As the Tampa mayoral election campaign heads into its last weekend, Rose Ferlita and Bob Buckhorn engaged in one final debate on Friday afternoon, and it a was noticeably warmer exchange than the two have engaged in since it became a two person field 2 1/2 weeks ago.
Taped at the WEDU studios for a special Florida This Week program that was to air at 8:30 p.m. Friday (with a re-broadcast Sunday afternoon), host Rob Lorei faced a formidable challenge: try to ask the candidates something that they haven't discussed in depth over the past 3 months.
In this 30-minute virtual love-fest, not even when the candidates got to ask each other questions did the temperature rise signficantly. No, it was only when Lorei used his last question to ask about a brand new flier that Ferlita had sent out on Friday did the conviviality break down.
In that flier, Ferlita says that there has been a "secret smear group that's questioned my family values by saying that I'm unmarried and I don't have a family. How dare my opponents stoop to such a new low. This is an attack not just on me, but on all women."
When asked about it, Ferlita said it was "self-explanatory." She then brought up the worst word that Buckhorn has tossed Ferlita's way – that she was running a "sleazy" campaign, saying, "That's not exactly the most complimentary thing I think a woman has had thrown her way in politics."
When Buckhorn was asked for a response, he reiterated what he and his campaign have said since the infamous "Unmarried," mailer was written about in the press (including CL) a week ago- that it wasn't a real mailer, but simply a PDF file sent to reporters to write about. "It's a Trojan horse that was designed to attract attention to something that doesn't exist," he said with clarity.
He added that there was nothing demeaning in terms of how he had treated his female opponent. But after the debate, CL asked him if he regretted using the term "sleazy" in his ad, which has given Ferlita carte blanche to accuse him of going negative.
Buckhorn said to a group of reporters that "I'm not going to stand by and let my record or my reputation be tarnished by what everybody has said is an inaccurate and false advertisement. That was merely a rebuttal. That was not an attack on Miss Ferlita. It talks about specifically what she said and who has rebutted it, including the St. Pete Times, and PolitiFact and Sandy Freedman…and so you can let that stuff stay out there, so we just rebutted it with the truth."
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.