They lied.They said Obamacare was a failure. (It isn’t.)
They said Greenlight Pinellas was all about light rail. (It wasn’t.)
They said Amendment 2 would lead lickety-split to marijuana legalization not just for the ailing, but for everybody. (If only.)
And they said ISIS terrorists disguised as Mexican day laborers were going to sneak across the Texas border and leave packets of Ebola virus on Ted Cruz’s doorstep.
Okay, they didn’t say that last one.
But again, if only…
I guess there’s some relief in knowing that we won’t have to listen to all these lies quite so incessantly now that the campaign ad season is over with. Which means that we also won’t ever again have to endure Jeff Brandes’s snide schoolmarm or Bill Young’s laughable attacks on Dwight Dudley.
So there’s that.
And I also take pride in the fact that over the course of this endless and excruciating election cycle, there’s been someone at Creative Loafing working with dogged determination to hear all sides, to follow all the controversies, to make sense of the nonsense.
That person was our News & Politics Editor Mitch Perry, and it’s my bittersweet duty to report that this election was the last that Mitch will cover for us. He has decided to move on to another opportunity, covering local and state politics for Peter Schorsch’s Extensive Enterprises Media, which includes the popular SaintPetersBlog site as well as Florida Politics, Sunburn, Context Florida, and Politics of Pot.
Mitch is an original, and no matter where he works, he will bring his incredible work ethic, his passion for political coverage (he is and always will be the Political Animal), his distinctive voice, and his rock-solid integrity. We’ll miss him, but we wish him well.
And here’s the good news.
We’re getting Kate Bradshaw.
A journalist whose extensive experience in both daily and weekly journalism belies her years, she’ll start as our new News & Politics Editor on Dec. 1. Currently with the St. Petersburg Tribune, she has written for alternative newsweeklies in Maui and Miami, and in 2012 was part of the award-winning CL team that covered the Republican National Convention in Tampa. A graduate of UT and USF St. Petersburg, where she got her master’s in journalism, Kate has a wide range of interests, a deep knowledge of the local political and arts scenes — and, like apparently everyone who ever worked for an alt-weekly, she’s in a band.
In other words, a perfect fit.
And while I’m on the subject of changes hereabouts, I’d like to officially welcome Meaghan Habuda as our Food Editor. She’s been working as CL’s Food Site Editor on a part-time basis, but now that we’ve brought her on full-time she’ll have even more opportunities to sniff out the latest openings and closings, follow the latest restaurant and cooking trends, and put together a tasty mix of ingredients both in our Food section and at cltampa.com/food. Want to get in touch with her? Just email meaghan.habuda@creativeloafing.com, or call her at 813-739-4812.