Christine Hawes is co-owner of Keen Campaigning, a communications and political consulting firm devoted to improving local political discourse by representing moderate, well-qualified candidates. Andre Torkelson, co-owner of Keen Campaigning, contributed

Massive issues are looming over Sarasota’s future. Traffic congestion is miserable. A budget shortfall is almost certain. Homelessness is pitting neighborhoods against each other. And key decisions lie ahead on big pieces of land. So this twaddle created recently by Sarasota Republicans over the role of political parties in nonpartisan elections is a hurtful distraction—a big red herring, as legitimate as the schoolyard bully who whines about his scraped elbow shortly after planting a shiner on the smallest kid in class. Here’s why:

• Let’s face it: Republicans are too dominant in this area to legitimately complain about a little Democratic self-empowerment. Republicans turn out at the ballot box in greater numbers than Democrats even in areas where Democrats have a slight edge – like the city of Sarasota. Countywide, the imbalance is pervasive: Republicans outnumber Democrats by 38 percent, an edge so powerful that it’s been 45 years (before Post-It notes, VCRs, cellphones, and “Monday Night Football”) since a non-Republican Sarasota County commissioner served.
• Our two local parties practice very different forms of partisanship. The Democrats are more like cheerleaders, embracing a “Support your fellow Democrat” theme like the one currently supporting Liz Alpert and Shelli Freeland Eddie for Sarasota City Commission. By contrast, Republican partisanship has been more “attack dog,” belittling the opponent for not being a Republican. Recall, for instance, the local Republican Party’s Facebook posts during the Ken Marsh/Bridget Ziegler school board race, which disparaged Marsh for being not just a Democrat, but the most extreme form of Democrat, a “liberal” (which he was not).
• And finally Democrats in our area also have a greater history of reaching across the aisle to accept the occasional Republican, or at least to leave moderate Republicans alone. Some great modern-day examples are Jane Goodwin, Caroline Zucker and Nancy Detert. By contrast, it’s nearly impossible to find a Democrat that has enjoyed the same kind of “stand down” passive support of our local Republican party.

We feel qualified to make these bold statements because our company, Keen Campaigning, represented candidates in both the recent Sarasota City Commission primary election, and last fall’s School Board election. We were on the front lines of both elections and have experienced most directly how our local parties behave in nonpartisan races.

If Republicans seriously want to clean up our local political scenery, there are two far more effective and useful ways to do that than pressing Democrats not to unite as Democrats. For starters, our two local parties should commit to put qualifications and potential for positive change atop their priority lists. Next, Republicans could join Democrats in fighting the biggest threat to a clean local political scene: “dark” money.

Our local parties should both stand against hidden, out-of-town political donors, which infiltrated our local school board elections last fall like never before, as we all remember. Both local parties could support formation of an “anti-PAC” PAC, similar to the national level’s Mayflower PAC, that would provide worthy candidates from either party the power of PACs without the secrecy.

Traffic. Budget shortages. Homelessness. Big land deals. Too many real issues are looming over our city to waste time in a low-level debate over why our local parties are being partisan. Let’s shut it down and get on with worthy debates that will help determine future solutions to real problems.

Christine Hawes is co-owner of Keen Campaigning, a communications and political consulting firm devoted to improving local political discourse by representing moderate, well-qualified candidates. Andre Torkelson, co-owner of Keen Campaigning, contributed