At least 17 Tampa citizens who have never held citywide office have announced their candidacies for one of the seven City Council seats that will come up for a vote in March, meaning local residents can expect to hear lots of rhetoric about jobs and neighborhood improvement and other buzzwords over the next three months.

But one current councilmember says those candidates should realize that their ability to play well with others is as important as their ideas.

Mary Mulhern has not officially announced that she's running for re-election in her citywide District 2 race yet, but says she'll probably do so soon. (UPDATE: Mulhern officially announced on November 18 she will run for re-election). The native Midwesterner says that if she does stay in office, she'll approach the job in a considerably different light than when she was first elected back in 2007.

"You have to focus not so much on policy as strategy," she says, reflecting on the importance of coalition-building to get initiatives passed, which requires four members on the seven-member board.

Over the past four years, Mulhern was part of a progressive front on the council that included John Dingfelder and Linda Saul-Sena. But on several occasions, they consistently lacked the fourth vote needed to pass measures that they — and many of their constituents — cared about. And after Dingfelder and Saul-Sena quit their jobs on Council to keep themselves viable for their county commission races (which they both lost), Mulhern has at times been alone in fighting for those progressive values, though now she does usually get backing from interim council member Yolie Capin.

Scott Payne can relate. A former councilmember (1991-1999) who now chairs the University of Tampa's communications department, Payne laughingly quotes 19th-century German Chancellor Otto van Bismarck's line about politics being the art of the possible. "If you're running for office, one hopes that you're running to accomplish something. And accomplishment requires at least three other votes… Everything you do on council requires coalition-building."

Mulhern acknowledges that can happen by supporting another councilmember's pet project, and hoping that they will reciprocate in the future. That maybe is the only way that councilmembers who aren't ideologically in sync might support each other's proposals, since Florida's Sunshine Laws prevent members from associating outside City Hall to discuss public policy.

Another frustration that Mulhern has expressed is simply the lack of power to create legislation — unless Mayor Iorio supports it. That's a byproduct of the city's charter, which invests considerable powers in the mayor's office, allowing the council to flex its collective muscle only on land issues. It's also a tribute to Iorio's considerable ability in the past to persuade councilmembers to see things her way, sometimes lobbying them directly to reverse a vote from first reading, as happened last month when Council initially rejected and then approved her plan to open three health care clinics for city workers, their dependents and retirees.

Mayor Iorio has certainly embraced the "strong mayor" form of government. She has often gone over the council's heads and laid out her goals directly to the editorial page writers at the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, gaining critical support for her initiatives before the issue ever comes to Council. But Mulhern now sounds almost admiring in reflecting on the mayor's success in executing her goals. "I think Pam has done a great job," she says, though she feels the local media has allowed her to escape scrutiny, which Mulhern thinks has been bad for Tampa.

When she spoke with CL, the lifelong Democrat (whose sister-in law, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, is leaving that job after being term-limited out) was still feeling discouraged about the Dems' November "shellacking." But she feels she owes it to the public to run for re-election.

"What I'm trying to say is as I learn and observe is… I'm less frustrated with the process because I've figured out what I can and what I can't do."

Of the current council, Joseph Caetano and Charlie Miranda say they will run for re-election, as will interim member Curtis Stokes, who was selected by the current council to replace Linda Saul-Sena last summer.

This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.