His legal skills were not underdogs, but Day’s campaign for Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court judge had to be considered a riskier bet than his opponent’s. Robert “Bo” Michael is the son of a well-known former judge. He has run before and had name recognition. He spent three times as much as Day. And twice in the last week of the campaign, Michael mailed voters a brochure that painted Day as a tax cheat. But as it turns out, that name recognition was largely negative, and the tax-cheat attack backfired. Day sued him for libel and then beat Michael by almost 60,000 votes, a landslide. That makes Michael 0-for-4.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.