Candidates Rick Baker and Rick Kriseman, former and current mayor, respectively, had both paused their campaigns during preparations for and recovery from the storm. Kriseman did the whole being-mayor-during-a-natural-disaster thing, while Baker invited locals impacted by the storm to his boss's Central Avenue HQ — functioning A/C, NFL star, and all — to apply for FEMA relief assistance.
Apparently, enough time has elapsed for the campaigning to kick in again, and just in time for Tuesday's debate.
On Friday, Baker's camp released the "Baker Blueprint for St. Petersburg" via an email to supporters that links to his snazzily redesigned campaign website, which a spokeswoman for the campaign said went live this week.
The plan itself is essentially a list of goals within the realms of public safety, neighborhoods, schools and education, jobs and economic development and city services, which you can find here. While there doesn't seem to be much entirely new on the list in terms of the substance of his plan (nothing we didn't hear at debates during the primary), one thing that is noticeably different is his campaign's branding. Baker's redesigned site eschews the old red-and-white logo you see on yard signs for the hipper RCK-BKR-MYR logo that's been showing up on T-shirts here and there. It all looks very Millennial-y., and may represent shifts in strategy and tone for the campaign.
If the email heralding the new look/plan is any indication, perhaps sewage won't be the centerpiece of his message anymore; it only mentions St. Pete's sewage system once.
A change in style and tone after coming in second to Kriseman by 70 votes in the six-way August primary isn't all that unexpected.
First of all, his campaign and the associated PAC enjoy a seemingly endless stream of cash, primarily from wealthy GOP bundlers and benefactors, including his own boss, developer Bill Edwards, who has already pumped tens of thousands into Baker's campaign coffers. Baker's campaign could rebrand ten times over without doing much damage to its financials.
And given that making the sewage releases of 2015 and 2016 the centerpiece of his case against the incumbent wasn't nearly as effective as expected — especially after Hurricane Irma only spurred a minor, contained spill no bigger than some that happened under his own watch between 2001 and 2009 — it might be a good idea to stop talking about it all the time.
Will shifting his tone offset any damage his angry election-night speech may have done to his candidacy?
That's tough to know.
Also hard to know is where the candidates stand to the city's voters a little over six weeks ahead of Election Night; if there's been any polling, no one's releasing it to the public.
Kriseman, meanwhile, resumed talking politics in public post-Irma on Tuesday, when he stumped for St. Pete City Council Chair Darden Rice at her campaign kickoff party.
His campaign sent out its first post-Irma fundraising email on Wednesday, and Democratic consultant Omar Khan, who worked for everyone from former President Obama to Charlie Crist, recently signed on as an adviser to his campaign. He'll officially kick off the general election at a private fundraiser on Sunday.
This article appears in Sep 21-28, 2017.