OMG. Not Ed Helm for St. Petersburg mayor again?!?
June 3, 2009 at 5:00 am by Wayne Garcia
Ed Helm, l’enfant terrible of St. Petersburg Democratic politics, has gathered up his lance and mounted the steed of another political campaign for mayor. The St. Petersburg Times reports that Helm filed paperwork late last Friday, citing the “lack of a progressive voice” in the already crowded field of nine.
From the Times:
“I think it’s important there be a progressive voice,” said Helm, who retired after 26 years as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor. “I’m confident in terms of who I am, what I’ve been and that I’ll be speaking with a progressive voice. That’s part of what I want to see happen.”
The playbook for Helm focuses on the notion that government can and should do more to help residents. Among his first ideas: the city should explore offering a public access channel for residents to communicate, initiate curbside recycling citywide and grind deeper into neighborhoods to fight crime.
It’s unclear how strong Helm’s support could be, given his late entry into the race and the polarizing figure he has become in local politics. He was ousted as chairman of the Pinellas Democratic Party in 2006 after only four months because local Democrats grew tired of his aggressive leadership style. ? And much of the county’s elected Democratic leadership has openly shunned Helm.
In Helm’s last mayoral effort, in 2005, he got his clock cleaned by current Mayor Rick Baker. Our own Max Linsky wrote a profile of the longshot effort, noting just how much Helm is able to convince some diehards of his positions and viability:
Outside of the Helm camp, there are few true believers. Baker, who won 57 percent of the vote in 2001, has a strong base, and the recent prosperity of St. Petersburg, especially downtown, coincides with his years in office. While Helm has received endorsements from the Pinellas and Hillsborough chapters of Democracy for America (formerly Dean for America) and contributions from local labor organizations, he has yet to gain the support of some notable local progressives, including Council of Neighborhood Associations President Karl Nurse and City Council hopeful Darden Rice, who won the District 6 primary on Sept. 26. The only poll released so far, which was conducted by the mayor’s campaign before Helm entered the race, put Baker’s job approval rating at 70 percent. And despite pledging $50,000 of his own money to the campaign, Helm trails Baker mightily in fundraising.
Yet, as he recently told a meeting of local trade union leaders, Helm optimistically says the race “is mine to lose.” Mayoral elections in St. Petersburg are nonpartisan, but Helm is unapologetically running as a Democrat (see accompanying story), and doing his best to draw out voters, and contributions, based on party affiliation. When pushed on how he’ll win — a question he’s heard often enough that he now asks it himself in his stump speech — Helm focuses on St. Pete’s voting statistics. “There are 75,000 registered Democrats and only 49,000 Republicans,” he says, leaving out the almost 28,000 registered independents. Whether he’s on the campaign trail or dialing for dollars, the numbers are Helm’s mantra — the backbone of his defiant case that he can actually win this thing.
“It’ll be 50-something to 40-something, not 60-40,” says Jim Dobyns, Helm’s deputy campaign manager. “But, yeah. Ed’s gonna win.” Sitting in the back room of Helm’s headquarters at 3914 Sixth St. S., Dobyns has crates of unaddressed envelopes piled on a table in front of him. He’s targeting absentee voters — Helm literature will show up the same day as their ballots.
