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Party, race lines fade in School Board race
By MONIQUE FIELDS and CURTIS KRUEGER
To do that, she has to defeat Tiffany Todd and win a majority of votes from this Republican-leaning county. But a look at the numbers from the recent primary election in School Board District 4, which included Brown, Todd and three other candidates, suggests the Pinellas County electorate was not obsessed with race or party affiliation in that contest. For example, more than 48.7 percent of the voters in the District 4 race voted for an African-American candidate -- 24.7 percent for Brown, and 24 percent for Janice Starling. "That's a strong indication that clearly people are willing to support African-American candidates," said Mary Repper, who will be Brown's campaign consultant. "I like to hear that. That's a good number." School Board races are officially nonpartisan now, because of a recent change in the Florida Constitution. But this race had some partisan flavor, because Brown ran for School Board as a Democrat in 1998 and Starling is a Republican appointed to the school Board by Gov. Jeb Bush. Nonetheless, Brown and Starling each proved adept at winning votes from both parties. Brown, 67, led all five candidates in 41 Democrat-dominated precincts in the Sept. 10 primary, and 31 Republican precincts. Starling, 38, led all five in 32 Democrat-dominated precincts and 29 Republican ones. Starling said her strong Democratic showing was a result of living and working in South Pinellas County, a Democratic stronghold, and proof that the race was nonpartisan. "It says voters came from everywhere," Starling said. "That lets you know it was a nonpartisan race." But not everyone was willing to draw conclusions based on these results. Political consultant Jack Hebert, who is working with the Todd campaign, said, "I'm not convinced that a lot of Republicans made the connection that Starling was appointed by the governor." Starling's appointment was reported in the media, but Hebert said he didn't see mailings and campaign ads to remind voters of it. "It takes a fair amount of money to communicate a message in this county, and down-ballot races don't have those kind of resources," he said. But the primary results don't necessarily foretell success for Brown in November. Todd is scion of a political family -- her mother Barbara Sheen Todd is a county commissioner and her father Tom Todd's recent death created a vacancy on the School Board. She is well-financed and expected to wage a vigorous campaign. Todd raised more than $34,000 for the primary and set a goal to raise as much money for the general election. She had $4,300 on hand after the primary. By contrast, Brown raised $13,000, much of that loans, and had $3,400 left. Asked how she will attempt to win over voters who chose Starling in the primary, Todd said, "I hope that people realize a lot of the same things Janice believes in, I believe in also: high student achievement among all of our students and high parental and teacher satisfaction with our schools." And Todd, 24, was not worried that Brown and Starling together had captured more than 48 percent of the vote. "I think primaries are not a very good indicator of what's going to happen in the general election," she said. It's a larger base of people, and it's difficult to determine where voters' support is going to go, she added. Brown was on a cruise and could not be reached for comment. Pinellas often is viewed as a Republican county, but more Democrats voted here in the primary. That's to be expected, because three Democrats waged a high-profile campaign in the gubernatorial race, but Republican Jeb Bush was unopposed. Democratic turnout was 36.9 percent, compared with 28.9 percent for Republicans. In the Nov. 5 general election, with Bush seeking re-election, Republican turnout likely will be higher. In another race, another African-American School Board candidate, Moses Holmes, 66, received just 36.1 percent of the vote against Nancy Bostock. In contrast to Brown and Starling, Holmes won only in three Republican-dominated precincts and 13 predominantly white precincts. He won in 39 Democratic precincts and 29 predominantly black precincts. "I never wanted to cry race," Holmes said. "When I looked at the results, what hurts is that I knew I was a superior candidate. I didn't want to run on the fact that I was black because it wasn't necessary."
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