Here is the burning question facing Hillsborough County voters this fall: Should we have one knucklehead running county government instead of seven?

This is the essence of what is popularly known as the Elected County Mayor referendum. County government — now run by a board of seven commissioners who hire a professional manager for the day-to-day mishandling of your tax dollars — would instead be run by a single, powerful politician.

More accountability, supporters say, and you can't run a county of more than 1 million people by committee.

On the other side, opponents worry the county-mayor model would dilute the political influence of minorities and concentrate too much power in one person.

Last week, the bipartisan group supporting an elected county mayor rolled out some decidedly B-list and C-list political figures who are on board with their movement. They have a PAC and are raising money for campaign ads, with a professional political consultant helping guide their efforts.

The opponents, meanwhile, are unorganized and without either consultants or a fundraising committee.

And yet I have to think that beating the county mayor plan wouldn't be all that tough. Opponent Beth Rawlins, a political consultant (and former colleague of mine when I was running campaigns), offers this simple strategy for defeating it:

Advertise on several huge billboards along I-275 before the election, with the simple words "County Mayor Brian Blair" and Blair's picture. The following week, you swap out Jim Norman's name and photo for Blair's. Then Ronda Storms. And so forth until Election Day.

"You basically just run through the County Commission," said Rawlins, who has helped defeat strong mayor referendums in several communities in Florida on behalf of her clients, the Florida City and County Management Association and the International City/County Management Association.

Her point should be well taken by even those who support the county mayor plan: Do we have a single politician who can unite the entire county and has strong managerial skills and not some crazy agenda?

Rawlins has spoken out against the idea of a strong county mayor on several occasions, including a televised debate and a round of interviews with newspaper editorial boards two years ago. Her clients oppose these kinds of referenda because they want to uphold the value of professional government managers. But she describes herself as "in the periphery" because she is not (at least yet) being paid to run a campaign here for her clients. What's stopping them from getting involved?

Nobody has asked. Rawlins said the group gets involved only when invited by local communities. The opposition doesn't have a united front, she explained. Leaders of the different factions do call her even if they don't necessarily call each other.

Rawlins pointed to three main factions that oppose the county mayor plan: former County Commissioner Jan Platt, whose main concern is the consolidation of power and a lack of checks on that power; the African-American community, which worries that its voice on the County Commission would be minimized and that a black candidate would be at a disadvantage in running for county mayor in overwhelmingly white Hillsborough; and conservative icon Ralph Hughes, who died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. (Hughes' $1 million PAC quietly refunded almost all of its bank account to Hughes' concrete casting business earlier this year, leaving nothing in it to fight against the elected mayor plan.)

Opposition aside, there's a chance that the vote might not even happen. A Tampa civil engineer has sued to stop the balloting, claiming that the language on the petitions for the referendum is misleading or just plain wrong.

Jim Shirk was a little-known Democratic Party volunteer before his lawyers filed the suit a few weeks ago. He used to write a blog called "Entartete Kunst" ("Degenerate Art" in German) that railed against Bush and Cheney. He hasn't spoken publicly about the case.

Rawlins has talked with Shirk, and she describes him as an activist who initially signed the county mayor petitions and then changed his mind. To supporters of an elected county mayor, Shirk is the tip of a shadowy effort against their plans.

"It is shameful that in this day and age, the most important component of our democracy — citizens' right to vote and have their voice heard — is being challenged over some unfounded technicality by people with a hidden political agenda," said top supporter Mary Ann Stiles in a news release after the lawsuit was filed. The Elected County Mayor group's vice chairwoman, former state Rep. Mary Figg, went further into the conspiracy realm: "It is unbelievable that the forces behind this lawsuit are fighting it in secret and have not been required to expose who is supporting it as the elected county mayor's efforts have done."

Shirk could not be reached for comment, but Rawlins defended him.

"I think he signed the petition in all good faith," she said. "I think he has every right to voice his opinion and use the judicial system. To imply a conspiracy, I don't know."

This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.