There are several mayoral forums scheduled this week that should be amongst the very best of the campaign season in Tampa.
Leading off the way on Tuesday night is the big production sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times and Bay News 9, that will be quite possibly the only televised debate of the campaign, making it the single most important forum so far. That gets under way at 7:00 p.m. at Blake High School for the Arts at 1701 North Blvd, and, unlike Channel 10's forum last week, we expect will be broadcast on television.
Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. the League of Women Voters of Hillsborough County and the Kiwanis club are helping sponsor what they're calling the Livable Tampa Roundable Luncheon inside the St. Pete Times Forum.
And Thursday, yours truly will be moderating Creative Loafing's mayoral forum, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. and run somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. No television for that. However, WMNF 88.5FM will be broadcasting the event live on their website. And the station says that if you can't hear it live, they will keep a link up there to listen later (though ideally before the election on March 1).
Over the weekend Colleen Jenkins of the Times did her first candidate profile – on Rose Ferlita. Though not radically different than one of the first stories we wrote when we came aboard the CL ship last year, she did include the nugget that one of Ferlita's campaign managers has already quit working for her:
Ferlita's obstinacy led one of her mayoral campaign managers to quit after five weeks. Ken Mayo says she was at times "too intense" and "too irrational" for his taste.
"If it's that way in a political campaign, is it going to be that way running city government?" Mayo said.
Meanwhile, we first saw Ferlita's television commercial a week or so ago . Here it is:
In Monday's St. Pete Times lead editorial, the Times presented a vision of the candidates so that we can't find too objectionable. It finds Bob Buckhorn's campaign "compelling," says Ed Turanchik has "thrown out the most ideas," says Thomas Scott "has a broader range and should be more assertive in showing it."
Regarding the two local candidates, the Times writes about what anybody who has attended a candidates forum can attest to: Dick Greco says plenty about the past, but relatively nothing (except about anonymous advisers he's already prepared to hire) about the future – and dings Rose Ferlita for not offering "any rationale for running."
We've been working hard and trying to make sure the candidates don't revert to their talking points in our forum, and we suspect the collected minds over at the Times are doing likewise for their forum on Tuesday night. For those readers undecided three weeks out before the election, these forums potentially can present clear choices about the candidates.
One last note: We should also note that the "mystery man" of the campaign, Arthur Richardson, is no longer in the race. The Tampa businessman was the only candidate lacking any type of government experience, which in this era of disdain for "career politicians," made him an interesting addition to the talented field of candidates. Though he didn't qualify for the ballot, he had still been running as a write-in candidate, but now he's officially out of the race.
So there will be just five candidates at CL's event on Thursday, despite the posters saying otherwise.
This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2011.