POLITICS

HOLLY HILL, Fla. -- If there is one thing certain from the Headline Surfer Public Candidate Debates for the three seats on the Volusia County Council up for grabs in the Nov. 8 general elections, district 4's Heather Post and Al Smith do not like each other one bit and it showed when they were seated next to each other with the moderator to their left and the video camera pointed at them.

PORT ORANGE, Fla. -- Shelly Vincent of New Smyrna Beach may have quit the executive committee of the Volusia County Republican Party in ther weeks leading up to the Aug. 30 primary. 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Local insurance magnate Tony Grippa of Brown & Brown Inc., was all too eager to showcase a picture-perfect display shot of himself mugging it up with former New York Gov. George Pataki, who was unable to make much of a dent in the crowded 2016 GOP field for president, with Trump out-muscling even the likes of of former Florida Gov. Jed Bush and US Sen. Marco Rubio, the early favorites.

In a bitter debate filled with tension and insult, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump's vulgar comments about women prove his unsuitability to be president. He promised she would "be in jail" if he were president. And so went Sunday night's CNN presidential debate was moderated by Anderson Cooper, of the Cable News Network's "Anderson Cooper 360" and by Martha Raddatzs, political correspondent for ABC News.

Here's an example of a nasty exchange:

As expected, early on Trumpo was asked about past sexual comments and this was his response: This was locker room talk. I am not proud of it. I apologize to my family, I apologized to the American people. Certainly, I am not proud of it. But this is locker room talk. You know, when we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads, where you have them, frankly, drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over and you have so many bad things happening, this is like medieval times. We haven’t seen anything likes this. The carnage all over the world and they look and they see, can you imagine the people that are frankly doing so well against us with ISIS and they look at our country and see what's going on. Yes, I am very embarrassed by it and I hate it, but it's locker room talk and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. We are going to defeat ISIS. ISIS happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left because of bad judgment. And I will tell you, I will take care of ISIS. We need to get on to much more important and bigger things.

DELAND, Fla -- Although county offices will be closed on Monday due to clean up from Hurricane Matthew; the Department of Elections will be open from 8 am to 5 pm.
 

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. -- Ellen Watkins Juliano of Deltona belives Hillary Clinton's VP, Tim Kane, won Tuesday night's live televised debate. Margie Patchett of Port Orange was adamant that Pence actually won it "hands down."

The vice-presidential candidates went at each other tooth and nail, especially when Pence looked into the TV camera and asserted Donald Trump never said things Kane said he said.  And Trump's GOP runningmate described Hillary Clinton as gthe offenve candiate in this race, which Kane denied. 

As expected, in their first and only debate, Democrat Kaine and Republican Pence defended their running mates while accusing the other of fueling an "insult-driven campaign."

Pence's aggressiveness did not sit well with Juliano, who angrily remarked: "Wow! You sure have been drinking the Kool-Aid when you can deny what you actually saw. The right wing party is now making lying a virtue,"

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. -- Volusia County candidate Heather Post sent out a press release Tuesday in which she stated she and her opponent, Al Smith, interviewed with several associations for endorsements and she "received them all."

PORT ORANGE, Fla. -- With his Aug. 30 primary victory assured, Chase Tramont is eager to take his seat on the Port Orange City Council dais.