There is a Hillsborough County Commission race that includes the following candidates:

A "gay," vegan, strip club owner and First Amendment crusader who's been arrested dozens of times.

A 13-year incumbent who is pushing his controversial pet project, a $40 million sports complex, while voting against a needed $500,000 for a domestic violence shelter in a separate budget.

A No-Party-Affiliation candidate who is clearly the hottest middle school social studies teacher on the ballot this year, earning her the not-often-seen designation of Third-Party MILF.

Heard of the race?

I didn't think so.

Joe Redner, Commissioner Jim Norman, and Yamel Christina Arronte (in order from the above descriptions) have generated little to no media attention in their countywide campaigns. That is astounding, despite the fact that most pundits and reporters believe that Norman is an absolute shoo-in — because he is.

Still, wouldn't it be fun to blow this one up on the front of the metro section once in a while? Wouldn't it be interesting to learn that Redner, despite his blustery personality and strip-club ownership, has the best handle on the issues facing Hillsborough County than any candidate I have heard this year? Or that Arronte, despite amateur campaign materials, is a very smart, deeply committed teacher and mother who was fed up enough with local government's inability to face the music that she jumped into the fray?

This race, like so many others this campaign season, shows both the retreat of the mainstream media from substantive local political coverage and the manipulation by incumbents (mostly Republicans) of the process by simply choosing not to show up. They know they are ahead, and they know they have enough money to drop out of the traditional political dialogue.

Take the Redner-Norman-Arronte race. I dropped in on the Tampa Tiger Bay Club luncheon last week to see what was billed as a debate between those three candidates (as well as candidates in two other races). Turns out it was between two candidates; Norman was a no-show. He told the St. Petersburg Times that he was attending an advisory board meeting for a pro-seatbelt foundation.

Norman's absence was not surprising.

"I'm pretty politically active," Arronte said before the debate, "and I've never met Commissioner Norman.

And Norman is not alone in taking advantage of the Rose Garden Strategy. Ronda Storms is usually not present at debates in her race for the Florida Senate. Congressional candidate and Democrat Phyllis Busansky recently criticized her opponent, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, for failing to show up for a televised League of Women Voters debate. He also couldn't find time in his schedule for the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club debate.

His campaign told the Times he was very busy with "grass-roots" campaigning. Not to mention fundraising visits from President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Speaker Dennis Hastert. (So that's why Hastert didn't have time to deal with the Foley allegations before they became public …)

From top to bottom, in 23 years of covering or being directly involved in Florida politics, I've never seen the system so broken, so secretive and so dependent on cold cash. The mainstream media, by and large, doesn't give a shit about a campaign unless it is the governor's race; the Tampa Tribune didn't even send a reporter to the Tiger Bay debate for County Commission, which also included a race that should also be making headlines at least once a week, between Commissioner Tom Scott and Commissioner Mark Sharpe.

The opinion leaders don't seem to care; fewer than 40 Tiger Bay Club members were on hand, and the questioning was as tepid as the candidates' speeches. Back during the primary, Tampa Councilman Kevin White spoke to the club, and not one single member had the chutzpah to ask him about his much-publicized expensive campaign-purchased Italian suits.

And the voters? In the September primary, only 20 percent of Florida's registered voters bothered to sashay out to the polls. Hillsborough and Pinellas were less than 1 point higher.

The system is broken. Is it any wonder that we're electing some of the miscreants we have in office today?

This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2006.