Vendor for City Council Candidate is an Avowed White Supremacist

Political vendor Stephen Clay McGehee with ‘stainless banner’ confederate flag

TAMPA — Stephen Clay McGehee is an avowed confederate and white supremacist. He believes in “Southern Agrarianism,” which he calls “a Blood and Soil” movement. He displays the confederate flag in his front yard. And he offers a service for political campaigns that City Council candidate Tom Scott is paying to use.

McGehee owns “Adjutant Workshop Inc,” which publishes software for political campaigns called “campaign toolbox.” The software, which has earned McGehee hundreds of thousands of dollars since its launch, allows political candidates to file finance reports online. McGehee says that selling this software to candidates and committees “has provided a comfortable living for my family since 1995.”

McGehee’s software was popular among Florida candidates until reporting made his white-supremacist views more widely known three years ago. Now most candidates eschew the software and McGehee’s remaining clients are primarily PACs, especially those associated with Republicans.

But some Tampa Bay area candidates and their committees still pay McGehee for his software. Among them: Former Hillsborough County Commissioner, Tampa City Councilmember, and current Tampa City Council candidate Tom Scott. Former Tampa City Councilmember Orlando Gudes paid McGehee as a vendor, too.

In Pinellas County, the software is popular among Republicans. Pinellas County Commissioners Chris Latvala, Kathleen Peters, and Vince Nowicki all pay for “campaign toolbox.” Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, former St. Pete City Council candidates Barry Rubin and Bobbie Shay Lee, and the Pinellas County Republican Party all used McGehee’s software.

For others, McGehee appears to be too toxic. The “aspiring Southern Gentleman” once wrote “White Western European culture is all about building and maintaining a clean society. Blacks destroy things.” He isn’t shy about his views on Jewish people or Black Americans, both of whom he views as a threat: “Efforts to destroy our people and our culture are consistently traced back to Jews,” he wrote, “and Blacks have built an entire business model of playing the victim with our people as the villain.”

Tom Scott, a Black man himself, clearly does not support McGehee’s views. In 1998, when he was Hillsborough County Commission Chair, Scott declined an invitation to read proclamations at a Confederate Memorial Day celebration. In 2017, Scott helped organize a symposium on race relations.

But it is unclear at this time whether Scott is unaware his campaign dollars are going to a white supremacist, or if he views the $140 fee as insignificant.