Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Adrian Wyllie continued his statewide craft brewery tour Wednesday night in Tampa's Seminole Heights, holding a meet and greet at the Florida Avenue Brewing Company, where he was joined by his new running mate, Greg Roe.
The 58-year-old Roe hails from Dade City and was a lifelong registered Republican until a year ago. He says it was after attending a Libertarian state convention two years ago that he realized he was in the wrong political party. When asked what disaffected him from the GOP, he said it was his disillusionment about what happens to candidates he believed in after they were elected.
"The problem is they get up there, and what happens," he says, specifically referring to Marco Rubio's 2010 run for U.S. Senate. "They get corrupted by the system and they end up not fulfilling the obligations or promises that they made. And I just got sick and tired and fed up to the point where I will no longer support that."
Roe says Wyllie wouldn't be beholden to lobbyists or big money interests if he were to pull off the greatest upset in Florida political history and actually win the race over the substantially better funded major candidates in Charlie Crist and Rick Scott.
When he selected Roe to be his nominee for Lieutenant Governor last week, Wyllie said that his running mate's background as an insurance agent was a crucial reason for his selection, because healthcare, property and flood insurance would all be major issues to contend with if elected. Roe said the campaign will issue a position paper on insurance sometime soon.
Wyllie's high-water mark in the polls was a Quinnipiac survey taken last month that showed him with 9 percent support, while Crist led Scott 39-37 percent, fueling excitement amongst state Libertarians who feel their time is finally coming after four decades of electoral frustration.
Roe's anti-government sentiments are evident when talking about the issue of how property insurance has soared in the past decade since the seven storms crashed through Florida in 2004 and 2005.
"Whenever the state or the government gets involved in any kind of free enterprise system, they destroy competition, right? And that's what's happened here," Roe says, referring to Citizens Insurance in particular. Citizens, you'll recall, was created in 2002 as the state-backed insurance agent of last resort for homeowners who were unable to find property insurance coverage in the private market.
When asked if Citizens wasn't crucially important for homeowners after several major carriers began bailing out of the state in the mid-aughts, Roe says those companies could no longer afford to do business here because of excessive regulations.
"If you apply the normal supply and demand of capitalism, then yes, there may be a time when the rates go up, but then supply and demand is going to balance that out and bring it back down, and that's what they did not allow," Roe insists.
"Politically they felt like they had to intervene, and as a result, they created a mess now that they cannot get out of," he says about the state legislature, adding that a major storm in the state could ultimately make every family in the state liable up to $15,000 in assessments. "So they have exposed the Florida voters to huge liabilities because they were trying to provide an expedited political solution, and someday it's going to explode on them."
The Libertarian gubernatorial ticket will be returning back to Tampa next week for one more local stop on the Brew Tour, this time at Cigar City Brewing, on Tuesday, August 26th, 7-8pm, 3924 W Spruce St, Tampa, Florida 33607
(813) 348-6363
