Opinion: The chamber's unlikely activists

Tampa politics have shifted so far to the right that the Chamber of Commerce has become one of the most progressive forces in town. That's right: the chamber, the Tampa business club headed most recently by former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez. It was the chamber that crafted a tax bailout for Tampa General Hospital, the chamber that rallied tax support for roads and indigent health care and the chamber that called for spending on the arts, parks and public housing.

The chamber's re-emergence as a political force crystalized two years ago, largely as a reaction to the unwillingness of Republican Hillsborough County commissioners to invest in roads, health care and other basic services. Chamber leaders are reluctant to describe their activism as a clash between moderates in business and ultra-conservatives in the county Republican Party, but that's exactly what it is. The chamber has a fundamental difference of opinion with local Republican officeholders about the role of government, the vision for Tampa and the social and economic assets that measure a community's quality of life.

Of course, it doesn't serve the chamber's interests to pick a fight in public, which makes the pursuit of its agenda so interesting to watch. The chamber has chosen its battles carefully, broadened its political base and framed polarizing issues in populist terms. When Bill McBride, the Tampa attorney and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, took on Tampa General for the chamber a couple years ago, many chalked up his success to the respect he and Martinez brought to the job. It would have been easy for the chamber to bask as heroes and fade away. But Martinez was active as chairman last year, and the new chairman, businessman Sandy MacKinnon, has a broad agenda for tackling education, water and transportation problems throughout the region.

It is too simplistic to frame the chamber's reawakening as an attempt by the old guard to re-establish its dominance, or even to view it as a power struggle between city residents who've lived here for years and newer, more conservative suburbanites. Power clearly is a subtext in this debate, but the chamber has confronted real issues of policy and leadership that matter to citizens countywide.

The work MacKinnon did with Florida 2012, the state's bid for the Olympic Games, gives him a solid base and an unusually broad perspective from which to carry on after Martinez and McBride. Let's hope the group stays active and forward-thinking.

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