The Political Whore

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:

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I’ve spent some time interviewing the seven major candidates for St. Petersburg mayor, in the Sept. 1 primary election. You can still listen to podcasts of some of those interviews.

There are three other candidates whose campaigns do not appear to be on the same competitive plane as the other seven, but I wanted to give you some information about two of them so if you are a St. Petersburg voter you can be fully informed. The third minor candidate, Paul Congemi, does not appear to have a website or a serious platform to speak of.

Ed Helm is making his second attempt at the mayor’s office. He describes himself as a progressive candidate, and his website is at edhelm.com.

Richard Eldridge is a political newcomer. The 47-year-old says his military experience prepares him for service as St. Pete’s next mayor: “Having served honorably in the United States Marine Corps, I know how to lead, take risks, and make tough decisions. Some of the duties that I have had were Reconnaissance Marine, Marksmanship Instructor, Mortar Section Leader, and Physical Training Instructor.” His campaign website is at eldridge2009.com.

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:

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