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Dunedin Mayor Enters Congressional Race

Posted Apr 22, 2008 by William March

Updated Apr 22, 2008 at 09:34 PM

Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth has announced that he’s running against 19-term incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. Hackworth has switched from Republican to Democrat to make the race.

Hackworth will be in a primary against Democrat Samm Simpson, who ran against Young in 2006.

Hackworth, 52, is a former cross-country runner at the University of Florida in the 1970s who founded a sports marketing company in Colorado, then moved to Dunedin in 1995 and joined his father’s textbook publishing firm, which he now runs. He has been on the Dunedin City Council since 2002 and mayor since 2006.

In a news release announcing his run, Hackworth criticized excessive government spending and the national debt.

“It’s time to deal with the over-$9 trillion dollar national debt,” he said. “Do we really need a 39th and 40th year of Congressman Young’s earmarks and pork barrel spending increasing the burden on our children and grandchildren?”

He said the issues in the race are a struggling economy; homeowners facing foreclosure, with “bailouts for Wall Street but none for Main Street”; escalating health care costs and lack of insurance coverage; and “a dubious and costly war in Iraq.”

A spokeswoman said Hackworth has been a Republican largely because his family were Republicans, and that he felt himself more closely aligned with the Democratic Party.

Simpson, however, responded to Hackworth’s announcement with a news release calling him “yet another Republican masquerading as a Democrat,” and said she is “the real Democrat” in the race.

Florida Republican Party spokeswoman Erin VanSickle said Young “has been a strong voice for Pinellas County for nearly half a century,” and “We are confident that Congressman Young will be re-elected.”