State: Party chief fights for job

Poe

ORLANDO -- To save his job, Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe made a costly concession Saturday: He offered to give up his six-figure salary.

Poe, still bearing the brunt of criticism for the Democrats' drubbing on Election Day, says he's willing to forfeit his $100,000-a-year salary, partly to take ammunition away from critics who claim he's in it for the money.

"It seemed that was getting in the way of a lot of discussions," Poe said.

"It's part of a rebuilding process. People see that we're willing to listen and make changes that need to be made."

Just last year, Poe's salary was quadrupled from $25,000 because many Democrats felt the struggling party needed a full-time boss.

A 4 1/2-hour closed-door session of activists, most of them invited by the chairman, ended with Poe still in charge of a dispirited party, even after he accepted "full responsibility" for the many setbacks. Despite Poe's willingness to work for free, his problems appear far from over.

Democratic activists in Hillsborough and other counties boycotted the session and are working behind the scenes on a petition drive aimed at forcing Poe to call an emergency meeting of the party's central committee, as early as next month, to consider demanding his resignation.

"I think the votes are there to oust him," said Julie Harris, Hillsborough state committeewoman. "That's why he didn't want to call a statewide meeting."

Poe called about 100 activists to a hotel ballroom for what many participants described as a gripe session that dealt mostly with what went wrong and less about how to rebuild a party that lost ground in 2002 in a state where Democratic voters still outnumber Republicans.

Poe insisted the meeting be closed. Democrats who don't like him streamed out of the ballroom all day, seeking out the half-dozen reporters waiting outside.

That prompted the party's executive director, Ana Cruz, to warn reporters at one point to "check your sources" before drawing any conclusions about Poe's future.

"Today is about venting," Cruz said. "We're hurt. We're down. Don't kick us when we're down."

Since Poe took over as the state's top Democrat in March 2000, the party has failed to regain the Governor's Mansion, lost three seats in the U.S. House, two state Cabinet positions and one state Senate seat.

In the state House, the number of Democratic representatives has fallen from 54 when Poe took over to 39 who will serve in the next legislative session.

Why would Poe want to keep such a difficult job without pay?

As he told the group: "I am in this because of my love for the Democratic Party and what we stand for."

Poe said he can absorb the financial loss because he made more money in his former career as a business consultant than he has as a party leader.

Among those voicing a lack of support for Poe Saturday were Bob Rackleff, a Leon County commissioner; Mike Moskowitz, the Broward County Democratic state committeeman; Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox, a possible candidate to succeed Poe; and Shannon Collins of Clearwater, executive vice president of the Florida Young Democrats.

Collins expressed anger at Poe for not distributing a year-old draft report by a consultant that recommended ways to overhaul the party. Poe said the document is not final.

"How can we work together as a statewide party organization if they won't even share their plans with us?" Collins said. Maddox, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for attorney general, said major changes are needed to rebuild the party's credibility in the eyes of Florida voters.

Mitchell Berger, the state party's finance chairman, said publicly what some Democrats would say only privately last month: that the party put all its eggs in one basket, in a TV ad campaign for Bill McBride's failed campaign for governor.

Berger said it would have been wiser to have shifted millions into a coordinated get-out-the-vote effort to assist candidates up and down the Democratic ballot.

"If you have $15-million, and you put $12-million of it in TV, you don't have enough for a coordinated campaign," Berger said.

Berger and other Democrats said the passage of three Democrat-inspired educational amendments to the state Constitution shows that the party's message is not the problem. Instead they say, it may be the party's caliber of candidates and how the party spends its money.

Elected officials were scarce at Saturday's session. Maddox was one of three mayors in attendance. State Reps. Frank Peterman, D-St. Petersburg, and Bob Henriquez, D-Tampa, also attended, but most of those in the ballroom were party insiders. Conspicuously absent were leaders of the Florida Education Association, the teachers' union that spearheaded McBride's campaign.

Henriquez described the party's problems as "endemic and systemic," including failures to nurture the party's base all year, recruit candidates and encourage more young people to become politically active.

Still, the Tampa Democrat worried that all of the Democrats' public hand-wringing could make things worse. "This is what Republicans thrive on: us fighting against ourselves," Henriquez said.

-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk