It is sometime Wednesday morning, and Tracey Sievertson wants the truth back.

OK, I admit that former Tampa Tribune reporter Brad Smith's lead was more compelling than my little invention above. He wrote in a story published Wednesday, April 27, "It's 2 a.m. Saturday, and Tracey Sievertson wants her Jeep Cherokee back" as the start to a pretty good story about the largely unregulated private towing industry.

Smith wrote that Sievertson was "shocked" to find her car towed from S. Howard Avenue's restaurant row after a night of "club-hopping." Not a bad tale, and a familiar one to regulars in the area.

The major difference between his lead and mine, however, is that mine is true.

In a signed, front-page disclosure and apology published the day after Smith's last story ran, Trib Executive Editor Janet Weaver revealed that Sievertson was, in fact, at home during the incident and not club-hopping. She had lent her Jeep to a friend. Smith met up with that friend for a night of carousing and was present when the friend discovered that the Jeep was missing and had been towed. When confronted by editors with Sievertson's complaints about the story, Smith resigned, according to Weaver's apology to readers.

Sievertson told me she was stunned to see her "story" on the front page of the Tribune and immediately called the newspaper to let editors know that they had been duped.

"I realize they were victims as well in this," Sievertson said. "They responded to my concerns immediately. They were in a very difficult position and they handled it well."

For this single mother and new business owner, the idea that she was out club-hopping until 2 a.m. was hurtful to her personally and professionally.

"I have a big problem with a reporter not being honest," said Sievertson, herself a former television news reporter (including a stint at WFTS-TV Channel 28) turned public relations professional. "It ruins the industry for everybody. I was in the business, and I still work with the business. I want to believe that reporters are honest and working to the best of their ability to be truthful."

Back when I was a political consultant, I was interviewed on several occasions by Smith for stories. He seemed a smart reporter. He also had a reputation among some in the newsroom as a "golden child" who always found a way to get his stories out onto 1A.

Other questions remain. Weaver said in her front-page apology that the newspaper would be examining all of Smith's work to ensure that no other fabrications occurred. She did not address, however, whether actions would be taken against those who edited or supervised Smith. A careful re-reading of his towing story, for instance, finds some inconsistencies that should have raised at least one red flag with editors. After talking about how Sievertson was there and was club-hopping, Smith's fourth paragraph cryptically states, "A friend who parked Sievertson's car missed" seeing a Pete's Towing sign. An editor might have asked, "Why wasn't Sievertson driving her own car?" (And the answer might have been, "Because she wasn't freakin' there!")

Weaver has handled this situation well so far, and the newspaper has noticeably improved since she came on board. Let's hope her work to overcome the fabrication scandal is comprehensive and open.

CAMPAIGN WATCH: Albert Fox, the Tampa native and Washington, D.C., lobbyist who favors opening relations with Cuba, has barely entered the race for the Democratic nomination to Congress in Jim Davis' old seat, but he's already lobbing brickbats.After commenting to me about his opponents' relative lack of experience in the capital (Fox has spent 40 years in Washington as a lobbyist and as the head of the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy), Fox questioned fellow candidate Kathy Castor's decision not to serve out even her first term as a Hillsborough County commissioner will play with voters.

Sievertson said she was stunned to see her "story" on the front page. "I have 40 years at this game," Fox said. "Kathy was elected four years to her term, and she is bailing out after two, so I'm not sure how that is going to play with the voters."

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Given the Republican Party's solid hold on power in Florida, it will come as no surprise that first-quarter fundraising reports released in April show that the party and its candidates in Tampa Bay lead in garnering campaign cash for the 2006 elections.Topping the list of state legislative candidates in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties was Sen. Victor Crist, a New Tampa Republican who has had a campaign account open since 2003 and raised more than $113,000. Crist's future ambitions are uncertain (he's been said in news reports to be interested in several higher offices) and he's spent $85,000 of that money already, including nearly $25,000 repaid to himself as travel and event reimbursements (Disclosure: Crist is a former political consulting client of mine.)

Other top fundraisers in Tampa Bay include: Rep. Frank Farkas ($75,655); former Rep. and Senate hopeful Sandy Murman ($62,260); Rep. Kim Berfield ($43,848); House hopeful Peter Nehr ($21,705); Rep. Trey Traviesa ($21,400) and House hopeful Ken Peluso ($21,335). They are all Republicans.

The highest total for a Democrat belonged to Rep. Arthenia Joyner, who is running the state Senate and raised $14,574.

Statewide, the Republican Party holds a wide advantage over its Democrat counterparts, raising $3 million statewide to their rival's $273,000. The top giver was the Realtors PAC of Florida, which contributed more than $112,000 to the Republican Party in the first three months of 2005.

To make things worse for the Democrats, a bill in the Legislature would allow parties to spend more money directly in electing candidates, giving the Republicans yet another leg up.

I'M BEATING A DEAD HORSE DEPT.: A few weeks back I made the case that the "Classroom" blog being hosted by the St. Petersburg Times on behalf of Pinellas School Superintendent Clayton Wilcox improperly violated the arm's-length relationships that media must have from those public officials it covers. One point of the column was that the Times was performing a service for Wilcox, as he told me that he didn't have the personnel or time to screen out improper e-mails and couldn't have a blog without the newspaper.On April 24, in the aftermath of the widely shown videotape of a 5-year-old African American student being handcuffed by St. Petersburg police after she tore up school offices, the Times' online city editor, Kevin McGeever, posted notice on the Classroom blog that the newspaper had deleted some postings that were racist in nature. "Saturday night, we deleted some comments because they contained race-based ugliness, profanities (even if they were dashed out) and other threatening language," McGeever wrote. "It perhaps was unfair to solicit reactions on the video when a fuller story has yet to be told. Some of the posted comments have speculated on the child and the child's home life without the benefit of evidence."

If those same racist postings had come into a school-run blog site without the personnel to censor it, you can be sure that public officials would have ordered it shut down. Nearly 500 people posted comments within a few days of the story being published. The Times' work on Wilcox's behalf, once again, is a benefit to the superintendent. It's not personal; it's business.

Political Whore confined his fabricating activities to his days as a political consultant. The Po-Ho can be reached by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com or by telephone at 813-739-4805.

This article appears in May 4-10, 2005.