Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

It’s gonna be a mess downtown.

If you plan to head downtown for the ObamaRally and haven’t left your house yet, get in the car now. Parking is going to be, uh, trying.

For those of you content to just read about it, The Tribune’s William March is liveblogging the event.

We have said before that Buddy Johnson is not fit to be the Supervisor of Elections.  He continues to prove us right.

He’s not real good with the money stuff:  Thanks to his banker’s generous lending policy, the guy has property all over the Tampa Bay area, yet he seems to have trouble paying his taxes on time.

He not real good with bad employees:  Buddy Johnson has a history of letting people go with big severance pay on the condition of silence.  To be fair, that practice is county-wide and like the Tribune, we would like to know what’s up with that.

He hires and promotes questionably:  Johnson hired his boyhood Little League teammate Jim Reed in 2003 at $50,000.   Reed got five raises or promotions within 19 months, and left the office this week making $125,000.  Reed is wisely bailing on Johnson to move to Virginia to be with his wife, former Managing Editor of the Tampa Tribune, Donna Reed.

At least he is competent at the election stuff, right?  Uh, nope.  He has non-citizens registering to vote, and mistakes in nearly every election are well documented, too.  Not to mention his attempt to collect illegal contributions for his own campaign.

Still, through all of that, he is undeterred, and is running for reelection as Supervisor of Elections this year.

I suppose he still has his connections.  For instance, his campaign treasurer is also his banker.

There is no way that even county Republicans can get behind this guy for reelection.

So the question is will they find someone to run against him in the primary?  Or will they just concede the race to Phyllis?

What if you held an election, and no one (literally - not one person) cared?

The City of Tamarac (near Fort Lauderdale) wants to annex the adjoining neighborhood of Prospect Bend. The question of annexation was on Tuesday’s ballot for Prospect Benders, and not a single one of them showed up to vote. Check out these tidbits from the article:

on Election Day, poll workers sat in a nearby polling site… for 12 hours — to no avail.

“I’m just shocked that there was an election held and no one showed,” said state Rep. Jack Seiler, D- Wilton Manors…

… registered voter, 23-year-old Juan Vidal: “It doesn’t make any difference to me either way.”

And now some folks want Floridians to vote twice for the same thing?

Good luck with that.

I confess I’m a political junkie. I also confess I assume - stupidly, I guess - that most people are at least somewhat informed about the what’s going on in politics these days. So when my yard dude and his co-worker both disavowed me of that notion Tuesday it broke my heart.

“You guys vote yet?”

“I’m not registered,” said one. The other said the same. “I’ve never voted,” added No. 1.

I’m familiar with non-voters. My father never voted. Ever.

“I don’t want to encourage them,” he’d tell me and then launch into one of the many stories he told and retold about political corruption in New York City during the Tammany Hall days of his youth.

My father was cynical. I don’t think my yard guys are. They just have a lot of other stuff on their plates, primarily families and making enough money to keep households going.

But they’re both dealing with the multitude of problems that confront workers who live from week to week - problems they ought to be using their votes to solve such as no health care, high taxes, high property insurance, skyrocketing gas prices, a gallon of milk with a pricetag almost as high as high test.

One had little or no money to buy holiday presents for his kids. The other has a chipped tooth that he can’t afford to have fixed.

When I began yelling (fondly) at them about not voting, No. 1, who runs a very successful landscaping business, tried to deflect the attack by arguing he wasn’t smart enough to vote. He doesn’t keep up with the issues, he said, and, therefore, isn’t well enough informed to make a wise choice.

“I might vote for the wrong guy,” he said. “So I leave voting up to smart people like you.”

Not a good excuse. Not an excuse at all. In fact, it’s bad, bad, bad. He ought to be informed. We all should.

But at least he isn’t making an ill-informed vote. Not so a woman I’ve known for about 10 years who told me later in the day that she doesn’t even know if she’s a Democrat or a Republican.

“I’m not keeping up with things,” she said. “Who’s running?”

Since she was cutting my hair and had scissors in her hands, I didn’t explode. Instead, I calmly mentioned all the candidates. She didn’t recognize most of the names and had no clue what party any of them were in.

Since her admission came after I asked her if she’d voted yet, she tried to reassure me that she would exercise her franchise.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I promise I’ll vote on the way home.”

I didn’t have the heart to ask her for whom - and why. I probably should have told her, “Don’t bother.” But I didn’t do that either.

I guess I’m trying to convince myself that any vote is better than no vote at all.

Editor’s note: See similar laments from the 2004 election, an overwhelming show of apathy in the 2006 election, the general population’s failure to know the slightest thing about government on a national scale, turnout at the ‘06 Presidentials, ghostly turnout at St. Pete’s elections in ‘07, and Wayne Garcia’s recent piece on irrational voters.

As I’m sure you have heard, McCain won half of Florida’s Republican delegates, and Clinton won the Democratic straw poll. Also, you overwhelmingly voted to pass Amendment 1, choosing to grab a bit of cash now instead of just hoping there is some later.

It looks like about 40% of registered voters made their way to the polls yesterday, higher than any other primary election since 1988. In Hillsborough, at least 37% voted in the election, while Polk County set a record with 39% turnout. 40% of Pasco made it to the polling places, 41% of Pinellas County voters cast ballots, and Hernando County saw a 45% voter turnout.

So how does that compare to past elections? Steve Bousquet knows:

Strong turnout, but not a record

The highest turnout for a presidential preference primary in Florida was 58 percent in 1972, the year of the state’s first primary, and the first year 18-year-olds could vote. Richard Nixon would go on to be re-elected over George McGovern. Primary turnout in Florida has generally declined steadily since then, to a low of 19 percent in 2000 and 20 percent in 2004.

Truth be told, none of the presidential candidates are overwhelming. If we have to forfeit our delegates in any given election, it may as well be this one. So, without a bunch of blah blah blah, here are my picks:

I like John McCain for the Republican primary. He’s old. Real old. Unpleasant to look at old. But he’s a hero, and the only one with the guts enough to finish the job in Iraq properly.

After much waffling, I’ve decided on Barack Obama for the Democrat primary. Hillary is simply too willing to tell you what you want to hear, and Edwards seems to be chasing butterflies. However, if you disagree here, I won’t put up much of an argument.

In the hopes that our state legislators will come back with some REAL reform, I say No on Amendment One.

But even if you disagree with these, take your part of the responsibility for choosing your leaders and tax reform, and go vote.

OK, so who is gonna’ mark a ballot next week (or mail in an absentee ballott, or perhaps early vote)?

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Besides the Presidential Primary, the property tax amendment (Amendment 1) will be on the table for your consideration as well as other referendums and local items depending on where you’re voting….

Needless to say, I’m not invited to the fundraising parties for the re-election of county commissioners Brian Blair & Ken Hagan. But I do have copies of the invitations, so let’s have a look at the host committees to see who’s backing whom.

Less than a week after Blair and Hagan appointed Hung Mai to the Planning Commission, Mai is soliciting funds for their campaigns, e-mailing the invitations out and handling the RSVPs. (Smell that disgusting odor? That’s cronyism.)

The host committees for both candidates are almost identical and include plenty of fundraising heavyweights, with lots of support from the development lobby. Sticks readers will recognize some of the hosts’ names, including Ralph Hughes, Todd Pressman, and Judy James. All 3 were used as references on Hung Mai’s recent application for the Planning Commission. (The Trib printed headshots of all 3 plus Mai with my Op Ed.) I told you Mai knew commissioners would hear that cash register a-jinglin’ when they voted for him. But I didn’t imagine it would be this blatant.

Stephen Dibbs, a leader of the recent attacks on our local wetlands regulations, is also on the host committees for both Blair & Hagan.

Most of the county commissioners are already taking sides in each other’s political campaigns, which is sure to bring out the nasty on this ridiculously dysfunctional board. Commissioners Blair, Hagan & Norman are all backing each other. Commissioner Sharpe is backing Hagan, but not Blair at these country-club soirées, while professed Democrat Kevin White is backing Republican Brian Blair, but not Ken Hagan. Higginbotham & Ferlita are sitting this dance out. How will they all work together from now until November 2008, while mired neck deep in each others’ politics?

This is all further evidence that the primary concern for most of our commissioners is not our county but merely their own campaigns. They can’t even maintain a pretense of integrity, because they have no idea what integrity is.