April 18, 2010 Contact: Rosemary Goudreau, 813-468-0633

Death By A Thousand Cuts

TALLAHASSEE – For months, Sen. Paula Dockery has been calling for the Republican Party of Florida to
do what is right by our members and donors and disclose any records that may cause questions about
our party’s ability to lead in these troubled times.  In spite of these warnings, the RPOF establishment in
Tallahassee has ignored Dockery’s calls for openness and honesty.  Now we are seeing the damaging
results for the Grand Old Party in Florida. 

“Instead of just disclosing what they knew to be wrong and getting the issue past us, the old guard of
the Republican Party of Florida, including some elected leaders, is now staring at serious federal and
state investigations as we move into the final stretch of a very important election cycle.  During this
election where the GOP should have the people behind us and the Democrats on the run, we are
bogged down with this embarrassing albatross of financial corruption and we are becoming a national
disgrace. 

“If Bill McCollum and other establishment Republicans had shown the slightest leadership and called for
the RPOF to come clean, this disastrous situation could have been avoided or we could have put it
behind us by now. Instead, we are suffering death by a thousand cuts as each day brings new revelations
of outrageous financial mismanagement and downright corruption.

“We’re supposed to be different.  As Republicans we believe in fiscal restraint and personal

responsibility.  But in an effort to protect a few bad actors, the party leadership decided to circle the
wagons, and by doing so, painted the Party in a very unfavorable light. The existence of a severance
agreement signed by high-level elected officials is deeply troubling and highlights the extent to which
efforts at transparency were thwarted.

 "While I'm discouraged that six months have passed since my initial request for transparency, I renew
my plea of November, "Let’s put all our cards on the table, face the music and move on with the task of
electing Republicans." The Republican Party is not the handful of people making the decisions and
controlling the purse-strings, it is the 3,967,781 registered voters in the state that chose to be
Republicans. Those individuals are not responsible for this mess or for the bad decisions that were made
and should not be embarrassed by the actions of those who violated the trust placed in them. Those
who acted inappropriately should come forward and accept responsibility and the Republican Party as a
whole should have its name cleared."
 

"While I applaud the Executive Committee's decision this morning to release the records, I caution them
to resist the urge to use one individual as a scapegoat and to refrain from holding back any records. As
we've learned from the past, the cover-up is generally more damaging. I encourage our Republican Party
of Florida Executive Committee and all of the members of the RPOF to stand up to the establishment
and compel them to come clean, admit mistakes, take our lumps and get on with the people’s business."

Paid political advertisement paid for and approved by Paula Dockery for Governor, Republican