Mike Yost, 3rd Congressional District

Mike Yost, 3rd Congressional District
Competitors in Republican Primary: Dean Black and Chris Nwasike
Incumbent: Corrine Brown (D)

Endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus of Northeast Florida

http://yostforcongress.com/
http://twitter.com/YostforCongress/
http://www.facebook.com/yost2010
http://www.youtube.com/YostforCongress
interview with Independence Caucus http://icaucus.ning.com/group/florida/forum/topics/endorsement-of-mike-yost-us
I like Mike. He was the first 3rd district candidate I met and the only one with which I have had any extensive contact. He seems to me an honest person who avoids the grandstanding we see in so many politicians. I am a little bit prejudiced on Mr. Yost's behalf because I did volunteer for one of his events and did get a few petitions for him. Nonetheless, I honestly did consider Yost to be the best out of the "early candidates."
To explain the "early candidates," these are the people who declare themselves as candidates before the April 30 qualifying deadline, but not all of them qualify so most of them are not going to be in the Republican Primary. The early Republican candidates were Yost, McNaughton, Gilman, Kolb, Penoso, and Dean Black. The only "early candidates" to qualify are Yost and Black, and Nwasike who qualified by fee just before the deadline.
I still like Yost in that I consider him to be conservative and very smart, and to be as viable a choice to win the general election as anyone else, but I have not yet decided how he compares to the other primary candidates. I do not know nearly as much about Black and Nwasike as I know about Yost, but they seem formidable. Mike won the battle to qualify, now he has to win the primary if he is to fight the really big battle to take down Corrine Brown.
I do not live in the 3rd district. Nonethless I feel we all have a stake in this because Corrine Brown is an extremely liberal corporate crony Democrat, about the only Democratic Party Congresswoman in Northeast Florida. In most of the other NE Florida districts we have Republicans; while I like some Republicans better than others I cannot get too excited about their elections. If you replace one Republican with another you will see mostly the same pattern of voting, not a big change and no change at all on party line issue. However, there will be a great difference if you can knock out just one liberal Democrat and replace her with one conservative Republican. Many of the controversial bills in the House come down to just a few votes, and these few votes have an enormous effect upon our nation. If the Republicans of NE Florida work together and be willing to cross district lines to defeat Brown they can make a big difference in our nation. I hope that some of the people that read this blog do decide to back one of the Republican candidates and get out there to win back our nation, one office and one vote at a time. Some say it is an impossible task because Republican voters are outnumbered in the 3rd district by a very large percentage, but the reality is it all comes down to who wants it more. There might be more registered Democrats than there are registered Republicans, but the winner will be who gets the most voters to the polls.
One of the things I like about Mike is that he is a true grassroots candidate. He is a regular person who doesn't have the big money and big endorsements we associate with career politicians, but he does have a vision, he is knowledgeable of the issues, and he is a hard campaigner.
He began early, his declaration being received on 5/21/09. http://doe.dos.state.fl.us/PublicRecordsBER/wfPublicImagesBER.aspx?%%%
The reason why I had contact with Yost before any other candidate was because he has been out there talking to small groups since last year.
He also chose to qualify by petition. To explain, there are two methods to qualify for the ballot, by fee or by petition. The fee is about $10,000, which is 1% of a congressional members yearly salary. The amount of petitions needed is 3778, 1% of the 3rd district voters. It is considered to be the more traditionally "grassroots" method to go the petition route because it is cheaper and a candidate expects to build a grassroots organization while they are out getting petitions. Some "bragging rights" also go along with the petition method. Three of the other early candidates (Kolb, Penoso, Gilman) tried to qualify by petition and failed to do so. Yost claims that by qualifying by petition he is showing the voters what kind of Congressman he would be. To explain, gathering petitions is an enormous amount of work but saves the fee: Yost was able to qualify by petitions, so claims he will work hard for the people and be conservative with their money.
The 3rd district is a very large and spread out area. While most of the action does take place in Jacksonville and all three of the Republican candidates are Jacksonville residents, it is not a race that takes place just in Jacksonville. My impression is that Black and Nwasike have done very little campaigning outside of Jacksonville. Yost on the other hand did get petitions from all through the 3rd district. http://election.dos.state.fl.us/candidate/CanPetSig.asp?account=50555
Over half of his petitions did come from Duval, but nearly a third did come from Clay, significant numbers came from Putnam and Volusia, and he got others from every county in the 3rd district. What this means to me is that Yost does have at least as significant a presence in Jacksonville as the other candidates, but in addition has greater support throughout the district.
I feel that if the 3rd is to be won it will have to be done at a grassroots level. That is the old way of campaigning and that is the way candidates come from behind with a surprise victory. Yost took place in one of these campaigns as a teenager. it was a bunch of volunteers working long days going door to door to support their candidate. The day before the election they were down in the polls but on election day they won because the workers had gone out and talked to people face to face. Yost plans to do the same campaigning in the 3rd, and says to do so he will need 1000 to 1500 volunteers. That is a TALL order but if he can do I think he can win. He has also said that if every Republican in the 3rd district gave him $20 it would add up to a million and a half in campaign funds. That would be more than Corrine Brown has now. I don't know how likely this is but it does illustrate that even though Corrine Brown is the "big money" candidate, she can be overcome through small donations if enough people choose to give.
Corrine Brown is an entrenched encumbent who has won multiple elections and has a large campaign fund. However, Yost says she can beat because he claims the demographics of the 3rd district have changed a great bit in the last few years with there being more registered Republicans and Independents. His plan is to target the Republicans, Independents, and "Reagan Democrats" to get their vote. I have not been able to examine the demographics. The reason for this is because Congressional Districts span several counties and you need special software to tabulate that sort of data.

Yost's website is www.yostforcongress.com According to his website, Yost:

Will work to define authority of government agencies and work to restrict the ability of government agencies to "create law" by fiat authority.

Will work to promote economic growth of our small businesses with tax reforms.

Promote the regulatory and tax environment that makes investment in America desirable.
Will not vote for any legislation that causes taxes to increase.
Supports the FairTax.
Will work for tort reform to lessen cost of medical industry "lawsuit protection" testing.
Will work for favorable tax treatment for people who purchase their own private insurance.
Expand Health Saving Account plans.
Allow purchase of health insurance accross state lines to increase competition.
Work to allow blocs of business to form co-ops for better group rates.
Work to eliminate fraud in the medical equipment industry.
Believes we must reform the Medicare system.
Will introduce legistlation to reform earmark practices.
Believes that regulation enacted by a government agency must be reviewed and voted upon by Congress as if they were law.
Believes the 10th Amendment gives states the right to regulate within their borders.
Supports developing domestic energy reserves.
Believes that no person in America illegaly should get any sort of benefit supported by tax dollars.
Opposes "amnesty."
Is a member of the NRA and supports state-to-state concealed carry permits.
Opposes federal funding of any agency that supports, advocates, or performs abortions.
Supports counseling and adoption as alternatives to abortion
Supports parental notification of abortions for those under 18.
Oppose payments to other countries for carbon-reduction plans.
Supports development of new technologies to help increase clean, inexpensive and reliable energy sources.

Yost in the media
http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2010-05-17/story/rep-corrine-brown-dismissive-about-her-campaign
http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2010-04-26/story/clay-county-voter-forum-gets-testy
http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/floridas-congressional-races-are-set
http://www.jaxobserver.com/2010/04/27/opening-round-of-candidate-qualifying-produces-a-few-surprises/
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/david-hunt/2010-05-04/whos-florida-3rd
http://www.ocala.com/article/20100501/ARTICLES/5011013/1402/NEWS?Title=Local-candidates-and-challengers-go-House-hunting-

Check out the Republican Liberty Caucus of Northeast Florida at www.rlcnef.org. Join the Republican Liberty Caucus of Clay County at http://www.meetup.com/Republican-Liberty-Caucus-of-Clay-County/