Did Florida House candidate ‘attack’ rival’s kids?

A campaign flier released by Florida House candidate Steve Vernon implies that Vernon’s opponent in the Aug. 30 Republican primary, Joe Gruters, could not do the job because he has three young children.

Vernon said the comment on the flier was the last of an accumulative bullet point list that shows Gruters “has too many balls in the air. Joe can’t focus on what he needs to focus on, which is the constituents of District 73. My point is, that when you have all of these items of priority, you essentially can’t devote to we the people.”

Vernon said the flier points to all those things to which Gruters is committed, which would leave little focus for the residents of Sarasota and Manatee counties, and was not a personal attack.

The pair did battle in a Bradenton Herald forum on Aug. 5. While they showed some similarities in political philosophies, Gruters said Vernon’s attack on his children is a step too far.

“Joe is doing what Joe does and that’s taking things out of context,” said Vernon.

The flier states that Gruters “is the father of three babies that will distract him from representing his district.”

In response, Joe Gruters’ wife, Sydney Gruters, released a letter to Republican women voters, saying no child should ever be labeled as a distraction.

“This is disgusting,” she wrote. “I can only imagine how he feels about any mother that is an elected official or works outside the home. This is an attack on all mothers, fathers and children.”

Sydney Gruters said she doesn’t consider her children to be a distraction to her family.

“I hardly call that a distraction,” she said. “I call it motivation. For someone to label any child a distraction is truly a disgrace.”

Joe Gruters said, “It’s disappointing to bring children into this. Comments like these make him unfit to serve. These comments are way off base and disappointing.”

Gruters, who chairs Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Florida, said any comments about his political past and being involved with a lot of campaigns over the years is fair game.

“Campaigns get tough,” he said. “But differentiating yourself by saying children are a distraction is just ridiculous. There’s no room for that in politics and I’m surprised he would feel that way. Think if you were a job applicant and the employer asked if you had children and you said that you did and they disqualify you for that. I think it’s ridiculous.”

Vernon insists that his comment was taken out of context, noting again that it was the last item of a list and was a comparison piece showing Gruters’ other commitments opposed to his own.

“He’s like a juggler with too many balls in air,” said Vernon. “Let make this abundantly clear. That last point is a statement of all the different priorities he has and he keeps adding and adding more to the point where he’s everywhere but in District 73.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2016 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Did Florida House candidate ‘attack’ rival’s kids?."