Seminole Chronicle : Feeney: Conspiracy man following my plan

Feeney: Conspiracy man following my plan

Viewpoints | September 7, 2006

The election results in Oviedo clearly show that voters wanted change, by electing Keith Britton rather than incumbent City Councilwoman Regina Bereswill. They also picked first-time candidate Clint Curtis to run against District 24 Congressman Tom Feeney in the general election, setting a match-up that could prove the most interesting race of the season.

Take for example the campaign being mounted by Feeney, who says he's in a good-versus-evil campaign, evoking the image that his opponent, Clint Curtis, has used, but in reverse. While Curtis has long portrayed Feeney as being evil, Feeney counters that Curtis is the one who's actually evil.

They could both be right. Odds are Curtis has his heart in the right place, though, since he's making improving the elections system the foundation of his campaign. He's made some fairly sensational claims about Feeney in the past, though, which Feeney is now using to claim Curtis is crazy.

Curtis' claims include that Feeney asked him to make a prototype program to alter vote totals in electronic voting machines. He also claims there was a conspiracy surrounding over-billing in government contracts that resulted in the death of a state-level investigator. That investigator, Raymond Lemme, did die in July 2003, but the question is whether he actually killed himself.

Because Curtis believes Lemme's death was a conspiracy, just as he believes the vote-rigging is a conspiracy, Feeney says Curtis is a crazy conspiracy theorist.

At Britton's victory party Tuesday night, Feeney used an obscenity to describe the Chronicle for publishing a story in December 2004 about Curtis' claims.

That story was defended in opinion pieces because it involved a local controversy given national attention. The Chronicle never claimed Curtis' story was the truth, just that he was accusing an Oviedo congressman of these things. Feeney says the story should never have published.

On Tuesday, Feeney laughed as he spoke of hurting the paper's reputation by listing it alongside Hustler magazine, a pornography-based magazine, as a media outlet that published Curtis' story. On Wednesday Feeney's office gave the Chronicle an advance copy of a press packet as thick as a phonebook detailing Curtis' claims, which indeed includes a chapter with the Chronicle's story next to a recent Hustler article about Curtis' claims.

Feeney said Tuesday he was pleased to see Curtis win the Democratic primary, rather than Casselberry veterinarian Andy Michaud. When asked why he sent a campaign mailer to Democratic voters before the primary that appeared to be flattering of Curtis, Feeney said, "You'll find out," with a smile, before detailing his campaign strategy.

By Election Day on Nov. 7, according to plan, Curtis will be known throughout District 24 as crazy, and Feeney will win by an 80-20 margin.

Good will triumph over evil. Ah, politics.