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If history is any indication, once someone wins the District 2 seat on the County Commission, they keep it for awhile.
By BILL COATS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 4, 2002
North Hillsborough County will do something in November that it has done only twice in the past 16 years: Elect a new county commissioner from District 2.
Jim Norman, after holding the office for 10 years, cannot seek re-election. So he's running for a countywide commission seat. Before Norman, Pam Iorio held the seat for eight years. She then became supervisor of elections.
This election is dangling the same golden promise that lured Norman and Iorio. Some candidate, previously known only in a few small spheres of activism, will be launched into instant political prominence, surpassed locally only by Tampa's mayor.
This year, the effect is likely to be exaggerated by the absence of primary runoffs. The frontrunner in a primary will win the nomination. In a crowded field, the political parties could nominate candidates who fell far short of a majority of the votes.
"If they can just get 30-something percent of the vote, they have the nomination," Iorio said.
"Whoever has that initial burst of name recognition and organization will get the nomination without having to worry about a runoff where the individual who came in second is gaining momentum and overtaking them."
If past is prologue, the new county commissioner could hold the seat until 2012: an initial two-year term followed by re-election to a pair of four-year terms. The two-year term is required every 10 years after the county redraws district boundaries to accommodate population changes.
The power of incumbency has proven to be formidable in District 2. Both Iorio and Norman, after surviving razor-thin margins in their initial campaigns, have run unopposed ever since.
A year before Election Day four Republicans, one Democrat and an independent already had filed to pursue that legacy. The winner will represent a district that has been transformed since Iorio was elected in 1985.
Back then, 58 percent of the district's registered voters were Democrats. Iorio's stiffest challenge came in the Democratic primary runoff, where she defeated Lutz's Carolyn Meeker by 209 votes out of 4,871 votes cast.
More than 50,000 new voters have arrived since then. They primarily have settled into middle-class, master-planned developments like Westchase, Cheval and Tampa Palms.
"The people who move into the suburbs are much more Republican and much more independent," Iorio said.
While District 2's number of Democrats has risen only fractionally, more than 28,000 new Republicans have registered. Additionally, the number of voters affiliating with neither major party has nearly quadrupled.
Such political independence is a major Florida trend, particularly in the suburbs.
"They are the real swing vote," Iorio said. "They are the vote that candidates need to court."
She contends the race is open to any serious candidate, "as long as the person has credentials and is willing to work very hard."
If candidates want to follow the precedents of Iorio and Norman, they will hit the streets. Iorio enlisted 300 volunteers and visited voters door to door.
Norman built on that, in a trademark tactic he has practiced since July 4, 1991. He now knocks on more than 500 doors a week.
"I was the Forrest Gump of politics," he said with a chuckle. "I just keep on walking."
Norman said a commissioner's priorities must be the neighborhoods.
"The neighborhoods are pretty happy if reclaimed water's working, the streets are okay and the crime's down."
He had quick advice for his successor:
"Listen to these communities," Norman said. "I mean this is what it's all about. . . . What you have is very intelligent, masterful organizations. You're not going to pull any wool over their eyes. They're very well informed. . . . They know what they want in their communities and they'll fight to keep it that way."
- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com.