9/11/18 Fort Walton Beach, FL – The election cycle this year has been contentious and we all now breathe a sigh of relief that the primary season has ended. There have been some overtly negative campaigns this year, but the 2018 Republican primary in Florida House District One will go down in history as one of the ugliest. Everyone unfortunately anticipates some degree of negativity from political campaigns, but there is a line. In his campaign for state representative, Mike Hill has crossed that line.
In addition to the unnecessary attacks invoked by Mike Hill and his campaign – that are all proven false upon further evaluation – they also engaged in unwarranted and deceptive personal attacks against his fellow Republican and RLC endorsed candidate Rebekah Bydlak, some of which were undeniably sexist. Uncontent with solely making personal attacks against his competitor, Mr. Hill went even further and set his target upon Bydlak supporter and fellow Republican and RLC endorsed Congressman Justin Amash (MI-3), repeatedly claiming Amash was a liberal and highlighting his Palestinian heritage. Aside from the outright lie of painting one of the most principled Republican members of Congress as a far-left liberal, it was more than clear that he was making a bigoted swipe regarding the ethnicity of Congressman Amash.
Both Congressman Amash and Rebekah Bydlak are distinguished citizens of integrity and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida openly and publicly condemn these horrendous personal attacks from Mike Hill.
As an organization, we are happy to work with any elected official who is willing to work alongside us in making Florida a more free and prosperous place to live, work, and play, and given how turbulent this election cycle has already been we would love to turn over a new leaf. However, due to Mike Hill’s deceitful, inappropriate, and ungentlemanlike conduct during the campaign, we cannot support him and it is extremely unlikely that we will ever consider doing so again in the future.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida, in concert with its Northwest Florida Regional chapter, call upon Mike Hill to publicly apologize for both his personal attacks against Rebekah Bydlak and Congressman Justin Amash along with assuming responsibility for any similar actions that might have been carried out by some of his supporters and campaign associates. Furthermore, we join Congressman Amash’s call upon the Republican Party of Florida to publicly denounce the abhorrent actions of Mike Hill.
The people of the Panhandle deserve better than the smear campaign tactics they were subjected to.
In Liberty!
Charles J Gravois
Chair of the Panhandle RLC and Northwest Regional Director for the RLC of Florida
For further questions and comments you can reach Mr. Gravois directly by Email at chris.gravois@pm.me or by Phone at 251-709-0091.
