Byrnes vs. Neeld:Your Choice

Though Larry Byrnes and Robert Neeld are not running in the Democratic primary on January 29 their chance to compete will occur on August 26 with the winner ready to compete again in the November 4 general election against Republican Connie Mack IV as our representative in the 14th Congressional District. Both gentlemen will be featured at the Club's general meeting on January 26 in the Grand Cypress Room in the Woodlands. Mack has been entrenched in this post for years and has served the wishes of the area's developers and not the general populace. Trading on the popularity of his ancestry (witness the IV after his name), Mack has also been rumored to be living in California, though he maintains a home in Naples and has three offices in this area.

Larry Byrnes, who lives in Fort Myers, has for 44 years been an educator, including the first Dean of the College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University where he is now a professor. I can find no record that he has ever run for or been elected to public office. His website http://www.byrnesforcongress.com/ is not very informative frankly. It features the usual electioneering platitudes: no mom and apple pie, but everything else. Pictures of his family abound. In all fairness he emphasizes education, which is his specialty, health care, the environment, and re-deploying troops from Iraq, all good things to be in favor of. His ads usually show him in running gear and ask you to join him, either a mildly clever attempt to let you know that he is running for office and needs your vote or else to show voters that he is in great physical shape and will not drop dead and leave voters to go through a special election if he cannot complete his term or, even worse, give our Republican governor the chance to appoint an interim Republican to replace him. . Take your pick. With seven months till the primary election for local offices we hope that he will revise his website and add some substantive opinions to it.

Robert Neeld, a resident of Cape Coral where he operates an accounting business, is evidently unmarried since there are no smiling family pictures on his website. Perhaps he is married and realizes the irrelevance of such pictures to his qualifications for office. If so, someone needs to tell him that pictures of him refereeing sports events are just as irrelevant. He has run for public office in the past and has been defeated. His website includes the same generalities as Byrnes' but does include his opinions on some issues that are controversial, issues that Byrnes avoids. You can read it at http://www.neeldforcongress.com/ Besides emphasis on health care, the environment, and education, he specifically advocates the right of citizens to bear arms, quoting Amendment II Bill of Rights amendments to the Constitution, which does make one wonder if he is anti-gun control. Nowhere is there any mention of re-deploying our troops from Iraq; strange, since it is an important issue with voters. He opposes the Family Marriage Amendment and the Right to Life Amendment and feels that the Patriot Act has gone too far in expanding the government's power on matters of domestic surveillance. Robert, you also have seven months to tell us even more about the issues that concern Democrats.

Read the websites of these two candidates and plan to attend the January 26 meeting with your questions for them. If you are driving to Shell Point drive west on Summerlin Road toward Sanibel. After passing the intersection of Summerlin and McGregor Boulevard stay in the right lane and exit at the next traffic light (Shell Point Boulevard). Proceed past the Comfort Inn and Suites and Golf Course entrances and turn right at the Woodlands guard station. Tell the guard that you are going to a meeting in the Grand Cypress Room in the Commons. He will direct you where to park.