Sore Loser, Part I
Instead of relying on the whose-name-sounds-like-a-judge’s method of selection, which we suspect many voters use in low-profile judicial elections, the sniping between incumbent Cheryl Arena and challenger Anthony Arena earned them news coverage and actual name recognition.
Unfortunately for Arena, most voters recognized the Tampa lawyer as the person they wouldn’t vote for. Arena’s election-night party at the Columbia was heavy with the stench of defeat by the time others were just getting started. With less than half of the precincts reporting, Arena took the stage at the Ybor City restaurant.
“If things don’t turn around, I’m going to be making my concession speech,” Arena told the crowd of about 100, “if this wasn’t it.”
It was.
Arena vacillated between the usual words of thanks to supporters and the whiny, bitter tone of his campaign. He complained about campaigning. “I don’t know if I would ever recommend that anybody run for public office,” said Arena.
His mother took the microphone and thanked her son for “a clean campaign.” She said Arena was the kind of ethical person the courthouse needed.
You gotta love mothers.
Her baby boy might be a judge right now if he had coveted a different seat. An unwritten rule among lawyers, which says nobody runs against a sitting judge, has long been ignored in Tampa when it comes to blacks. With 30 circuit and county judgeships available, Arena decided to try taking out Judge Thomas, who, incidentally, is black.
The only other judge to face opposition Sept. 10 was black jurist Eric Meyers, who also won.
Both Thomas and Arena claimed race wasn’t an issue in their contest. Then they both proceeded to make it one.
Thomas ran an advertisement in the Florida Sentinel Bulletin saying, “Let’s support our very own on Sept. 10th.” The Sentinel Bulletin‘s readers are primarily black, so the ad could be construed as “vote for the black person.”
Thomas claimed she was pointing out that she was a Tampa native, which might have been merely doubtful — instead of absurd — if Arena weren’t a Tampa native, too.
Arena complained loudly about the ad, accusing the judge some claim he chose to challenge only because of her race, of appealing to voters based on race.
Later, the Latin newspaper La Gaceta cheekily endorsed the Latin Arena as “one of our own.”
Arena was disappointed at his loss, but he quickly regained the ethic that vaulted him to the top of the salary heap when he worked as a prosecutor under the late State Attorney Harry Lee Coe III.
“Root for McBride,” Arena told supporters. “If I don’t get there through an election, I sure will get there through an appointment.” —Rochelle Renford
Sore Losers, Part II
The fun never stops during an election year in Tampa.
On the eve of the primary, feuding Republicans went to court in search of recompense for slings and arrows sustained on the campaign battlefield.
Denise Lasher, an unsuccessful Hillsborough County commission candidate, perhaps foresaw her fate before the polls opened. Lasher slapped eventual winner Ken Hagan with a lawsuit.
According to Lasher, Hagan employed private eye Carl Rivett to tail her and other candidates. Lasher says Rivett also sent a false mailing to voters, claiming she supported a $1-billion tax hike.
The lowest blow of all, though, was the dick’s assertion in the mailing that Lasher would be “another liberal” on the county commission. Now if that’s not slander, what is?
Sam Rashid, one of the county’s self-styled Republican kingmakers, is behind Hagan. Ralph Hughes, Rashid’s fellow conservative but sworn enemy, was pushing Lasher.
Right behind Lasher at the courthouse was Richard D. Mandt. Another local GOP powerbroker, shopper publisher Mandt serves on the board of Weekly Planet‘s parent company. More important for political considerations, Mandt is in Rashid’s camp.
So whom would Mandt be suing? A Hughes guy, of course.
The defendant in this one is Jim Norman, who easily dispatched Rashid protege Stacey Lyn Easterling in a countywide GOP commission primary. Norman and Easterling currently represent separate districts on the commission.
Mandt says he was defamed by a Norman mailer that linked his financial support for Easterling’s campaign to the county award of a printing contract.
Pre-election lawsuits over campaign insults seldom go anywhere after the voters have spoken. The suits are mostly filed for press consumption. From that perspective, Lasher and Mandt already have won something.
The Tampa Tribune reported both lawsuits Sept. 10 as voters went to cast their ballots. But, if voters saw the newspaper account, they didn’t change their minds about Lasher or the Mandt-backed Easterling.
—Francis X. Gilpin
Allman Joy
The Allman Brothers concert at Ruth Eckerd Hall Saturday night was packed with boomers: boomers in tie-dye, boomers in golf shirts and bored boomer wives. For every woman who basked in the band’s jam-intensive, labyrinthine music, there had to be a half-dozen with blank stares, the fidgets or, in a few cases, slumped back and asleep amid all those decibels.
This was guy music — thick with the hallmark of boomer guy music: guitar solos. I’m big on guitar solos — and therefore generally liked the Allman Brothers’ performance — but at certain points was bemused and bored at the six-string rites unfolding on stage. (I’ll spare you the guitar-as-phallic-extension bit.)
The Allman Brothers’ two guitarists are a study in contrast. Center-stage stood lumpy, bushy-haired 42-year-old Warren Haynes, who thoughtfully crafted solos that ended up either in transcendent crescendos or burdened by cliches. To his right was 23-year-old Derek Trucks, former child prodigy turned grown-up guitar animal. Cherub-faced, with long, blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail, Trucks appeared to be dispassionate, but his solos were anything but. He stirred raw excitement — the kind you can’t teach — and could be forgiven his tendency to fall back on flash for its own sake.
The pay-offs at jam-based shows such as this are those sublime moments of convergence between musicians and listener. They’re intrinsically different for each concertgoer. For me, it was a 20-minute stretch sparked by the appearance of a guest harmonica player. The band slid into a muted boogie, which evolved into the spirited swinging blues of “You Don’t Love Me.”
With the volume rolled back, Greg Allman’s brawny soul-moan shone through. Looking fit and energetic, Allman outdid himself on the ensuing “Dreams,” deftly blending sensitivity and lust. The three-man percussion section massaged the song’s supple groove, making room for Haynes to craft a masterful six-string statement — the highlight within the highlight.
The rest of the set, which featured a bevy of promising material from a new ABB studio album due early next year, ranged from scintillating to dull: a rote run-through of “Midnight Rider” contrasted with the spirited stomp of “No One to Run With;” an overly dense “Rocking Horse” redeemed by the nimble opener “Hot ‘Lanta.” All well and good, but the “You Don’t Love Me/Dreams” segment made it worth showing up.
—Eric Snider
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2002.
