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The Last Word

I Shot The Sheriff

David beat McGoliath. Although many may claim they predicted it, few truthfully believed that David Morgan would beat the most powerful political person in Escambia County, Sheriff Ron McNesby, in the Republican primary on August 26.

Sheriff McNesby had raised $229,381 in cash and in-kind contributions to Morgan's $59,008. McNesby's supporters included attorneys, developers and business leaders - the wealthiest and most powerful people in the greater Pensacola area. The Pensacola News Journal endorsed him. WCOA's Luke McCoy touted McNesby's achievements daily on the "Pensacola Speaks" radio show.

McNesby had an army of deputies led by his risk manager Mike Holloway and Lt. Rex Blackburn putting up signs throughout the community. McNesby was a guaranteed, sure thing to be re-elected to a third term according to the power brokers. Only a fool would challenge the McNesby political machine.

FOOL ENOUGH

David Morgan was fool enough to try and just persistent enough to succeed. With his master's in Business Administration, bachelor's in Criminal Justice and over 30 years in law enforcement, Morgan felt he could bring a fresh, professional approach to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office (ECSO).

In 2004, Morgan placed second in a three-man race in the Republican primary with only ten months of campaigning and less than $16,000 to spend. McNesby had $161,976 in his campaign account and third place finisher Doyle Thomas had $22,885. McNesby won 18,887 votes to Morgan's 7,884.

On September 22, 2006, Morgan announced his candidacy in front of the offices of Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David Stafford. In his speech before a small crowd of supporters, Morgan said that the early filing would help him better compete for campaign dollars and endorsements.

When asked why he was running: "I don't need the job. My wife and I are financially secure. I'm rather a reluctant candidate, but people have been approaching me over the past few months about running again. Someone needs to run. If not me, then who? If not now, then when?"

A little shy of two years later, Morgan outpolled McNesby, 13,565 to 10,354, and the courthouse politicos are still in shock.

The Independent News sat down with David Morgan and his media advisor David Craig two days after the upset to discuss just how he won.

CONFIDENCE

When asked if he was surprised about his win, Morgan smiles and says, "We felt around January that we had caught McNesby in the polls. As we moved around the community, knocking on doors, we had every indication that we were picking up one or two percentage points every month after that."

"We went into the election day knowing that we were going to win by 10 points or more," David Craig interjects. The actual margin of victory was 13.4 percentage points, or 3,211 votes. In the 2004 Republican primary, McNesby beat Morgan by 34 points.

"I looked at David that morning and said, You got him,'" says Craig.

Morgan admits that they didn't have actual polls to support their belief in a momentum change in the race.

"We couldn't afford them," admits Morgan. "But we could feel the change. People started telling us when we knocked on their doors that they and their families were voting for me or that they had been talking about my campaign at church or at their civic clubs.

"Most weekends we had 15 volunteers walking the streets for the campaign. I can count on my fingers how few negative responses we got from voters."

"Up until the last six months there was an atmosphere of intimidation," says Craig. "But by April and May, people began realizing that they had a hope for real change, and they got more vocal in their support."

GET THE MESSAGE OUT

The Morgan campaign strategy was simple. "We made no secret that I was going to stand in front of people and tell the truth about the administration of this sheriff. I knew if we could get the information in front of enough people we would win," says Morgan. "We needed to communicate effectively that McNesby's record needs a second look."

"We wanted to bury this guy (McNesby) with the truth," adds Craig.

Getting the information out was a challenge for the Morgan campaign. The daily newspaper had barely touched on the issues that the challenger felt hurt the two-term sheriff, like his past grand jury indictment, deaths in the jail, rapidly growing crime in certain neighborhoods and the ever-expanding budget, with too much money spent on administration and "toys" and too little on street patrols.

WEAR TV had pulled back on investigative reports on the ECSO after complaints from McNesby about what he perceived was bias coverage from reporter Mollye Barrows. The station had refused to fire Barrows but had removed her from the law enforcement beat.

WCOA's Luke McCoy, once the community's most influential radio personality, was giving McNesby constant praise and almost unfettered access to his afternoon radio show, "Pensacola Speaks," much as McCoy had done for Save Our City and Councilman Marty Donovan during the Community Maritime Park debate.

The Independent News had done a few reports on the ECSO, but the stories never caught much fire in the community. It was why David Craig coined the phrase "Teflon Ron" to describe how invulnerable McNesby appeared to be to any criticism.

BLAB ATTACKS

With David Craig's help, Morgan began broadcasting in late 2006 regular taped messages on Blab TV. Craig has produced several successful shows on Blab, including "Blue Lights", which shows actual arrests by local deputies, and weekly high school football games. He also is the founder of Reality News Network, which posts podcasts on local, state and national news on his website, realitynews.net.

"We would produce a new show every month and run it as often as we could afford, usually about 15 times or so," says Morgan.

The shows were hard-hitting and direct. Morgan brought up that McNesby had been indicted by a grand jury in the late sixties for falsifying a police report concerning a DUI and hit and run while he was deputy. He talked about McNesby's lack of an associate or college degree. He just hammered one point after another.

After the first show aired, Morgan and Craig realized that McNesby didn't intend to reply to the charges. "We realized that his strategy was to do nothing until the last few months right before the election."

BROWNSVILLE RESPONSE

Well, that wasn't exactly true. Sheriff McNesby did figure out how to use his office, his life-long friendship with County Administrator George Touart and his influence over the local media to counter Morgan's attacks.

On December 18, 2006, Morgan aired a show on Blab TV in which he interviewed residents and business owners in the Brownsville area. They complained about the crime and sense of lawlessness in the area just a few blocks from ECSO headquarters. Drugs, prostitution, vandalism and robbery were portrayed as common place with little or no response from the sheriff.

Morgan claimed in the video that Brownsville residents, who had an active Neighborhood Watch program that McNesby had disbanded in 2004, had been told by McNesby that they didn't deserve help because they don't vote or contribute to his campaign.

Less than two months later, Sheriff McNesby and Touart announced a joint operation to clean up the area called "Operation Brownsville." The month-long concerted effort by several county agencies got daily coverage from the Pensacola News Journal and WEAR TV. Arrests were made. Trash was hauled off. Code violations were cited.

"But all it did was push crime off the main streets and drive the criminal element into areas like Montclair and West Pensacola," says Craig. "The whole operation was expensive, ineffective and ill-advised."

Indeed, a year later, Morgan televised a new video with Brownsville homeowner Jerry Jones, who still felt threatened by criminals. Jones described a late night drive-by in front of his home during which thugs yelled, "We have the hood."

Instead of getting protection from ECSO, Jones claimed that McNesby supporter Lt. Rex Blackburn drove to his home with lights flashing after Jones called the ECSO for help. Jones tells Morgan on tape that he believes that Blackburn put him and his family at risk by letting the criminals know exactly who called in the complaint.

MOMENTUM SHIFT

But not all parts of the Morgan videos were attacks on McNesby's record. "We also mixed positive messages about what I wanted to do as sheriff," says Morgan. "We told the voters that we wanted to improve training, supervision and accountability. We believe the deputies who are on patrol are doing a good job, but the administration has failed them."

The Morgan-Craig strategy of getting their message out in front of the voters and keeping it out there seemed to start taking hold in late 2007. Monthly "Meet the Candidate" meetings started drawing 60 to 80 people.

"At first we saw in the eyes of people, like those in Brownsville, a loss of hope," says Morgan. "But we gradually began to sense that people were ready for a change."

Craig adds, "I was hearing, 'It's so bad we need a change. We need somebody not from here, not from the agency.' They were tired of the Good Old Boys."

As McNesby and his supporters began putting up signs, the Morgan campaign started getting phone calls. "People wanted to know if this was the guy that they had been hearing about," says Morgan.

DEBATE DISASTERS

Then the public forums and debates began. They didn't go well for McNesby.

Craig shares that at the May 19 debate before the Escambia Federated Republican Women's Club, McNesby told the audience of Republican faithful, "There are three misconceptions about me: I am not a thug, I am not a criminal, and I am a dedicated career law enforcement officer."  

Laughing, Craig says, "We had to agree."

At that debate Morgan hammered at McNesby's character, leadership, jail costs and budget, among other issues, keeping McNesby on the defensive for most of the 40-minute debate. Morgan said: "I am the Republican candidate who has not been arrested, convicted or indicted."

McNesby pointed out that he had cut 83 positions to achieve a $2 million savings and boasted his office had returned $6 million during the past seven years to the Escambia County Commission.

Morgan countered and pointed out that the ECSO budget increased from $53 million in 2004 to about $80 million currently and said Sheriff McNesby requested $86 million in the coming budget year. "Where's our money?" Morgan said. "We've added about $26 million and we don't have any more deputies or corrections officers."

The long-time McNesby supporters, at least those not on the ECSO payroll, began to have doubts about the incumbent. The Teflon was wearing thin. Morgan didn't sound as crazy as they had been led to believe.

Because of his tendency to misspeak, McNesby didn't want the next debate taped. There was big brouhaha over David Craig trying to tape a debate on June 5 in front of Republican Club of Greater Pensacola at Franco's Restaurant. Blackburn threatened Craig with arrest, although it's unclear what the charges might have been.

The Republican Club's Troy Schoonover, who organized the event, got frustrated with both sides being unreasonable. Schoonover thought he had reached a compromise when Craig agreed to just provide an audio recording of the debate and to not stream it live on the web.

"They can't be civil. They don't like each other. And they both want to get their way. It's like two little brothers who are fighting all the time," Schoonover told the Independent News that day before the event. "We're just trying to hold an event together and we want it to happen. We're in an impossible situation in the middle. We're thinking more about our club members being able to see both candidates and can care less about video streaming."

In the end, Craig did not videotape the debate, but he did make an audio recording. Blackburn sat directly behind Craig, apparently poised to cuff him if the intrepid reporter whipped out a camera.

However, WEAR did record the entire approximately 40-minute debate between McNesby and Morgan. Schoonover asked WEAR to stop recording twice, but the WEAR cameraman refused. No one was arrested. There was a standing-room-only crowd of about 120 people in the audience.

NO PARAMETERS

"The most difficult part in dealing with McNesby was that he had no parameters," Morgan says. "After the debates, he started attending smaller meetings around the county. He would say whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Often there was no basis in truth or fact.

"He told one group in the Perdido Key area that only two people had died in the jail. According to records we received from the ECSO, there are 15 people who have died on his watch."

"He didn't want to be held to a statement on record or nailed to any positions," says Craig. "We kept putting the facts in front of the people, and in the end the voters didn't believe what McNesby had to say."

The weeks leading up to the August 26 primary were largely uneventful. McNesby did little or no door-to-door campaigning, while Morgan and his volunteers systematically moved throughout the community.

The News Journal endorsed McNesby, stating that he "has clearly grown in the job." The PNJ editorial board also wrote that "our perception of the Sheriff's Office is that it runs as effectively as it has in a long time and that most voters are comfortable with law enforcement they believe they can depend on."

The Independent News saw the race and the state of the ECSO differently. The paper recommended Morgan with a statement that is in direct conflict with the think-tank on Romana Street. "It's time for change. Eight years are enough for Ronnie Mac and his cronies. Too much money has been wasted on helicopters, boats, flat-screen televisions and now, imitation Segways."

On the night of the primary, Morgan took an early lead that he never relinquished. The McNesby camp was stunned and left blaming the low turnout as the culprit. The News Journal and the power brokers were left scratching their heads, wondering how they could be so wrong.

THE NEXT STEP

The challenge now is for David Morgan to change his focus from McNesby to his Democratic opponent Larry Scapecchi. The 25-year law enforcement veteran of the ECSO soundly defeated Sam Lucas for his party's nomination.

Four years ago, Republican candidates had few problems in the general election. This year is different. With Sen. Barrack Obama atop the ticket, Democrats are more confident. Scapecchi is considered a serious contender that Morgan can't take lightly.

"We will change our message to what we plan to do once elected," says Morgan. "The Sheriff's Office can not be isolated from the community."

In the candidate survey that he submitted to the Independent News, Morgan stated that he plans to restructure the ECSO to eliminate redundant services and unneeded positions and focus on community policing. He also wants to raise deputies' starting salaries to $35,000 per year and ensure that deputies' salaries are adequate before anyone within the administration gets a raise.

"I have been taught that a commander is only as good as his staff and that organization matters," says Morgan. "However, we will make our decisions based on what is of the most benefit to the public."

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