I want someone in Washington who actually knows how to deal with the technology that is in every one of our units right now.”
When asked how they voted on Amendments 3 (to legalize weed) and 4 (to loosen abortion laws in Florida) – Macey was the only person at the forum to say that he voted in favor of both proposed amendments on the November ballot.
Greg Merck, a former Navy and Air Force Pilot, billed himself as the Alpha that Northwest Floridians should send to Congress. He also claimed that “Make America Great Again” had been hijacked and that he no longer considered himself “MAGA,” but instead considered himself “Make Americans Great Again.”
Merck spoke at length about how America exported its greatness to other nations around the world, but that the Biden administration had ruined America’s power in the world over the last four years.
Merck made several locally important policy proposals, including moving Army helicopter training from Alabama to Whiting Field in Florida, reforming Medicare, cutting federal spending back to 2019 levels, and repealing the Davis-Bacon Act. The Davis-Bacon Act requires contractors and subcontractors of the federal government to pay “no less than the prevailing wages” in an area for laborers and mechanics. It requires the employers to pay overtime if a worker works more than 40 hours in a week.
When asked if he would place his stocks and other assets into a blind trust if he won election to Congress, Merck did not answer the question.
If it was left unsaid even after President-elect Donald Trump endorsed him for Matt Gaetz’s old seat last month, the rocks thrown at Jimmy Patronis all night confirmed that most of the field views him as the front runner in this special election primary.
Most of the field kept their digs subtle by reminding the audience how long they have lived inside the state-drawn boundaries of district one.
Michael Dylan Thompson, a wunderkind lawyer from Pensacola who passed the bar at 23-years-old, decided on a more direct route. After an audience member asked Patronis directly why he wanted to run for District One’s congressional seat, Thompson interjected, “Because he couldn’t get elected in District Two.”
“Classy,” Patronis retorted, “I’ve lived in district one longer than he’s been alive. I’ve lived in district one for 28 years.”
Patronis added the line between districts one and two had moved over his residence, thanks to effective Republican gerrymandering to ensure the Florida delegation in Washington D.C. had an easier time staying Republican Red. “It’s what we’ve done since Daniel Webster was speaker of the [Florida] House. We try to create as many Republican Congressional seats as possible,” Patronis said, “We try to create as many Republican congressional seats as possible. Okay – so what happens? You get gerrymandered lines. So, District One used to go in half of Bay County for the first 28 years of my life. Okay, the only reason why District Two has now been encroached into Walton County is to make district two more Republican. So now Neil Dunn can be more competitive against Leon Gaston and Jefferson counties, with your heavily Democratic counties, whether you like the way the lines or the politics or the sausage is made, it’s the way for to create more Republican members of Congress. That’s the way it is.”
Century, Florida native Jeff Peacock took one contrarian position on the night – telling voters that he opposed the idea of term limits. “We already have term limits,” Peacock said, “They are called elections. I believe term limits is government coming in and telling us who we can and cannot vote for.” Peacock argued that the people of Florida should put more working people like him into Congress as a way to counteract some of the perceived dysfunction there.
Just a week ago, Joel Rudman returned to private life after complying with Florida’s resign-to-run rule and giving up his office as a representative in the Florida State House for District Three, which includes Most of Santa Rosa County and a portion of Northern Okaloosa County.
In that time, he’s seen all seven of his bills that he submitted to the Florida House withdrawn, including bills that would have ended resign-to-run, reduced the age to purchase a firearm back down to 18, banned people in the United States illegally from filing civil lawsuits, and more.
But Rudman stood on his accomplishments from earlier in his political career to make inroads with the Republicans in the audience. He drew on his opposition to mask mandates, his skepticism of the COVID 19 vaccine, and his promises to seal the southern border with Mexico, fix the economy, and repeal Obamacare.
Rudman’s statements were greeted with the biggest cheers of the night, thanks to a large contingent of members of Bikers for Trump, who recently endorsed his candidacy for Congress.
Pensacola Native and Yale law graduate Michael Dylan Thompson was the only one of the ten candidates on the ballot for the Republican primary to qualify by getting enough signatures instead of paying the $10,000 filing fee.
He was not afraid to stoke animosity with his opponents, especially Jimmy Patronis, who had duties related to insurance regulation while he served as Florida’s Chief Financial Officer (a statewide elected position). “Raise your hand if your insurance has gone up in the past five years,” Thompson asked rhetorically before gesturing to his eight opponents on stage, “You’re looking at the folks who caused it. These guys will not fix the insurance crisis.”
He argued that Northwest Floridians should vote for him in the special election primary later this month because he – and 1/6 of the members of Congress – are lawyers. “I’m the only lawyer up here, you know, there are a ton of them over in D.C.,” he noted, “and if they are going to sit there and cut holes and loopholes for all their buddies, you need an attorney to go in there and go get loopholes for you.”
His other argument? the 26-year-old attorney says he’s the person that best represents the party’s chance to hold power in the future and the present in Washington, D.C. “If you want to win in 2028 and 2032, this is where it starts,” he said.
Former Escambia County Businessman Gene Valentino introduced himself primarily as an entrepreneur who has brought jobs to the Escambia County area by luring a large Navy Federal Credit Union job site to the northern part of the county. He compared himself to Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Doug Burgam, and Donald Trump and said that his business acumen, as well as his eight years as an Escambia County Commissioner, made him the best candidate for the job in Washington, D.C.
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