In the Sunday, Oct. 31 edition of the News Journal. columnist Mark O’Brien accused mayoral candidate Ashton Hayward of schilling for the Levin firm: “Hayward’s too eager to please his pals. He urged the City Council to hire the Levin Papantonio law firm to sue BP for damages from the April 20 oil spill.”
The News Journal has deleted the column from its website and is running in the paper and online this correction instead:
In Sunday’s column, Mark O’Brien erroneously stated that mayoral candidate Ashton Hayward III had urged the Pensacola City Council to hire the Levin Papantonio law firm to pursue possible legal action against BP for the April 20 oil spill.
Hayward did not specify any law firm when he urged the City Council to consider legal action.
Councilman Larry B. Johnson suggested the council consider legal action and he praised the Levin Papantonio firm.
Of course, the damage is done. Few people will ever read the correction. The PNJ’s Monday readership is miniscule compared to Sunday. Note that Moby did not run the correction on his blog.
O’Brien supports Mike Wiggins. He has a close relationship with City Hall (O’Brien handled their PR while working for the Bullock agency), Wiggins and many of his key supporters. Wiggins used a post from Mark O’Brien’s blog in the first really negative ad in the mayoral race. In that ad, Wiggins urges readers to go to O’Brien’s blog to read more against Hayward and even gives the web address. Had O’Brien put a correction on his blog of his damaging misstatement about the Levin firm then readers would have at least read the truth…..but Moby didn’t do that.
Up to Sunday, the mayoral race has been about issues. Wiggins has cherry-picked his record for the highlights and Hayward has pointed out the “lowlights.” All of which is fair game for a race involving a 15-year political veteran and incumbent. Any attacks against Hayward by the Wiggins camp have been through surrogates Charles Bare and Diane Mack. Wiggins has stayed above the fray.
None of the Wiggins for Mayor ads have been personal attacks….until Sunday when Wiggins used O’Brien’s words to go after Hayward personally.
Such ads are a sign of desperation from the Wiggins’ camp and shows how badly they want to hold on to power. It’s sad because Mike Wiggins has always been seen as a “nice guy.”
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For the record, I and my newspaper support Ashton Hayward. However all our articles on the mayor’s race,except for our actual endorsements, have been balanced. We’ve tried to let each candidate tell his message. In the two Chamber forums on the race, I pushed both candidates. Again the motive was the same – give the public as much information as possible. I rejected questions for the forum from supporters of both candidates that I felt were too aimed at attacking one candidate.
In no instance have I gone after Wiggins personally —questioning his business history, taxes paid, prior marriages or relationships with his campaign contributors. When people have brought such info to me, I’ve urged them to stick to the issues.
Without much effort I could have a written a column similar to O’Brien’s about Wiggins—yes, there are skeletons in that closet. However, the strong mayor’s race needs to be about issues and platforms. It’s why this newspaper supported the new charter.
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Sadly Wiggins no longer wears the white hat in the mayor’s race. It wasn’t taken from him. He freely tossed and stumped on it. It is a shame that Rick Scott-style politics has now infested the Pensacola mayor’s race.