The Political Whore

By George Niemann
PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist

It looks like Commissioner Ken Hagan has decided to become the first point of contact for all county residents with problems.

As you may recall, Wayne Garcia reported that Hagan (District 2) has been distributing fliers in District 1 in what the Hillsborough County Commission chairman calls a public service gesture.  As it turns out, the distribution of these fliers is heralding a new method of operation for the county,  which is the brainchild of Hagan. During these hard economic times, Hagan has decided to singlehandedly re-engineer the way the county does business.

Interestingly enough, the flier says that Hagan wants to know about any issues that county residents have. He also encourages everyone to contact him saying, “Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can ever be of service.” Well, I decided to ask the commissioner if he really meant that. Is he going to work on anyone’s issue, regardless of which district they’re in? Does that mean that he intends to be the first point of contact for all of the districts??? I got some surprising answers when I called his office.

I spoke with Hagan’s senior aide, Rich Reidy by telephone on Monday. Reidy emphatically supports his boss’s idea of being the first point of contact for any inquiries, on a countywide basis. Here’s how Reidy responded to my questions: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s November 6, 2008 in Hillsborough: Do you know who your county commissioner is?

No, you don’t. And that’s exactly what Kevin Beckner’s campaign manager, Mitch Kates, predicted. He’s currently slightly ahead of incumbent Brian Blair, who has yet to concede as early votes are still being counted.

Check out Kates’ prescient concerns from this video, shot at 10:30 p.m. on Election Night at Gaspar’s Grotto in Ybor City:

The elections office in Hillsborough has started its task of resuming the count this afternoon, but it could take until tomorrow before we have final numbers out of that county. The St. Petersburg Times reports:

A final tally of votes in Hillsborough County may not be finished until sometime tomorrow, says canvassing board member Judge James Dominguez. Technical difficulties stopped the counting of votes early this morning with tens of thousands of ballots cast during early voting still not tabulated. At about 12:30 p.m. today, the vote counting began again. Dominguez said the task will start with counting about 6,000 absentee ballots cast Tuesday.

Three Democratic challengers’ efforts hang in the balance: Kevin Beckner, who we project has beaten incumbent Commissioner Brian Blair; Phyllis Busansky, who is a few thousand votes behind incumbent Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson; and Stephen Gorham, who is some 15,000 votes behind incumbent School Board member Carol Kurdell and faces a tough task to make up that many votes.

Last night, Sen. Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain and was elected the 44th President of the United States. He then delivered the following speech to the incredible crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park. Here’s looking forward to the next four years …

• Election wrap: Here, here, here and here.
• Even more election wrap: Here, here, here and here.
• The Washington Post on how Obama pulled it off.
• And now the hard part …
• Bushism of the year: “What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters.”
• Can the Dems get to 60 Senate seats?
• One place the Dems got slaughtered: Pinellas County.
• Hillsborough County’s vote count screws the pooch.
• Florida to LGBT couples: Fuck off. The view from South Florida.
• Our projection: Beckner beat Blair.
• So much for the Democrats’ down-ballot efforts in Pinellas.
• The Diaz-Balart bros. hang on to their GOP congressional seats in Miami.
• The beginning of the end for Leavitt at USF football?

Today is your last shot at registering to vote in the Nov. 4 election. Florida, being backwards and all that, is like about half the country in its prohibitively long lead time in closing the voter registration books in advance of an election.

To register, you just need a picture ID and a completed voter registration form — and then pray that your spelling and name match those in a government database or you could fall victim to the “No Match, No Vote” law.

Here’s info on how to register in Pinellas or Hillsborough today. Here’s detailed instructions and the voter registration form.

Impressive video of the Ron Paul Revolution March in Washington D.C. on July 12. I’m wondering about that chant, though. “Ron Paul! Freedom! Ron Paul! Freedom!” Is this supposed to mean something?

• Choice quotes from the presidential candidates yesterday (I’ll let you figure out who’s who):

“This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.”

“With the right strategy and the right forces, we can succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I know how to win wars. And if I’m elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory.”

• CBS runs a Romney as McCain V.P.?  story and Drudge links it and gives it top placement. Does that mean the fix in for Mitt?
• Obama and the racial divide.
• While NASA preps the Ares rocket to carry astronauts back to the moon, some of the engineers have been busy designing a cheaper, better alternative that the higher-ups won’t consider.
• Hillsborough students lose their phone privileges.
• Tampa’s cops might want to consider moving a bit close to the precinct.
• The all-star game that would not die.
• You might want to hold off on that HDTV purchase: Prices are set to decline by up to $400.
• I’ll take two boxes of the ACME Dehydrated Boulders, please.

Speaking of Brian Blair (see previous EPC post and story), the most conservative of the Hillsborough County commissioners has drawn an opponent for his 2008 re-election bid. Democrat Kevin Beckner, a financial planner with offices in Ybor City, has filed and is running hard already.

To that end, Beckner has hired political consultant Mitch Kates to helm (love using nouns that aren’t verbs as verbs, sounds so insider-cable-newsy) his campaign. Kates has a short, but strong, record of taking underdogs to victory in Tampa Bay (Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern and state Sen. Charlie Justice).

So, is Tampa Bay — land of the banning of Gay Pride displays in Hillsborough public libraries — ready to replace Blair with Beckner, who is gay and has worked actively in both progressive campaigns and GLBT issues? Kates says yes and points to races in Oklahoma and Alabama where openly gay candidates beat Republicans as evidence that it can be done.

Plus, Beckner already seems tireless in the race and has raised an impressive $36,000 in his first partial quarter of fundraising, Kates said. That money came from about 200 contributors in both parties, Kates added.

I hope to get together with Beckner soon to talk about his platform and ideas, but in the meantime, I am more intrigued with the possibility of Kates and Blair meeting to settle this in the squared circle instead of at the ballot box. Both are former professional wrestlers: Kates as Jason the Terrible (left) and Blair (right) as a member of the tag team duo The Killer Bees.