Collier Merrill hosted a successful fundraiser for Holly Benson last night at The Fish House. Benson is running for the Republican nomination for Florida Attorney General. She is the first Panhandle native to run for a statewide office since Skip Hunter ran for Insurance Commissioner in 1994. She was introduced to the crowd of 75-100 by retired Florida Supreme Court Justice Ken Bell. Many of those in attendance donated $500 to the Benson campaign. Benson spoke to the tried-and-true GOP staples: Small government, Responsive government and government that gets our of the way of its citizens and entrepreneurs.
The crowd was Who’s Who of political contributors and politicians:
Jim Reeves who had collected two dozen checks for Benson – spoke of the recent mortgage burning at the Pensacola Little Theatre. Jim and the PLT board raised enough money to pay for the mortgage and repair the Cultural Center.
Former County Administrative George Touart was there politicking. He is running against Gene Valentino for County Commissioner in 2010 (who also showed up). Touart said that his campaign is moving along fine. “It’s scary how well things are going.”
Jerry Maygarden, former Pensacola mayor, trustee of Better Pensacola Forum and supporter of No Boss Mayor: “Rick, you know I still love you,” he said laughing. For Jerry and I, politics is not a blood sport and we joked about the campaigns. We can agree to disagree and once the votes are counted, we move on to make whatever decision work…at the time we didn’t know the election outcome. It was a great conversation, an adult conversation.
Mayor Mike Wiggins: I stood with Mike and his wife while Holly spoke to the crowd. He sensed that the referendum was about to pass and wanted to pull together community leaders to work on implementing it. He plans to run in 2010 and expects “people to line up to run” against him.
State Rep. Greg Evers: He said that his campaign is running well, too. He expects to have a very fundraising quarter the first of 2010.
Others: Jack and Molly Nobles, Dr. Kevin Welch, Teri Levin, Dr. Jimmy Jones, Charlie Clary, Janice Gilley, Jane Birdwell, Ashton Hayward, Larry Johnson, Fred Donovan, Ashley Hodge, Robert Beasley, Kramer Litvak, Charlie Fairchild, Danny Zimmern, Dr. Bill Spain, Mort O’Sullivan, Dick Baker, Dr. Coy Irvin, Mike Hill, Nancy Fetterman, Dr. Bob Snowden, Megan Benson Pratt, Dr. Derek Jones and Grover Robinson were all in attendance.