Scott Farrell went to journalism school, but we shouldn't hold that against him.
He's also a lawyer.
Ditto.
What is important about Farrell is that he is generally regarded as one of the more promising young politicos in an otherwise bleak landscape for the Democratic Party in Hillsborough County. When he first ran for office in 2002, he was lauded as bright, concerned, independent-minded and quick on the uptake. The son of a public school teacher won the editorial endorsement of both daily newspapers.
Needless to say, voters quickly came to one conclusion – that is NOT the kind of person we want in public office.
Farrell ran for the state House of Representatives in 2002 against Faye Culp, who had previously held the seat and was trying to make her comeback. District 57, which covers South Tampa, Westchase and Town 'N Country, is Democratic in voter registration only; it has performed strongly Republican since former Democratic House member Ron Glickman lost the seat to Culp in 1996.
Farrell found out just how strong Culp's grass-roots appeal is. He also got a lesson in the fine art of being – as former Pinellas County Commissioner Chuck Rainey used to call it – "brown-cowed" by an 11th hour attack. TV ads portrayed a lawyer from the waist down, carrying a satchel stuffed with cash while the voiceover intoned against Farrell and his "rich trial lawyer friends."
Farrell lost the race. He was swimming upstream against a virtual incumbent in a district that performs Republican and with a losing candidate (Bill McBride) at the top of the ticket. Farrell even outperformed McBride in Hillsborough County by more than a percentage point.
So last week, on his 38th birthday, Farrell officially announced he would seek the congressional District 11 seat being vacated by Jim Davis as he runs for governor. Four years later, what has Farrell learned from his first race?
"The first time out of the box is a learning experience," Farrell said last week. "It's daunting to run something from scratch. I walked in one day [to a bustling campaign headquarters] and thought, I'm becoming a one-man industry."
The No. 1 lesson learned?
"Trust your gut," Farrell said. He knows now that he allowed Culp and the GOP to define him (wrongly, in his view) as a rich corporate attorney, out of touch, tied to McBride and a tool of the trial lawyers.
He learned that if you "don't answer back, it sticks," Farrell said. "Shame on me for not responding." (To be fair, his campaign went negative first, criticizing Culp's lackluster record on education funding.)
Farrell's story is different and more interesting than what voters probably heard in 2002. He is a native of Washington, D.C., who was educated in New York and Gainesville, where he got a master's degree in journalism and a law degree. He worked his way through college. He is still paying student loans.
It is his work as a corporate lawyer at the Trenam Kemker firm that forms his strong views toward growing the economy. He talks at length about helping small businesses grow and create jobs. For a Democrat, he is surprisingly pro-business, saying, "It's about creating jobs."
His brother and cousin are cops, so he is sympathetic to law enforcement. He also bucked the party in 2002 when he opposed a slate of constitutional amendments (including one for smaller class sizes) that the party backed. He doesn't believe in tinkering with the state constitution as the best way of forcing recalcitrant lawmakers to do their jobs properly.
Still, even with lessons learned, Farrell has a tough race in the expensive and heavily gerrymandered district, which includes parts of Manatee and Hillsborough counties and south St. Petersburg. He will face state Senator Les Miller in a primary that could also attract County Commissioner Kathy Castor.
TV political coverage update: The same academics who criticized television news coverage of local political races nationally have recognized the Media General-owned WFLA-Ch. 8 for excellent coverage of local politics.
WFLA won its second USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in TV Political Journalism from the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California for "the impressive amount of resources it committed to election coverage." The award singled out WFLA's work in covering the U.S. Senate race between Mel Martinez and Betty Castor, including airing a one-hour debate.
Last week I wrote about how the Lear Center studied the dearth of local coverage of campaigns and pointed out that WFLA led the pack in Tampa Bay with 7 percent of its political coverage devoted to local (nonpresidential) campaigns.
Tarpon Springs elections and Wal-Mart: The anti-Wal-Mart forces in Tarpon Springs had a mixed day at the polls last week. Matt King (featured in our New Faces column on Jan. 19) lost to incumbent David Archie by a 42-58 percent margin. But fellow Wal-Mart opponent Robin Saenger beat incumbent Mayor Frank DiDonato by 29 votes. Saenger was roundly criticized for a slimy and misleading series of last-minute attacks against DiDonato.
The Political Whore feels compelled to disclose that he once ran a campaign against Les Miller. You can reach Political Whore at 813-832-6427 or by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2005.
