Posted by Wayne Garcia on Aug. 20, 2009, at 3:51 pm
Bill Foster wasted no time in getting the Times recommendation on his website
The drumbeat that the St. Petersburg Times was considering an endorsement (errr, recommendation, as the Times will always let a candidate know its preferred term) of Bill Foster. On its surface, it seems ludicrous. After all, Foster is the same guy who wrote to the school board a few years back making a strong pitch against teaching Darwinian evolution alone in public schools, hoping it would mix in a bit of “intelligent design.”
But the lack of an emerging alternative to Foster left the Times in the inexplicable position of endorsing an anti-gay rights, anti-evolution mayor of St. Petersburg. More to the point, however, the editorial board chooses a candidate based on who will play ball with it. Which candidate will kiss the ring over on 1st Avenue S? That’s what gets you the recommendation. Disagree with the Times on a core concern at the paper — say, firing Police Chief Chuck Harmon, as Scott Wagman as vowed to do — and you are at a disadvantage, to say the least.
It is OK to disagree with the Times on social conservative issues, as long as you play your cards right, promise not to let those views play out in public policy at City Hall and generally keep your wingy-ness in the closet. After all, the Times’ former editorial chief, Phil Gailey, was totally tight with Rick Baker, who was also a social conservative who refused to recognize gay pride parades or appear in them.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Aug. 9, 2009, at 11:21 am
This week’s column from the print edition of Creative Loafing:
About 500-600 people are voting for a new mayor of St. Petersburg every day now, part of what has become a vote-by-mail system of absentee voting in Florida. Nearly 60,000 city residents have requested an absentee ballot, almost 40 percent of the registered voters.
That’s a big number. So why do I hear so many complaints about the 2009 race to succeed Mayor Rick Baker being a real snoozer? Polling earlier in the month showed that 61 percent of the voters didn’t have a preference among the 10 candidates running. And although nearly 7,000 people had voted by the end of last week, there is very little visible to any of the campaigns, beyond the ubiquitous yard signs. It’s impossible to time the peak of your political campaign when Election Day lasts 45 days, and no candidate has enough money to run a full-bore mass media campaign for that long.
Take the latest mayoral forum, held by St. Pete Preservation last week in front of about 100 good folks at Studio@620. I popped in to shoot a few photos and perhaps hear their stump speeches, but after almost an hour the crowd had heard only from preservationists, who got five minutes apiece to school nine candidates on why historic preservation is important. Even the hometown St. Petersburg Times didn’t staff the preservation forum. When the candidates did begin to talk, there wasn’t much separation.
How can something be anticlimactic before it’s even over?
Here are the reasons why this year’s city election is having a hard time connecting with voters:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 22, 2009, at 4:42 pm
Bill Foster, the St. Pete mayoral candidate with the strongest “get-tough-on-crime” stance, has picked up his second police office union endorsement. The Fraternal Order of Police Pinellas Lodge 43 joins an earlier nod from the Sun Coast Police Benevolent Association.
In a statement, Foster said:
“Knowing full well that public safety is the number one issue of my fellow citizens, I am honored to have the support of our brave men and women in local law enforcement. These are the same people that we entrust our safety to, and I am grateful that they recognize my qualities and vision as the most sensible and effective candidate to reduce crime in our city.”
That makes a clean sweep of rank-and-file cops for Foster. As for the rest of the candidates, Deveron Gibbons recently was pictured with some top SPPD brass who are supporting him. Despite his sketchy driving record.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 23, 2009, at 2:40 pm
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: Winning a mayoral forum or debate is not the most meaningful thing in a campaign. The myriad gatherings of the 10 mayoral candidates in St. Petersburg that have already occurred and are yet to occur likely won’t alter the Sept. 1 primary outcome one iota.
Why?
Because such forums are a place that can only do a candidate harm. Stumble, or stumble badly, and the media coverage can magnify it into major damage. “Win” such a debate and not only will the MSM mostly not declare you the winner, but you have only “won” in front of a few hundred people, at most.
The way campaigns are really won are through spending campaign contributions on direct mail, television and radio advertising and through a concerted grass-roots voter contact effort.
So that brings me to reporting the “results” of Monday night’s mayoral forum held by the St. Pete Pride organizers at the King of Peace MCC. The “winners”?
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 23, 2009, at 1:22 pm
Yes, politics is all fun until somebody gets Tased. Then it becomes unbearably delicious.
St. Pete mayoral hopeful Bill Foster has become the first candidate in the race (as far as PoHo knows) to get Tasered in the course of proving his worth to the voters. His campaign posted a video of the former city councilman (and strong advocate of the police) getting the juice put to him.
The campaign wrote:
Bill Foster has always been insistent that our police officers have every tool they need to keep us safe. Watch the below demonstration and see how Bill really went the extra mile when it came to arming our officers with Tasers. Ouch.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 31, 2009, at 6:02 am
The HoCast this week is devoted to an interview with St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Bill Foster, and we talk about everything from the police department, the broken-window theory of crime, high-speed chases, budget cutting and, of course, that infamous “creationism” letter he sent last year to the Pinellas School Board.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 2, 2009, at 12:55 pm
Former St. Pete City Councilman Bill Foster got gigged a bit today as he was supposed to be getting good headlines on the formal launch of his mayoral campaign (he filed the paperwork in early February, so no surprise in terms of him running).
Foster’s news release about the launch twice misspelled the word “publicly,” as Cristina Silva in Bay Buzz pointed out:
Bill Foster to Publically (sic) Announce Candidacy for Mayor of St. Petersburg this Monday, March 2nd at Pioneer Park
St. Petersburg – Bill Foster, a former St. Petersburg City Councilman with a rich history of civic involvement, will publically (sic) announce his candidacy for Mayor of St. Petersburg Monday, March 2nd at 12:00 noon at Pioneer Park in downtown St. Petersburg ( 98 Beach Drive , across the street south of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, east of Bayfront Tower ).
The slogan, at least according to his new website, appears to be “Foster in a New Era.”
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. Read the rest of this entry »
