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:
It may have been nearly two decades ago, but the face of Democratic consultant Mitch Kates is unmistakable in the photograph of wrestling legend Killer Kowalski, who died this weekend. The photo ran in the New York Times and Boston Herald, among others, showing Kowalski putting his trademark “claw” hold on the grimacing face of his “nephew,” Mitch, as the caption put it.
(from the New York Times/Jon Chase of the Associated Press)
Truth be told, like so much in wrestling, it isn’t quite the way it appears to be. Kates was not Kowalski’s real nephew. But in speaking with Kates about the wrestler today, his love and admiration for Killer was a strong and real as any blood relative.
“He trained me,” Kates recalled. “He was the guy that I went into the business with. A couple of people commented that we had a familial resemblance. So one of the gimmicks that I had was to wrestle as his nephew.”
Mitch Kates, the Democratic consultant who helped get Mary Mulhern elected to the Tampa City Council and Charlie Justice into the Florida Senate, has stepped down as campaign manager for Christine Jennings in Sarasota.
He cited family issues that will keep him from being able to devote himself to the congressional rematch:
“It was a tough decision for me,” said Kates, who had been on the job for less than a year. “There are family issues that I have to attend to, and it wouldn’t have been fair to the campaign. I’m proud to have been a part of it, and I think the campaign is doing quite well.”
Jennings — whose disputed 369-vote loss in 2006 to Republican Vern Buchanan saw 18,000 undervotes, likely because of a faulty ballot design in Sarasota County— has hired another manager, New Yorker Lonny Paris.
