In which To purchase Low cost Baby Lady Outfits and Toddler Boy ...

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Is some homophobia self-phobia?

ScienceDaily (Apr. 6, 2012) ? Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.

The study is the first to document the role that both parenting and sexual orientation play in the formation of intense and visceral fear of homosexuals, including self-reported homophobic attitudes, discriminatory bias, implicit hostility towards gays, and endorsement of anti-gay policies. Conducted by a team from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex, England, and the University of California in Santa Barbara, the research will be published the April issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves," explains Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study's lead author.

"In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward," adds co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who helped direct the research.

The paper includes four separate experiments, conducted in the United States and Germany, with each study involving an average of 160 college students. The findings provide new empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic theory that the fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires, Ryan says. The results also support the more modern self-determination theory, developed by Ryan and Edward Deci at the University of Rochester, which links controlling parenting to poorer self-acceptance and difficulty valuing oneself unconditionally.

The findings may help to explain the personal dynamics behind some bullying and hate crimes directed at gays and lesbians, the authors argue. Media coverage of gay-related hate crimes suggests that attackers often perceive some level of threat from homosexuals. People in denial about their sexual orientation may lash out because gay targets threaten and bring this internal conflict to the forefront, the authors write.

The research also sheds light on high profile cases in which anti-gay public figures are caught engaging in same-sex sexual acts. The authors cite such examples as Ted Haggard, the evangelical preacher who opposed gay marriage but was exposed in a gay sex scandal in 2006, and Glenn Murphy, Jr., former chairman of the Young Republican National Federation and vocal opponent of gay marriage, who was accused of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old man in 2007, as potentially reflecting this dynamic.

"We laugh at or make fun of such blatant hypocrisy, but in a real way, these people may often themselves be victims of repression and experience exaggerated feelings of threat," says Ryan. "Homophobia is not a laughing matter. It can sometimes have tragic consequences," Ryan says, pointing to cases such as the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard or the 2011 shooting of Larry King.

To explore participants' explicit and implicit sexual attraction, the researchers measured the discrepancies between what people say about their sexual orientation and how they react during a split-second timed task. Students were shown words and pictures on a computer screen and asked to put these in "gay" or "straight" categories. Before each of the 50 trials, participants were subliminally primed with either the word "me" or "others" flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds. They were then shown the words "gay," "straight," "homosexual," and "heterosexual" as well as pictures of straight and gay couples, and the computer tracked precisely their response times. A faster association of "me" with "gay" and a slower association of "me" with "straight" indicated an implicit gay orientation.

A second experiment, in which subjects were free to browse same-sex or opposite-sex photos, provided an additional measure of implicit sexual attraction.

Through a series of questionnaires, participants also reported on the type of parenting they experienced growing up, from authoritarian to democratic. Students were asked to agree or disagree with statements like: "I felt controlled and pressured in certain ways," and "I felt free to be who I am." For gauging the level of homophobia in a household, subjects responded to items like: "It would be upsetting for my mom to find out she was alone with a lesbian" or "My dad avoids gay men whenever possible."

Finally, the researcher measured participants' level of homophobia -- both overt, as expressed in questionnaires on social policy and beliefs, and implicit, as revealed in word-completion tasks. In the latter, students wrote down the first three words that came to mind, for example for the prompt "k i _ _." The study tracked the increase in the amount of aggressive words elicited after subliminally priming subjects with the word "gay" for 35 milliseconds.

Across all the studies, participants with supportive and accepting parents were more in touch with their implicit sexual orientation, while participants from authoritarian homes revealed the most discrepancy between explicit and implicit attraction.

"In a predominately heterosexual society, 'know thyself' can be a challenge for many gay individuals. But in controlling and homophobic homes, embracing a minority sexual orientation can be terrifying," explains Weinstein. These individuals risk losing the love and approval of their parents if they admit to same sex attractions, so many people deny or repress that part of themselves, she said.

In addition, participants who reported themselves to be more heterosexual than their performance on the reaction time task indicated were most likely to react with hostility to gay others, the studies showed. That incongruence between implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation predicted a variety of homophobic behaviors, including self-reported anti-gay attitudes, implicit hostility towards gays, endorsement of anti-gay policies, and discriminatory bias such as the assignment of harsher punishments for homosexuals, the authors conclude.

"This study shows that if you are feeling that kind of visceral reaction to an out-group, ask yourself, 'Why?'" says Ryan. "Those intense emotions should serve as a call to self-reflection."

The study had several limitations, the authors write. All participants were college students, so it may be helpful in future research to test these effects in younger adolescents still living at home and in older adults who have had more time to establish lives independent of their parents and to look at attitudes as they change over time.

Other contributors to the paper include Cody DeHaan, Andrew Przybylski, and Nicole Legate, all from the University of Rochester, and William Ryan, from the University of California in Santa Barbara.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Rochester, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Weinstein, Netta; Ryan, William S.; DeHaan, Cody R.; Przybylski, Andrew K.; Legate, Nicole; Ryan, Richard M. Parental autonomy support and discrepancies between implicit and explicit sexual identities: Dynamics of self-acceptance and defense. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 102(4), Apr 2012, 815-832 [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Video: Jobs & Politics

Jared Bernstein, sr. fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, discusses the Obama Administration's hopes for today's jobs number, as well as the Administration's likely response. Tony Fratto, Hamilton Place Strategies, discusses the Republican p...

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Kinkade: Artist drew many fans, few critical raves

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? To fans and the countless collectors who helped build painter Thomas Kinkade's commercial art empire, his idealized vision of the world usually served as a simple, soothing addition to the living room wall: a soft depiction of a churning seascape or a colorful garden or a cottage brimming with warm light.

Kinkade's vision, and the artworks he prolifically created from it, paid off handsomely for the self-described "painter of light," whose business grew into franchised galleries, reproduced artwork and spin-off products said to fetch at their peak some $100 million annually and adorn roughly 10 million homes.

Kinkade, who died Friday of what appeared to be natural causes in Los Gatos, Calif., embraced his popularity even as he drew less than appreciative attention from those within the art establishment who derided him, at least in part, for appealing so brazenly to the widest possible audience.

"In their minds, he represented the lowest type of art," said Jeffrey Vallance, an artist who hosted a show of Kinkade's artwork in Santa Ana, Calif. in 2004. "He was different from other artists. You kind of felt like he was giving people what they wanted."

Kinkade's art empire included reproductions of his numerous paintings in hand-signed lithographs, canvas prints, books and posters, calendars, magazine covers, cards, collector plates and figurines. As his art drew wider and wider attention, Kinkade didn't shy away.

"It is clear that everyday people need an art they can enjoy, believe in and understand," he wrote in a catalog to the 2004 show.

For Kinkade, such art meant light-infused renderings of tranquil landscape scenes, homes and churches that evoked an idealized past, some of which included religious iconography.

As word of Kinkade's untimely death at age 54 spread Saturday, fans flocked to some galleries to buy his work.

"It's crazy beautiful. We're struggling with our own emotions, yet the public is coming in and just buying art off the wall," said Ester Wells, gallery director at the Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery in Pismo Beach, Calif. "Right now, people are just coming in and buying everything in our inventory."

Many customers bought art as a tribute while others said it was a smart investment: They feel his work will now be worth more down the road, Wells said. Others stopped by just to say how sorry they were to hear of his death.

"We're going to lose a great artist to the world but we'll never forget him," Wells said, adding that she thinks Kinkade will be remembered as another Norman Rockwell

Kinkade regarded Rockwell as his earliest hero. His mom had a big collection of copies of Saturday Evening Post magazines, he said in a biography on his website.

"The scenes were nostalgic and brought back very happy memories for people," said Marty Brown, who owns four galleries in Southern California that sell Kinkade paintings. Brown's galleries had already had a record sales day by noon on Saturday, he said.

The customers ranged from curious people who'd seen news of Kinkade's death to longtime collectors purchasing a few more pieces.

"Some people are coming and buying a couple or buying their first piece, or just buying something. But they all feel pretty bad, to tell you the truth," he said.

Kinkade had a fan base that was unprecedented, and he made collectors out of the many people who brought his art into their homes.

"That's market penetration that we've never seen in art, for sure," Brown said.

Yet some of the qualities that made Kinkade's art popular and accessible to everyday consumers also led to its criticism from art experts.

"I think the reason you probably aren't going to find his work in many museums, if any, is that there really wasn't anything very innovative about what he was doing...," said Michael Darling, chief curator of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. "I really think that he didn't bring anything new to art."

Kinkade was also criticized for selling reproductions of his works, not the originals.

"That was something that drove the art world crazy," Vallance said. "You were never really buying the real thing, you were buying something made by a machine."

In the 2004 catalog to his California show, Kinkade offered an answer to his critics, saying he didn't look down upon any type of art.

"As to the myriads of products that have been developed from my paintings, I can only state that I have always had the attitude that art in whatever format it is accessible to people is good..." he wrote. "All forms of art reproduction have meaning to some body of people."

But Alexis Boylan, who edited a 2011 book of essays, "Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall," said Kinkade presented his art as value-driven and contrasted it with rap music and other forms of art that he was less fond of.

"He saw his art as antagonistic towards other forms of artistic expression," she said. "He was very antagonistic towards modern and contemporary art."

Amid the success, though, Kinkade had run into personal difficulties in recent years.

In June 2010, he was arrested outside Carmel, Calif. on suspicion of driving under the influence. That same year, one of his companies also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy filing came as the company had started making payments on an almost $3 million court award against it in a lawsuit filed by a Virginia couple, Karen Hazlewood and Jeff Spinello.

The Virginia gallery owners sued Kinkade and his company in 2003, arguing that he'd fraudulently persuaded them to invest in a licensed Kinkade gallery, according to the Los Angeles Times. The couple alleged that they were being undercut by discount sellers whose prices they were barred from matching, and they had merchandise they couldn't sell.

The court eventually sided with the couple. Kinkade faced similar lawsuits from other owners as a number of Kinkade galleries failed from 1997 to 2005.

Brown said he hopes people remember Kinkade not only as a commercially successful artist, but one that raised millions for charity by auctioning his works.

"We've got a lot of people out there today that are a little sadder today because Thomas Kinkade passed away," he said, adding: "I just hope that he's in a better place."

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Associated Press writers John S. Marshall in San Francisco, Michelle Price in Phoenix and Jason Keyser in Chicago contributed to this report.

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NFL: Saints appeals hearing set for Thursday

NEW YORK (AP) ? Saints head coach Sean Payton, general manager Mickey Loomis and assistant head coach Joe Vitt are set to have their NFL appeals heard Thursday regarding the punishment they've received for their roles in New Orleans' bounty system.

League spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the hearing schedule in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon, about two hours after Payton's agent, Don Yee, said the coach and NFL were "trying to schedule a mutually convenient time for the proceedings" that would not interfere with people's plans for the upcoming religious holidays.

Aiello also said former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who has since taken a job as defensive coordinator with the St. Louis Rams, did not appeal his indefinite suspension.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Payton for all of next season. Loomis was suspended for eight games, Vitt for six, and the Saints were fined $500,000 and docked two second-round draft picks.

The unusually tough penalties stemmed from an NFL probe which concluded that from 2009-11 the Saints offered improper cash bonuses for big hits that either knocked opponents out of games or left them needing help off of the field.

Payton's suspension ? due to start last Sunday ? has been on hold pending his appeal, allowing him to get in a few extra days of work as he rushes to create a plan that's as detailed as possible for the Saints' 2012 season.

Beyond the punishment for Saints coaches and executives, the NFL still has to determine whether players who were involved in the bounty program will also be disciplined.

Speaking at a press event Tuesday for new NFL uniforms created by Nike, Goodell said the NFL met with the players' association representatives on Monday to discuss the league's investigation of the Saints.

"We shared more information with them so they're up to speed," he said.

Goodell added that he expected to speak with NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith again as soon as Wednesday.

"I hope to be able to make some decisions soon," Goodell said.

"I believe in getting as much information as possible," he said. "We respect the players. This is important because it's a player safety matter. We think that we need to get some input from them."

According to the league, Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to any New Orleans player who sidelined Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre during the 2010 NFC championship game. No other players involved have been publicly identified by the NFL.

Saints running back Pierre Thomas, who was modeling his team's new uniform at the NFL's fashion show, called possible player suspensions by the league "ridiculous."

"We're players. We're going out there to make plays. That's what the game is about," he said. "You play defense, your job is to tackle.

"They can say they put a bounty out on me when I got knocked out against San Francisco in the playoffs. You can say they put a bounty out on me. Who knows? But they're just targeting us right now," he said. "But I'm not faulting the guy that hit me. It's the nature of the game. That happens."

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said he couldn't speak directly to the Saints' situation, but despite all the hits he's taken, he'd be surprised if an opponent was trying to injure him.

"We all respect each other so much," he said. "We all know how hard it is. It really surprised me that guys would want to try to intentionally hurt somebody. This is a fraternity. There's so few of us that do it. The average life expectancy is three years in the NFL or something like that.

"It would shock me if people were trying to intentionally hurt people."

Thomas said he has not spoken with Vilma or any of his other teammates on defense.

"They probably got a lot on their plate as it is. It's not my business to jump in," he said.

Payton has spoken to his old boss, former Super Bowl winning coach Bill Parcells, about possibly taking over the Saints while he is suspended.

Goodell has said he would be fine with Parcells stepping in. Thomas liked the idea, too.

"I mean it would be great. That's somebody coach Payton always talked about in meetings, admired him. He seemed like a great coach. I never played underneath him, but I learned a lot about him. I heard a lot about him. He seems like a great guy," Thomas said.

"I know we would love to have him if it happens, but we would prefer Payton to be there with his team, to lead us on the way he's been doing."

The Saints' offseason training program begins April 16. Thomas is hoping that, no matter what happens, the bounty scandal will be settled by then.

"Hopefully, this doesn't keep lingering on," he said. "You don't want this to linger on while we're preparing for a season. You want to make sure everything is focused on one thing: Trying to get to that Super Bowl."

___

AP Pro Football Writer Howard Fendrich in Washington, D.C. and AP Sports Writer Brett Martel in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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Applepeels: Lessons that Apple might learn from its past

If you are a long-time reader of Applepeels, you might know that I have said many times over the years the experience of being an Apple employee depends a lot on what you are doing and the management team in charge of your division.

Today I came across a presentation from RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) that talks about what really motivates people.?

Paying attention to some of the thoughts in the presentation would really help Apple fix a hidden weak spot in their culture and management philosophy.?

You might argue that Apple doesn't need any help with anything, but I actually know some very good people who have left Apple.?? In the long run even for a great product company, losing very good people could lead to problems down the road.

Apple actually had some great results in the past from the techniques discussed by RSA, but I suspect that years of wet-behind-the-ear MBAs have erased the memories.

It is likely not a surprise to some readers that Steve Jobs was not a fan of the Apple sales force.? At best he believed them to be a necessary evil.? I did get to hear him in essence say that.? Unfortunately, I never got to have a personal talk to Steve about his views on sales.?

However, I did work for some of his Apple managers who really did not understand sales.

Understanding the potential for success by having good sales leadership as opposed to having nit-picking sales management might not matter today in this world where Apple has become the darling of just about everyone.? However, it did once and might again some day.

In the mid-nineties until early in the next decade when customers, especially enterprise ones, were fleeing Apple, it was important to have a sales force which kept customers in the fold so Apple could survive.? I suspect it will be important in the future even if Apple doesn't slip.

There was a time when it was hard to get good people to work at Apple.? There were a lot of reasons for that, but one of the most interesting ones was that Apple sales people didn't make as much money as other technology sales people.? On top of that selling Apple was much more difficult than selling a generic computer box based on price.

That was especially true when you were selling to the enterprise. You had to convince your enterprise customer who was sometimes betting his job on making a large Apple purchase that Apple actually cared about his business.? That was tough to do when Steve spent most of his stage time telling people that Apple was a consumer company that didn't care about large businesses.

Fortunately Apple had people like Fred Anderson and Tim Cook around who were good at talking to enterprise customers.? However, Apple was like many technology companies in one respect.? It believed in a highly leveraged compensation plan that in theory rewarded the top performers the most.

Most of you have likely never been in sales, but those of you who have had some experience in sales would not be surprised if I told you that there is a lot of room for error in setting quotas and measuring performance against them.? All of this boils down to how much money sales people make.

Much of my first experience with Apple was in higher education sales where in the early days it was pretty easy to measure what customers were buying.? Higher education customers bought everything directly from Apple.? You had years of data to help structure quota.? If you had a decent manager and a reasonable divisional goal, you could feel pretty good about having a chance at making money.

In the mid-nineties during one of Apple's countless reorganizations, I got moved over to the business division.? The team I headed was responsible for resellers and large accounts.? It didn't take me long to be appalled at how bad the historical data was and how flawed the quota setting process was in the business division.?

The first year I was there, my team was given quota for a couple of "reseller locations" that turned out to be bank accounts in Delaware.? They ended up being not used the year after we picked up the quota for them.? It was literally millions of revenue which was in our goal and which turned to vapor the year when we were supposed to grow their business.

Still I had a great manager at Apple, and once we got control of the numbers, the next year my team went on to be very successful.? In the fall of 2001, my very good manager fell victim to being blamed for the failure of a hair-brained scheme from upper management to win the enterprise by selling interactive iMac kiosks.

New management was brought in, and my manager who had been in charge of business sales for the US ended up with only one person directly reporting to him.? That person was me, and I had been given the unenviable challenge of turning Apple's tanking federal business around.?

While competitors often had hundreds of reps covering the federal government.? I was given two reps, one on the east coast and one on the west coast.? My area associate came with me and one system engineer along with a person to work with resellers.

It was a daunting challenge, but one thing I did negotiate was a team goal.? In other words I convinced management and the finance people that it was more work to figure out individual numbers for customers than it was just paying everyone on one number. Our small team worked towards one quota number.? If we hit it, we would all be successful.

Doing that made all of our lives much simpler, we focused on the customer and didn't really worry about who was getting paid for what business or even through which channel.? We were wildly successful.? We grew our business a phenomenal amount, and I ended up being manager of the year.

Now the compensation plan obviously was not the only reason for our being successful.? I had run a stealth federal sales organization for over three years.? With help from a number of operating system folks in Cupertino and support from upper management, we removed a lot of barriers facing our customers.? We made Macs attractive as an alternative in the federal market to virus plagued Windows machines.

Still I firmly believe that it you look at the historical records, the team goal was a big part of the reason that a relatively small team of committed individuals were able to turn around Apple's federal business.

We managed to keep our team goal for three years even as the number of people working for me grew to over twenty.? Though we didn't make a lot of money after the first year, we more than tripled Apple's federal revenue in less than four years at time when no other enterprise team was nearly as successful.? The reason we didn't make much money was that each year after the first our goal was set so high that it was almost impossible to make.? That a whole different story.

Still I had a very motivated team that was growing Apple's federal business by leaps and bounds while making less and less money each year.? In the final year that I was at Apple, the team goal was abandoned until six months into the year when Apple had to admit they couldn't figure out individual revenue performance.

It is interesting that most executives get paid on the total performance of the company, yet they almost all believe that paying sales people on just the business they "personally touch" is the only way to effectively compensate them.? I would argue that what is good for motivating executives might work even better for sales people.? It certainly did for the ones who worked for me.

My experience at Apple and the research presented by RSA seems to indicate that a leveraged monetary reward for the top performers isn't necessarily to way to get the best performance out of anyone.? Fixing that might make a huge difference in the Apple sales force over time.

At least that is the view from NC's Crystal Coast where the winds are still blowing this spring, but the ocean water has warmed enough for wading and the air temperature is to the point that a quick dip in the pool is possible.? We still haven't found a new owner for our home in Roanoke, but I have started a new career selling cloud-based network asset management tools.

I will be focusing on that new opportunity in spite of living in a spot where there is a special place around every corner and the beach is always calling me.

?

?

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GOP Senate candidates address tea party leaders

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux aggressively pointed out differences between himself and GOP Senate frontrunner Connie Mack IV at a Saturday night forum with tea party organizers, drawing a sharp response from Mack.

Both candidates, along with retired Army Col. Mike McCalister, separately addressed a statewide group of tea party leaders. LeMieux repeatedly drew contrasts with Mack and criticized him as a career politician hoping to capitalize on the name of his father, former Sen. Connie Mack III.

"I am not the establishment candidate. You're going to hear from him in a minute," LeMieux said. "United States Senate is not a crown to be passed from father to son."

Mack, a member of Congress, told the group he could spend his half hour answering attacks from LeMieux, but he'd rather talk about issues. But he then ripped into LeMieux for his ties to former Gov. Charlie Crist, who abandoned the Republican Party in a failed independent Senate bid two years ago. LeMieux ran Crist's campaign for governor and then served as his chief of staff before the then-governor tapped LeMieux to fill the last 16 months of Mel Martinez' Senate term.

Mack said LeMieux helped Crist shape policies that promoted big government and said his current conservative positions are a makeover.

"I know April Fools is tomorrow, but I don't think we're going to fall for it today," Mack said.

McCalister positioned himself as the type of outsider needed in Washington.

"What we've done in the Senate is like we've done in too many other offices, we've made it all about who's the media darling, the party chosen one or the biggest fundraiser," McCalister said. "Just like in the workplace you don't promote people to just any job and promote them up."

LeMieux was asked about his Crist ties and whether it would be political baggage to Republicans. The Republican nominee will try to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

Crist "disappointed us, no one more than me," LeMieux said. He then added that when Crist left the GOP, he immediately endorsed Republican nominee (and now U.S. Sen.) Marco Rubio while Mack waited another four months to give his endorsement.

Asked to point out other differences, LeMieux listed several.

"He voted to raise his pay when he was a member of the United States Congress. I would never do that. I think members of Congress should take a pay cut until they balance the budget," LeMieux said. "Number two is he voted to raise the debt ceiling and I voted against that twice and I'll never do it because we've got to have something to stop this crazy, out-of-control spending."

Then in a personal jab, LeMieux said Mack's most significant non-elected job was promoting the Hooters restaurant chain.

When Mack was before the panelists, they picked up on some recent attacks, such as whether he has spent enough time in his congressional district and missed too many votes. Mack said he'd rather talk about issues.

"It's unfortunate that we're in a political climate these days that says I'm going to attack my opponent because I don't have any real good ideas or I want to cover up something I hope people don't know about me," Mack said. "My life is an open book. I'm proud of what I've done in the Congress. I'm proud of fighting for the principles we believe in."

The first question he received was how he felt about family dynasties in politics.

"I got to watch a very good man in my father serve this country. I'm proud of what he's done, I'm proud of what he stands for and I've learned from him," Mack said. "You want your kids to follow in your footsteps? I want my kids to follow in my footsteps. I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, anything we need to run from."

After the forum, when he heard about LeMieux' comments on the Senate seat being passed from father to son, Mack said, ""That's laughable considering George was crowned by Charlie Crist to be in the United States Senate and has never won an election in the state of Florida."

During the forum, Mack also attacked LeMieux' record working behind the scenes with Crist on policies that conservatives weren't always comfortable with.

"There's another person in this race who has a track record that I don't think is one that we can trust. Most of his career he's spent pushing policies supporting things like the (2009 economic) stimulus plan. That's not what we support. For most of his career he was someone who believed in bigger government," Mack said.

And in closing his remarks, Mack made light of attacks against him over a string of altercations in his early 20s, including a bar fight with then-baseball star Ron Gant and two road rage incidents.

"I'm frustrated that in this campaign and as we campaign for the future, that people are more interested in personal attacks instead of the issues. I will put my record up against anybody, but I tell you what, one of the things they got right is that I am a fighter," Mack said. "I'm going to fight what I believe is right and I'm not going to let anybody tell me any different."

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