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© St. Petersburg Times, published August 14, 2002
If the November election brings a Republican state senator to western Hernando County, last week will have been a turning point. That is, if the race for Senate District 11 was ever in doubt.
In a remarkable five-day span, Democrat Lee Cannon fired, in his own words, "the first shot" at front-runner Rep. Mike Fasano, but hit himself in the foot, instead.
Meanwhile, Republican Janet Henderson did her impression of Katherine Harris and discovered the details can bring an aggravating end to a term in office.
Fasano? He must have wondered whether he should play Lotto.
Cannon, facing a Sept. 10 Democratic primary against political neophyte Joseph "Steve" Mattingly, has focused on Fasano from the outset. Last week, he issued a press release attacking Fasano for voting for a legislative pay raise.
"As usual, I'm sure that Mr. Fasano will try (to) duck the issue by saying that he did not realize the vote would actually raise his salary, which is hogwash. Again and again, Mr. Fasano continues to show that he is more concerned with his own personal gain than with taking care of the business of the people," Cannon said in a released statement.
As we've come to expect from Cannon, the numbers are skewed. Fasano hasn't accepted a legislative pay raise since 1995. Cannon wasn't aware of that fact when he went on the offensive.
It likely caused him more political damage outside Pasco County, where Cannon doesn't have the benefit of eight years in public office and accompanying name recognition, to prop him up. Undecided voters are swayed, in part, on how well a candidate runs his campaign. In this case, Cannon's charge only served to get Fasano free publicity for turning down legislative pay raises.
Cannon tried a clumsy spin afterward, but finally acknowledged in a followup interview, he should have tried a different tactic.
No kidding. How about pointing to:
Crowded schools.
Poorly paid teachers.
A Republican education platform based on the results of a single standardized test.
The state's inability to prevent mishandling of child welfare cases.
Or, eliminating the sales tax holiday for back-to-school shoppers while maintaining more than $200-million worth of corporate tax breaks in the current state budget.
Instead, we're left with a pay raise issue that was doomed from the start. Even if Fasano had accepted the legislative raises, Cannon would face questioning about his own priorities. As Pasco County sheriff, he never rejected the annual salary increases of 5 to 6 percent, set by the state to accompany population growth, while simultaneously arguing his department was underfunded.
At the same time Cannon offered his mea culpa during an interview with Times editors and reporters, Henderson prepared her own press release.
It could have been a one-word statement: Oops. Henderson discovered she doesn't live in District 11 and doesn't plan to relocate because she and her husband moved into a new condominium less than three months ago.
Henderson's withdrawal handed the Republican nomination to Fasano. It is the second consecutive campaign that his opponent dropped out of the race before the election. Two years ago, environmental activist Tom Lincoln of New Port Richey cited health reasons for bowing out.
Coincidentally, Lincoln and Henderson both withdrew as they were scheduled to be interviewed by the Times for its editorial recommendations. Maybe we need a new air freshener in the conference room, or something.
At week's end came more bad news for Fasano's opponents. The Associated Industries of Florida Political Action Committee said it was throwing its support to Fasano. The decision came, incidentally, before Henderson's departure from the race. "Are you as shocked as some of the others?" asked AIF's Marian Johnson.
Under normal circumstances, the AIF pro-business lobby would be expected to back a four-term legislative veteran. And granted, the AIF is considered in some quarters to have a bark worse than its bite.
But the nod to Fasano, with no AIF endorsement in the Democratic primary between Cannon and Mattingly, is noteworthy because of the PAC's well-publicized ill feelings toward Fasano.
In May, AIF president John Shebel told Martin Dyckman, my editorial-writing colleague, that he would oppose Fasano in the Senate race because "he's an errand boy for the trial lawyers and the medical doctors."
Apparently, the errand boy is preferable to the rest of the field.
- C.T. Bowen is editor of editorials for the Pasco County editions of the Times.