John Shaw
Independent Candidate - Florida House Of Representatives
News: 08/26/2008 - John Shaw featured in front page of Local section, Tallahassee Democrat
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Meredith Clark • Associate Editor • August 26, 2008
Two of 13 candidates gunning for seats in House Districts 8 and 9 can rest a little easier than their competition today. By registering as candidates with no party affiliation, John Shaw, who's seeking the District 9 seat, and Robert Maddox, running for District 8, have, in a sense, bested the competition and guaranteed that their names will appear on the November ballot.
The two twenty-somethings leverage idealism in place of name recognition in distinctly different hopes of offering voters something, well, different.
Shaw, who once centered his campaign solely on drug reform laws, is now running on a platform that includes ending the prohibition against growing hemp. Maddox said he decided to enter the House race as an affirmation of his belief that everyday people should be more involved in the political process.
"If all you do is complain and complain, and vote for the lesser of two evils, you're not being productive. You need to step up," said Maddox, a registered Republican unimpressed with both major-party presidential candidates. Maddox said he's leaning toward Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.
Maddox and Shaw embody the spirit of card-carrying "others" (22,134 strong in Leon County, according to the Supervisor of Elections Web site) who refuse to choose between the two major parties. Our reasons, much like the ones that drove Maddox and Shaw to file, are as varied as we are.
And after listening to weeks of talking points from partisan candidates and watching them throw up campaign signs on street corners and in crowded halls, tracking the campaigns of two long shots in the House races has become fun, if not enlightening about where the youth and independent votes might be headed in the years ahead.
"There's enough demand for something new and idealistic," Shaw said of his campaign, which has been unfortunately, if predictably, embraced by "potheads" and mocked along the campaign trail. And if his age and intense focus on indsutrial hemp legalization weren't enough to draw skepticism about his viability as a candidate, full disclosure of a criminal past (he made a plea deal on numerous burglary charges) might be.
Shaw's willingness to drag a past he's admittedly trying to make recompense for into the light before anyone else has to is admirable in light of his admittedly long shot at the District 9 seat.
It's Shaw's honesty and spirit that caused level-headed supporters such as Deborah Hall, a Democrat, to support his campaign.
"I admire him for what he's doing," Hall said. "I've heard him say he's for the decriminalization of marijuana, and someone's got to get into office with enough guts to try to do that.
"I hope he wins," she continued, "but it's important just to see him put that first foot forward into the political process."
"Change does not appear to be forthcoming from any registered party," Shaw said in a e-mail, "but change and a return to the Constitution is what my campaign is all about."
The buzz about "change" has led pundits and pollsters to peg 2008 as the year the sleeping giant of the youth vote will rise, shake off apathy and assert itself as an in-demand voting bloc.
But perhaps we — Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennial — won't move as a bloc, but a little more piecemeal and independently minded enough to shake things up on the local political scene.
That's the long-range hope of Maddox, whose name doesn't appear on a campaign placard cluttering area right of ways. He has no campaign materials, no concrete bloc of supporters besides "family and friends," including a fiancée he plans to marry in a matter of days. No Web site yet, the computer programmer said. He's a basic black-and-white design guy who plans to partner up with a more creative geek as November approaches.
What he has is a willingness to pull away from partisan do-or-die election tactics and encourage more people to vote for whom and what they believe in, pursuant to the very definition of idealism.
"The Democrats will say that the GOP is going to make poor people live on the streets and force our grandparents to eat out of the trash. The Republicans will say that Democrats are going to kill the babies and spend us into the ground," Maddox said. "And some of that may be true."
But he balks at the idea of siding with either one if it means subjugating the belief of the individual, and instead thinks we should start electing people "who work off of their principles instead of doing what's politically expedient."
While both candidates have their feet rooted in admirable causes — autonomy and using an unconventional approach — Maddox and Shaw each offer a respite from politics as usual and have ironically carved a niche for themselves while avoiding traditional partisan politics. Should their campaigns strengthen, they'll offer the unaffiliated voter (and those tired of choosing the lesser of two evils) interesting choices in November.
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