Click here to vote for the 2012 Fire Blog of the Year

Somehow STATter911.com survived the brutal campaign that resulted in the nomination of this site for Fire Blog of the Year. Much like the Republican Party, we apparently eat our own. Here in the final days before the ballots close, things are getting really ugly.

Can you believe Firegeezer accused me of being soft on crime, claiming I issued a pardon to Jerry Engle? And to think I put the full weight of the STATter911.com political machine behind Geezer in previous election seasons.

Despite some of the competition calling me the Jerry Springer of the fire service, I refuse, as always, to go negative with our message. My campaign manager, Firehouse Zen’s Mick Mayers, wants me to hit Geezer hard on the age factor (Bill will turn 103 in July). But I refuse to make senility and all those Depends ads a factor this election season (my spies tell me Bill is already dusting off that Ronald Reagan line about youth and inexperience to use on me).

And you won’t see any personal attacks from me against Geezer’s running mate FossilMedic Mike Ward. Though it’s pretty clear Ward, upset that Firegeezer wasn’t also nominated for EMS Blog of the Year, is going rogue. Geezer’s campaign operation is quite upset that Ward is way off message. They are also trying to keep him away from the press after learning he had difficulty naming any of the big city fire or EMS chiefs. Do you really want someone like that just a 103-year-old’s heartbeat away?

Some of the candidates have gone to the extreme in their negativity, saying the nation’s fire service isn’t yet ready for a female Fire Blog of the Year like HydrantGirl. Remember, I didn’t say that and such vicious and sexist comments have no place in this contest.

Backstep Firefighter’s Bill Carey, also nominated, slammed STATter911.com over the weekend, twisting the words and taking out of context some of what our readers wrote about the Minnesota firefighters in drag video. But he didn’t stop there. Carey posted a poorly thought out comment on my Facebook page DRAGging both the incumbent Fire Blog of the Year and a relative of mine, the head of the Board of Elections, into the Minnesota story:

Bill Carey also wondering if we can get your “son” and his mustached friend to don gowns as a fund raiser.

With apologies to the late Joseph Nye Welch, one of my personal heroes, I must say: At long last Mr. Carey, have you left no sense of decency? How low can you get, bringing my own flesh and blood into this campaign? There was a time that children were off limits. But I guess anything goes these days.

And how about Carey’s running mate Dave LeBlanc? Sounds awful French to me. Not that it should matter. Though a reporter covering the campaign tells me some sheriff in Arizona is going to reveal this week that LeBlanc’s birth certificate is a fake. But I refuse to get into the gutter with the birthers trying to undermine this election. For the record, I was born at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore and have the documentation to prove it.

Rather than taking part in this desperate and destructive campaigning, I plan to continue to stick to the real issues that matter to the people we serve. One of those issues that my opponents constantly bring up and try to use against me is that I am the only candidate who actually lives “inside the Beltway”. I admit that’s true and it looks bad in a year when it is popular to be an outsider. But unlike the other candidates, Average Jake FF, CT Fire EMS, First In, I never wanted to be a firefighter, FSWarrior and Working the job, I am the only true outsider here looking out for the readers. As the Board of Elections chairman pointed out in his failed effort to keep me out of the race, I am not a firefighter. And that’s what is really needed to be the Fire Blog of the Year. Someone to give you that outsider’s view of the world.

In this election season you can send an important message to the President and Congress if you vote for STATter911.com as Fire Blog of the Year. This will let them know you are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. Remember, a vote for STATter911.com is a vote for freedom. Don’t let the Internet terrorists win.

The contest is hosted by THE Fire Critic Rhett Fleitz (send him a message too – a vote for me will just drive him up a wall) and FireRescue1.com and sponsored by American Military University. Click here to vote.

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