"You did it! You did it!" a beaming Bob Buckhorn told his supporters a few minutes ago at a Channelside victory gathering, saying that a "very gracious" Rose Ferlita had just called him to concede. His win was surprisingly lopsided, 63 to 37 percent.
Thanking his wife and family, his staunch supporters (firefighters, police officers, Mayor Iorio and his opponents in the mayor's race, all of whom except Greco and Ferlita endorsed his candidacy), he said, "You have lifted me up. You've filled me with a new hope for the future."
"Being knocked down doesn't mean anything," said Buckhorn, whose previous run for mayor ended in defeat in 2003. "It's all about how you get up."
Stating his belief that "we can do better, that we don't have to do what we've always done," he once again touted his dream of Tampa becoming "the city in America that everybody talks about."
He said in a recent interview that the politician he admires most is Ed Rendell, former mayor of Philly and governor of Pennsylvania. Tonight he showed the promise of a little of that Rendell charisma (and maybe a little of his pugnacity, too).
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.