(For the uninitiated, White was convicted by a Hillsborough jury in 2009 of sexually harassing an office aide that resulted in his court fees of over $450,000 to be picked up by Hillsborough taxpayers).
The above mailer is one of two that appeared in mailboxes throughout District 3 homes on Friday (the other is a bit schizoid - having the same attack ad on one side, with a smiling positive picture of Miller on the other, showing his endorsements from the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, and various other business and labor organizations. Actually the Sentinel Bulletin co-endorsed Miller and the third opponent in the race, Valerie Goddard).
CL has contacted Miller to learn why he's opted to go this route, but one obvious answer would that this is a return attack for critical ads that White has ran in the Sentinel Bulletin in recent weeks blasting Miller for his work at Tampa General Hospital and with his involvement with the Urban League when the venerable Hillsborough branch of the civil rights organization disbanded in 2005.
Of course, there's also precedence with Miller saying he'll go clean, and then reversing course at the end. In 2007, Miller's wife Gwen was in a heated runoff election on the Tampa City Council against Joe Redner. Les Miller, running Gwen's campaign, said that there was no reason to make mention of Redner's notorious business lifestyle as the owner of the nationally famous nude nightclub Mons Venue. But make an issue of it the Miller's did indeed in the last week of that campaign.
Then again, Miller said he would stay above the fray as long as White would, and clearly in his ads and in his rhetoric in last week's debate in East Tampa, White has taken the gloves off. And Miller has responded in-kind.
