Eddie Adams Jr. has it figured out. Sitting in his South St. Petersburg campaign office on a recent Friday afternoon, the Temple Terrace architect is explaining why he is the only Republican who has a shot at beating Kathy Castor this fall, despite the fact that he's been trounced in the heavily Democratic District 11 Congressional race by Castor the past two elections.
Unlike 2006 and 2008, Adams isn't alone as a potential Republican contender. This year three other members of his party are equally fired up and ready to take on the Tampa Democratic incumbent, the first time there's been serious competition for the GOP nomination in the heavily Democratic district in a generation.
But even though D.C. Republicans are contributing to one of his opponents, Mike Prendergast, Adams says he's by far the better candidate. He says the fact that he's black gives him the advantage.
Although Adams lost badly to Castor in his previous races, he added over 30,000 votes to his total in '08. He is convinced that the minority voters who turned out for Barack Obama also punched Eddie Adams' name for Congress, and will vote for him again this time.
If he wins the primary, Adams says minority Democrats will either support him in the general election or stay home. But if the Republican candidate is Prendergast — "a lightning rod for the minority voters in the 11th District," in Adams' opinion — minorities will turn out in force to vote for Castor.
Whether that is true is difficult to say, but the fact that Republicans in Washington are raising any money on a seat that has been owned by Democrats seemingly forever indicates that the intensity in Republican ranks is huge this summer. District 11 includes most of Tampa and its suburbs, along with the shoreline of southeast Hillsborough, and during the last reapportionment it was gerrymandered to include a sliver of South St. Pete and Bradenton in Manatee County.
In addition to Adams and Prendergast, Tony Buntyn and Tommy Castellano are also very much in the mix for the August 24 primary, with the winner to face the heavily favored Castor in November (who does face a primary challenger in the Tea Party-affiliated Democrat Tim Curtis).
Hillsborough County Republican Party Chair Deborah Cox-Roush says she sincerely feels that the GOP can make a mark against Castor this November.
"I will tell you a year ago when somebody asked me about that district, I kind of said, 'No, no, no.' Three months later, I said, 'Uh, maybe.' Six months later I said okay, and today I get emails every day, and not just from Republicans but from conservative Democrats, from her constituents, saying, 'What are we going to do about Kathy Castor?'"
(CL contacted Kathy Castor's press aide, Ellen Gedalius, for comment on the race, but she informed us that we needed to contact the Castor campaign office for any election-related questions. The campaign office did not respond to our request for an interview.)
USF Political Science Professor Susan McManus is skeptical about the GOP's chances. "If you're going to tackle a sitting member of Congress, you're going to have to have big-time TV money," she says, and questions how much the GOP candidate will be able to muster in opposition. And with Castor's announcement on Friday that she already has $427,000 in her campaign war chest, the Republicans have big fundraising challenges ahead.
One candidate who may have some financial resources is Mike Prendergast. Drive through South Tampa's tonier neighborhoods, and it's apparent that Prendergast is gaining support. His yard signs dominate in Palma Ceia and along Bayshore Boulevard, an indication of his organizational effort. He's also airing radio ads beginning this week on several AM stations.
Nationally, some Republicans like him. Texas Representative Pete Sessions, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made a campaign fundraising stop for him in May, though a spokesman for the NRCC says that the committee has not endorsed a candidate in the race, and that Sessions appeared with Prendergast in his capacity as a congressman.
Prendergast's message is simple, which he says he would carry over to the general election if he wins next month. "Are the independents, Democrats or Republicans better off than when [Castor] was elected in 2006?" he asks. "Fundamentally, no they're not," he responds, saying Castor's vote in support of health care reform shows that she is ignoring her constituents.
At a recent event at Prendergast's headquarters off West Shore Boulevard, one of his Tampa supporters, Jack Hallahan, echoed that criticism. He likes the fact that Prendergast isn't a regular politician, as opposed to the majority of Congress. "They're not open to the needs of America right now," he says. "It's in lockstep with what the Democratic Party wants to do, and it's almost arrogant. "
Prendergast has a military background, having served for more than 31 years in the U.S. Army before retiring last year as U.S. Central Command's Provost Marshal, a military position he likens to international chief of police. Like his fellow Republicans in the race, he does not support returning our troops from Afghanistan a year from now.
"I think it's premature to put an artificial timeline out there," he says. But when asked what benchmarks could be used to ascertain the U.S. military's success, he's a little less clear, saying other countries will "have a vote" in determining how long the country will be there.
Prendergast is not the only former military man in the race. South Tampa resident Tony Buntyn also has been in the service for 31 years, and he's still serving as a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserves. His specialty is cyber warfare, and he's used knowledge acquired with the Air Force to work on cyber issues as head of his own company.
Buntyn oozes good vibes. As he tries to ignore the sweat pouring down his face on a blisteringly hot and humid day in Apollo Beach, Buntyn enthusiastically describes what he does for a living. Ask him about Afghanistan, and he agrees with Prendergast that it's not wise to give a time for withdrawal. He also says he's made a lot of sacrifices for the military, having spent considerable time away from his wife and family over the past decade serving in the Middle East.
"It's horrible that our senior leaders and our civilian seniors leaders have never experienced that," he says of serving in the military during wartime. But he's unable to clarify the seemingly contradictory viewpoints of the modern Republican Party — that is, supporting a reduction in the federal deficit while at the same time spending hundreds of billions of dollars fighting in Afghanistan until "we get the job done."
"I don't think any of us are in favor of an unlimited war," he says. "War is a very expensive thing, and it's a horrible thing." But he insists that the Afghan effort is necessary, a viewpoint questioned by an increasing number of Americans, according to polls.
Republican political consultant Chris Ingram — who has worked for both Adams and Buntyn in the past — says both Prendergast and Buntyn are worthy opponents for Kathy Castor.
But he says that because their appeal issimilar — he calls their supporters "non-socially ideological, pro-business, military-oriented and fiscally conservative" — he thinks they'll split their vote and end up handing the race to Adams.
completing the list is Tampa's own authentic version of "Joe the Plumber" — Tommy Castellano. The West Tampa resident has worked in the air conditioning/heating business for over 30 years, and is the living embodiment of the blue-collar small-business owner frequently invoked by Republicans.
Castellano says his industry has been crushed by the recession — or the depression, which is how he describes the current terrain. Like his Republican competitors, he's disgusted with the Obama Justice Department for suing Arizona over its recently signed law against undocumented immigrants, who he says are hurting the local economy.
"In West Tampa, in the daytime and on weekends, you'll see a lot of illegal immigration," he says. "All of these stands pop up, with no inspections, no licenses, it's all tax-free money."
Castellano isn't impressed by the fact that two of his opponents have serious military backgrounds. "I have nothing against the military, I think they do a fantastic job, but right now we have 127 retired military veterans in our Congress, and we still have a budget and immigration problem, and retired military are not going to save this country. You need some people in there from the business world, and I'm just angry enough to do it!"
During the course of a conversation on the Fourth of July in the kitchen of a VFW Post in Tampa's Seminole Heights, Castellano busts on President Obama's ideas on how to stimulate the economy. "They call it 'Keynesian school of economics?'" he says, prepping the punch line. "I'm calling it the 'Moronian' school of economic, because they're a bunch of morons thinking this is going to work!"
On a roll, Castellano blasts Congress, saying the federal government's too fat. But he gets a little ahead of himself when he says, "They're going to give out $347 billion for the Greece bailout, but we don't have that kind of money to be bailing out people like that." In fact, we're not. Of the $40 billion that the International Monetary Fund is distribting, the U.S. is providing 20 percent, or $8 billion.
On health care reform legislation, the District 11 Republicans are all on the same page — they loathe it, and want to see it repealed. Buntyn also criticizes Castor's vote for an increase in the tobacco tax in 2009 to help pay for SCHIP — the health insurance program for low-income children. That attack receives healthy cheers at GOP events, as the candidates invoke the bill's impact on cigar businesses in Ybor City.
The possible X factor in this year's GOP balloting is the nature of Tea Party support. Prendergast is claiming a share of that, mentioning his participation in a recent vigil in which he read aloud a passage of the Arizona immigration law.
But it's Adams who seems to be getting the most love from the Tea Baggers. Featured in a photo essay in Time last February as one of the new faces of the Tea Party movement and buttressed by a solid contingent of followers who surround him at Hillsborough Republican meetings, Adams boasts that he has some 300 volunteers to help get his message out.
A handful were with Adams when he held a fish fry in his South St. Pete office late on a recent Friday afternoon, such as Betsi Burgess, who says she and her husband made the decision earlier this year to back Adams after hearing all of the candidates speak at a forum. "I made a conscious decision this year to work on Eddie's campaign. Eddie has a message that is stronger and he's more experienced in this community."
Jamie Katz said he met Eddie at the Save America Foundation, and calls him the most "honest, down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth" man he's met in years.
And suddenly, post-Obama, it's hip to be a black Republican running for Congress in Florida. In addition to Adams, there's Allen West (who recently announced raising a stunning $1.4 million for his race against Democrat Ron Klein in their South Florida contest), Prince Brown, Corey Poitier and Deon Long.
Adams passionately denies that his fellow Tea Partiers are in any way racist, a charge made most recently by the NAACP.
But Adams' ideas are clearly on the far right. When asked about how he'd boost the Florida economy, he says he wishes that the Sunshine State would echo its sister state in the Gulf in embracing offshore drilling.
"There is no oil industry in the state of Florida right now," he complains. "Florida needs jobs, we have an oil spill, we have a disaster, it only makes sense if we're going to pay the biggest price, when we should reap some of the benefits and profits of the oil industry, because we're the only state that's not making a dime off of oil," he says just before the Florida Legislature discusses giving the voters a chance to ban such drilling permanently.
But at the end of the day, will the Republicans' efforts matter?
Republicans need to win 39 seats this fall to win back the House of Representatives, a gain which even White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has admitted to be a possibility. During an interview with NPR in the spring, GOP House leader John Boehner mused that the party could win 100 seats.
The Republican Party does not have unlimited resources, and there's no doubt that they'll be putting considerable money into two extremely competitive Congressional races on the other side of I-4. In the Orlando area, Democrats Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas are trying to maintain seats that had been owned by Republicans until the Dems' electoral success in the past two and four years, respectively.
Earlier this year, Congresswoman Castor was asked about the electorate's mood in the wake of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's stunning upset Senate victory. Her reply: "Incumbents better pay attention." No doubt she'll be doing just that, as she'll know by the end of next month which Republican will be coming after her.
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2010.