Latecomer to crowded race asks for e-mail momentum

Walter Dartland, the Democratic primary's latecomer in the attorney general's race, sends checks back and tells voters to e-mail his name along.

By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 26, 2002

Walter Dartland doesn't want your money. He wants your modem.

He's the latecomer in the Democratic attorney general primary, and his campaign is a case of chain-letter meets the Internet.

Dartland returns contributions and instead asks supporters to e-mail their friends and family about him. He hopes they will pass the word on, and on and on, just like the letters that promise luck to those who play along.

"We'll reach thousands of people and tell them to reach thousands of people," Dartland said.

"The electronic thing just may be the great equalizer."

Dartland has had multiple unsuccessful runs for state office and has a consumer rights record unmatched by other candidates. But opponents say Dartland's fame is stale, his name is virtually unknown and his best shot at winning the primary may be pure chance: His name appears first among the four on the Sept. 10 ballot.

"I don't know much about Walter Dartland. I didn't even know his name until he qualified" to run for office, said Orlando state Sen. Buddy Dyer, who was the first Democrat in the race.

Former Deputy Attorney General George Sheldon has marketed himself as the consumer rights king in this race. Yet he isn't worried by the presence of the man once known as Florida's answer to Ralph Nader.

"Walt is a good guy, but to a large extent, his history in Florida is a decade old," Sheldon said.

Some 25 years have passed since Dartland, then Dade County's consumer advocate, sued Ford Motor company for $700-million. South Floridians complained in the class action suit of cancerous rust eating away at their Lincoln Continentals and Pintos. Ford settled the case.

Dartland once proposed that utility customers buy stock en masse in Florida Power & Light to force the board of directors to listen to them. And he is widely credited with laying the foundation for Florida's lemon law, which protects consumers who unknowingly buy cars that are duds.

But his distinction in this race is as the guy who waited until a week before the cutoff date to announce his campaign and who is rejecting all donations.

Dartland's supporters find their check returned in the mail along with a letter that reads: "Thank you for your financial contribution to my campaign for Attorney General. I am returning your check because I want more.

"I want your time. Please tell your friends and family that I am running. Make phone calls, send e-mails and write letters," the letter continues.

It's a twist on Dartland's 1986 run for attorney general, when he asked for money but promised anyone who donated up to $100 a full refund if they were not satisfied with him. Two years later, Dartland became the first state-wide candidate to qualify for public financing when he ran for insurance commissioner. He lost.

Dartland said he thought his style would appeal to voters grown weary of politicians who appear beholden to special interests.

"We may be at a point where the public simply gets irritated enough to look at a candidate's background and qualifications," Dartland said.

But will they find out about the qualifications through e-mail alone? It's not a strategy that Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox, a Democratic attorney general contender since February, plans to try.

"We're doing television and grass roots groups in addition to a cyber campaign," Maddox said.

The son of police officers, Maddox has made a name for himself as Mayor on the Move: Maddox said that while president of the Florida League of Cities, he visited every Florida city. He returned to some of those cities last week, this time as an attorney general candidate.

There he spoke about creating a one-stop center for Floridians to report cases of medical malfeasance ranging from Medicaid fraud to improper marketing by drugstores.

And he tells voters he wants to tighten regulations on ordering drugs online, which he discovered was easier than he thought after he ordered Prozac using his 6-year-old son's name. No questions asked, the drug and others he ordered arrived in the mail.

Maddox said he'd never encountered Dartland while traversing the campaign trail.

"Walt's a nice guy and I've known him a while . . . (But) I haven't seen him once."

Dartland isn't the only one running without much money. Sheldon's own lack of cash -- he's raised about $120,000 so far, not enough to qualify for public financing -- has political watchers wondering if his camp is crumbling. Sheldon denies that and says he's more than made up for his meager finances by meeting in person with Democratic groups across the state.

"I feel very positive about what's going to happen the last two weeks of the race," Sheldon said.

And he has a powerful weapon in his back pocket: current Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a nationally recognized consumer rights icon who is being forced from office by term limits.

Butterworth hasn't formally endorsed any of the candidates; in addition to Sheldon, Dartland and Republican candidate Tom Warner have worked for Butterworth. But he has appeared publicly with Sheldon at state events and trusted him enough to anoint him godfather of his daughter.

Sheldon said he was telling people he meets that he'll "carry on the aggressive consumer advocacy of Bob Butterworth."

Meanwhile, Dyer is riding the corporate accountability wave with his own plan to get Florida businesses to behave.

Like other Democratic candidates across the nation, Dyer thinks the recent spate of corporate scandals will hurt Republican candidates. He has drafted a plan to beef up corporate accountability for companies in Florida, including a proposal to toughen state penalties for white-collar crime, and he hopes it will convince enough moderate Republicans to cross over and support him after the primary.

With four candidates, the primary is a crowded field, and the race will be the first real test of lawmakers' decision almost two years ago to abolish the October runoff primary. That means the winner could capture the Democratic nomination with barely more than 25 percent of the vote.

It could give a candidate like Dartland a real chance to affect the race, even if he doesn't win it.

And that's the Democratic Party's fault, said Dyer, who served as Senate Democratic leader from 1997 to 2000.

"We don't have a party that's strong enough to say, 'We're going to run our best guy,' " he said.

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