St. Petersburg’s Election 2009: Mayoral Madness
February 7, 2009 at 12:32 pm by Peter SchorschBy Peter Schorsch
PoHo contributor
Bracketology for Mayoral Madness
It’s a month earlier than college basketball’s March Madness, but with both Rick Kriseman and Ken Welch deciding this week not to run for mayor of St. Petersburg, political observers are now left with a much clearer “playoff picture.” The race is still in the first round, but the paths to victory for some candidates are now better defined.
In my analysis, I thought only either Deveron Gibbons or Ken Welch could move forward by consolidating the African-American vote. Although it may be passe to view the black vote in such monolithic terms, Gibbons is now the default leader of an entire voting bloc.
The other big winner this week was Jamie Bennett (disclosure: I am a volunteer on Jamie’s campaign). With Kriseman’s withdrawl, Bennett was ceded a huge swath of political geography in the south and west districts of St. Petersburg. More importantly, he is now the standard-bearer for the city’s Democrat and progressive voters. And don’t discount the fact that he is also the only candidates still in office.
As for the other match-ups, there really can only be one anti-establishment candidate, so Kathleen Ford and Bill Foster, while often on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, will have to sort things out as to who will represent the anti-Rick Baker vote.
And as far as Scott Wagman goes, I know he’s out there working. I really like his enthusiasm and the people with whom he surrounds himself. I think his new website is top-notch. But Wagman is still the big unknown in the race. That’s why his opponent right now is Legitimacy. If he does what he says he’s gonna do and drops some heavy coin into the race, he’ll make it easily into the second round for a showdown with Bennett for the St. Petersburg Times endorsement, Councilman Karl Nurse’s network and the support of progressive voters in the neighborhoods of Old Southeast, Kenwood, etc.
The winner of this match-up could easily end up with 24% to 28% of the primary vote and would be the front-runner out of the primary against Gibbons, Ford or Foster.
(Disclosure: I am a volunteer on the Jamie Bennett Campaign. I previously consulted on the campaigns of Councilman Bill Dudley who ran against Bill Foster. And, oh yeah, Deveron Gibbons and I ran track together in high school and worked together on various political campaigns.)
July 13th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I think it is interesting that you mentioned Wagman’s website, which was at least designed by a St Pete design firm. Why did Bennett use someone from Tampa for his??!