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Special Report - Is Your Candidate for Sale?
07/30/08 - 11:32 AM
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Running for public office is an expensive undertaking. Candidates will pay for signs, billboards, food, balloons, promotional materials, and most expensive television and radio advertisements.

Candidates will tell you though that every dollar they receive is necessary to help voters understand why they’re the best pick for the job.

“Our Country depends on an informed electorate to know who they’re voting on and what they stand for. If you don’t reach out there and get your message to them they don’t know who you are or anything about you,” says Hoot Crawford, candidate for Bay County Judge.

Crawford, like many others, is a recipient of money from wealthy Bay County businessman Charlie Hilton. Hilton is contributing to more than a half dozen candidates this year alone. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of his lifetime helping candidates get elected.

“Freedom is a precious commodity. Liberty and the right to do business and to say what I’m saying and aggravate people is a precious commodity,” says Hilton.

Hilton can contribute $500 in his own name but also $500 from each of his family members, hotels, and various contracting businesses. The money could add up quick. Hilton says though that he is not looking to influence the elections outcomes by contributing so much money.

“You can’t buy an election. If the person you’re supporting isn’t any good it will catch up to them eventually,” says Hilton.

Former Circuit Judge and candidate for State Attorney Glenn Hess says that being able to contribute so much money to a campaign is a fine line.

“There are people in this community that try to control government,” says Hess. Though Hess denies someone could control him. Last year Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis offered to bankroll any opponent of incumbent State Attorney Steve Meadows. Hess says if approached by Francis, he would politely decline.

Meadows himself has been raising money for more than a year. Already his campaign contributions top more than $120,000. His initial campaign in 2004 spent more than $235,000. Meadows says perhaps the laws could be revisited.

“It would be nice if we had some campaign reform where we had some free time on television to get our message out and it was equal among all the candidates and we didn’t have to have all of this money raised,” says Meadows. The State Attorney does note that donors giving money is a matter of free speech.

“The Supreme Court has said that there is a high level of protected speech and that is political speech. It goes higher than just about anything else and so people have the ability through their contributions to get that message out and that’s the basic tenant of a campaign,” says Meadows.

To view a list of candidates and their latest campaign finance reports visit the Supervisor of Elections website.