Ralph Hughes and Brad Swanson

Weekly Planet's Wayne Garcia has two interesting columns in today's Blurbex.

The Attack of Ralph Hughes' $1 million and Swanson Defends Himself

In The Attack he metnioed how Ralph Hughes PAC had created its first political ad and is attacking Sandy Murman. He references a prior Weekly Planet Column he did called Million-Dollar Sledgehammer. In that article he says "Life's been good to Ralph Hughes. More accurately, Hughes has worked hard to make sure that life would be good to him." . . . "Hillsborough's highest profile conservative activist, anti-tax crusader and power broker owns a pre-cast concrete business that is the largest of its kind in the nation. "

Hughes created a PAC "Let's Make the World a Better Place Because We Have Been Here" and donated $1,000,000.

"The cool million is believed to be the biggest single political contribution in Florida politics. . . . What is he going to do with the newly endowed Let's Make the World? His incorporation papers, according to one report, say the committee's purpose is to "promote good government by attempting to influence the election of individuals to state and local office." . . . . He has contributed money to six of the seven members of the current county commission and has strong sway with the status quo."

Some would say the sway comes close to ownership.

In Swanson Defends Himself , Wayne says "I'm guessing that while bombing out of college, Swanson didn't get a chance to take an ethics course, or if he did, he didn't get it."

Wayne then references mentions a St. Pete Times article on Swanson that says

"Ferlita says there was a subtext to her meeting with Hughes: that he wanted to see if he could influence her vote if he helped her win the County Commission seat left vacant by Kathy Castor.

Ferlita told him she would not be influenced, she said.

Swanson said there was no such undertone to his meeting with Hughes; Hughes just wanted to get to know him "as a person," he said.

In any case, Swanson has Hughes' support, while Ferlita, the more experienced and better-known candidate, is running without the power broker's endorsement."

Interesting.