Former State Senator/County Commissioner Jim "Lightnin' Jim" Norman would like for you to give him his job back, please (the County Commission one).

The staunchly conservative Republican faces a tough primary against newcomer Tim Schock and, if he clears that, an even tougher general against one of four well-liked Democrats contending in their own primary for the seat.

But he has a bit of a problem.

His wife and a developer friend, late GOP powerbroker Ralph Hughes (who had some pretty good luck in getting the Commission to support his projects when Norman was at the dais), went in together on an Arkansas lake house some years back, a detail Norman didn't disclose to state elections officials. And although he handily won a State Senate seat in 2010, he opted not to run for reelection in 2012 after admitting to the Florida Commission on Ethics he should have disclosed the purchase of the house.

Not exactly the scandal of the century, no, but not the kind of thing someone running for office really wants to be associated with.

On Tuesday night, a prospective constituent, Joe Johnson, a neighbor tells us, asked him about it at a forum in the Twelve Oaks neighborhood, and he didn't respond in the most statesmanly way.

At first, he somewhat calmly addressed the question from his perspective.

"My wife bought that house," he said. "There was an agreement, there was a partnership…my wife bought that house, plain and simple, just like you bought yours."

And what you told the ethics commission…?

"There's no funny stuff about it," he said, getting louder and more animated. "If there was anything funny about it, I wouldn't be sitting here today. You know what? I've got a letter that says I am 100 percent trustworthy and accurate about what I'm telling you about it."

Just as Norman sat back down, Johnson said there is a rule and then there is "the spirit of the rule."

Norman stood back up, raised his voice, and blamed the whole thing on Hillsborough County's liberal elites and their longtime persecution of God-fearing men such as himself.

"Let me ask you this, sir," he shouted. "Has any other politician's wife's business been analyzed? …Because I'm a conservative Republican in this town. Let me tell you. How about Bob Buckhorn? Anybody ever call up Bob Buckhorn's wife and say, 'Hey, let me look at your assets?'"

During the short exchange, pay extra attention to the other candidates seated on either side of him (left to right: former County Commissioner Thomas Scott, Pat Kemp and former Plant City Mayor John Dicks — all Democrats), who, stuck in an awkward situation, had to sit idly by.