There are myriad reasons why Bob Buckhorn is Tampa's next Mayor, but as we recount what's happened over the past year, these are five critical dates that now have the Virginia native measuring the drapes at City Hall.
1) June 8, 2010 : Tampa Firefighters endorse Buckhorn- This announcement came out of the blue, and stunned local observers. How could the firefighters A) make an endorsement so early in the race?, and B) Select Buckhorn while Dick Greco had yet to officially announce? But they did, and it gave the upstart Buckhorn campaign solid footing, showing that he was going to be a player of some sort in this race. (And the Buckhorn camp says a group of those firefighters worked incredibly hard every Saturday knocking on doors and distributing campaign literature.)
2) November 18, 2010: Jim Davis announced he won't run – Buckhorn and Thomas Scott entered the race before anyone else (Scott announced in 2009, Buckhorn in May of 2010). There were many other names being floated last spring as possible entrants as well. Some ultimately did get in, like Ed Turanchik and Dick Greco. But the biggest political figure in Tampa who was considering entering and then suddenly wasn't was former Congressman Jim Davis, (always presumed to be Pam Iorio's personal choice to succeed her). Davis deferred any talk about the race until after the November election, where he was a major player working for Moving Hillsborough Forward, the political action group that's sole purpose was to see voters approve the one-cent sales tax to help pay for the beginnings of a light-rail system. The measure failed countywide by 19%, leading some analysts to believe that it would taint Davis electorally, already coming off a 2006 loss for Governor.
But Davis told reporters shortly after the transit tax was trashed in November that he was "considering" a run – but then shockingly announced shortly thereafter that he wouldn't get into the race. Some analysts said he was fearful that a Dick Greco candidacy would be insurmountable to overcome. In any case, his decision not to run was greeted with cheers in the Buckhorn camp.
3) Feb 8, 2011: Dick Greco's "Panty-raid" comment – Bob Buckhorn never (publicly, anyhow) feared Dick Greco. In fact, he was telling this reporter back in 2009 that he couldn't wait for the opportunity to face the iconic Tampa figure. And once the race began in earnest in January, part of Buckhorn's stump speech was about whether Tampa citizens wanted to look back at the past, or were ready to move boldly into the future? It was clearly aimed at distinguishing himself from the former four term chief executive of Tampa.
But Greco did appear to have the "Big Mo" early on, as he started raising more money than any other candidate. But a curious thing happened as the actual campaign began. Greco decided that the big plans being crafted by Buckhorn and Ed Turanchik were for losers. He didn't have to tell the people anything about what his plans were – his 15 previous years in office were his "agenda." Such an arrogant stance might have been enough to get him into a runoff with Ferlita, but then came the gaffes, none bigger than referring to a civil rights riot in 1967 as a "Panty-raid." The comment was made during the single biggest night of the campaign – a live televised debate on Bay News 9. Greco never truly recovered, though as we've written about in the past, he still was only 385 votes short of running against Rose Ferlita.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.