If Florida's Democratic Party has any hope of rebuilding its numbers in the Legislature, it has to get people like Janet Long elected.
Long has been around Pinellas politics — sorry, no avoiding this — a long time, including a stint as the director of the (mostly Republican) legislative delegation and as a legislative aide. She's worked in city administration and served as a Seminole City councilwoman. She has one son on active duty in the Army with four tours in Iraq under his belt, and another son who is a police officer in Clearwater.
She's been around the GOP politics of Pinellas County for so long that many folks just assume she's a Republican.
"When I announced, a lot of the people who know me were shocked that I was a Democrat," Long said over coffee and bagels last week.
Long is the kind of Pinellas Democrat who, for many years, switched parties to make things easier. But she's committed to the party in the minority, saying, "In the world we live in at the moment, I'm proud to be a Democrat."
She's well-connected. She's bright and personable. She's excited (she pumps her arm in the air as she cries out her campaign slogan, "You can't go wrong with Long"). She has a great back story, including caring for her 96-year-old mother with Alzheimer's (appealing to the health care vote) and being economically trapped in a too-big home with her kids grown up (homestead tax reform vote).
The Democrats could use more like her. While it is not possible to regain control of the Florida House, the party needs to start the long journey back by recapturing two formerly Democratic seats in Pinellas that are viewed as among the most competitive in the state.
So what are her chances?
Not bad. For starters, even though the district has been held for eight years by Republican Leslie Waters, it was once one of the strongest Democratic seats around when it was occupied by Mary Brennan. The registration slightly favors the GOP, although it is the 20,000 or so independents who could decide the race. Long's fundraising has been competitive; she's collected slightly more than one Republican opponent, Waters' legislative aide Bruce Cotton, but less than the other, Seminole Mayor Dottie Reeder.
For Long, the race is about more than just her next public service position.
"It's the beginning of a new future for the state," she said. "It will bring real balance back to the Legislature."
Florida Senate candidate Charlie Justice's campaign fundraising results have been viewed as pretty abysmal, even to some in his own Democratic Party. Justice, now in the House from St. Petersburg, has raised only about $53,000 so far, according to reports released this week. His Republican counterparts, Rep. Kim Berfield and Rep. Frank Farkas, have raised $374,000 and $317,000, respectively.
But as far behind as that is, there are signs of hope in the world of this mild-mannered legislator. His first-quarter fundraising totals were nearly double that of his previous efforts over 12 months. He has a new hard-ballin' campaign manager, Mitch Kates, who wrestled professionally under the name "Jason the Terrible." (The Boston mayoral candidate Kates was working for in 2005, Maura Hennigan, forced him to apologize for calling one of her opponents a "punk bastard" and another opponent, the mayor of Boston, a big, drooling teddy bear.) And now, Justice has a new internal poll that Kates says shows his client in the driver's seat in the race to replace Republican Jim Sebesta in District 16, which stretches from downtown St. Petersburg north along the top of Tampa Bay and ends in South Tampa.
The poll, done in March by The Kitchens Group of Orlando, showed Justice with a 17-point lead over Farkas and a 12-point lead over Berfield. For those who hew to conventional wisdom, those results are a bit tough to swallow.
Even more unbelievable to some political wags was the poll's assertion that Farkas is beating Berfield, 30 percent to 20 percent with half of Republican voters undecided. The perception is that Farkas has taken so many hits for his ethics (remember, he was one of four legislators who took a junket to Toronto courtesy of the gambling industry) that he can't possibly beat a better-financed, less-sullied candidate in Berfield. But The Kitchens Group poll found that "Kim Berfield is virtually unknown within this electorate, with hard name identification level at only 16 percent." Farkas had 47 percent name recognition — but half of it is negative! That is a stunningly high negative rating, one that means a certain death for his campaign eventually.
For Justice, that is unfortunate, as Berfield gives him a tougher race than Farkas. His pollster's one-page memo on the race says the Republicans' "hotly contested primary race" will "ultimately benefit Charlie Justice, who begins the general election race as a strong front runner."
That's probably more spin and wishful thinking than anything else. Farkas and Berfield will get five to six months of free press coverage to drive their recognition up, while Justice has no primary race to generate publicity and increase his awareness stats (which the polling memo did not reveal).
I have first-hand experience with the poll: Over the weekend of March 8-11, I received a polling telephone call at home. It was not a particularly nasty poll, with only an oblique nod to Farkas for being ethically challenged: The pollster asked if I thought special interest trips were bribes.
Dottie Reeder's purchase of a $5,296.50 Segway Human Transporter is either one of the most extravagant electoral expenditures I've ever seen or the most brilliant campaign stunt in these parts in ages.
Reeder, who has raised more than $33,000 in her quest for the Florida House District 51 seat centered on Seminole and Pinellas Park in Pinellas County, spent the biggest chunk of her money so far on the Segway, a novelty two-wheeled, gyro-balanced people mover. Reeder said it was her husband's idea, having seen the distinctive personal transporters while traveling in larger U.S. cities.
"I started going to door to door with it in January," said Reeder, who currently serves as the mayor of Seminole. "The reactions are really funny. Most of the time when people realize it's there, they want to see me ride off on it. They are kind of amazed by it. Nobody has said it wasn't a good idea."
Reeder faces legislative aide Bruce Cotton in the Republican primary for this seat, being vacated by Leslie Waters, who is term limited.
Reeder joins the category of those with "Strange Campaign Vehicles" along with U.S. House candidate Scott Farrell of Tampa, who has spent nearly $25,000 to purchase an old RV and refit it to run on waste oil.
Disclaimer Central: The Political Whore in his consultant days ran one campaign apiece against Frank Farkas and Kim Berfield. PoHo can be reached by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com, by telephone at 813-739-4805 or on our blog at www.blurbex.com.
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2006.