Opinion: Mayoral candidates in a spin

Tampa's leading mayoral candidates are talking a lot about money and polls but little about real ideas. It's as if they've conspired to delude the voters that the next four years, and possibly eight, will be flush like the '90s under Mayor Dick Greco. This is a dishonest way to enter office. Whoever wins in March will face immediate choices -- between investing in downtown and in other commercial districts, among competing neighborhood groups and between the city's parochial interests and the larger regional ones. It's time they dropped the puffery and talked specifics.

No one doubts that Bob Buckhorn, Pam Iorio and Frank Sanchez would like to be far-thinking mayors. But these are indulgences in imagemaking, not agendas for governing, and voters should demand something more. Tampa is a growing city struggling to diversify in an economy going nowhere soon. Its oldest neighborhoods need new streets, water lines and drainage pipes. It has poor public transit and too much homelessness and crime. Health care for the indigent has teetered for years. The city is swimming in complaints about substandard housing, and downtown and Ybor City need continued support to build on the massive public investments there.

That's why platitudes fall short. Iorio, the popular elections supervisor who quit to run for mayor, catapulted to front-runner status last week even though she's offered nothing concrete about why she wants to run the city. Buckhorn has gone farthest by proposing an ambitious neighborhood plan. Sanchez said he soon will release specifics. Of the major candidates, Charlie Miranda has been the most candid; he, unlike the others, is not afraid to disappoint. But what should be a freewheeling race among four quality candidates is instead a pinched and cautious campaign.

There is room, indeed a need, within the breadth of a mayoral race for the candidates to lay out their broad visions. Goals capture the public's attention. But what the candidates have offered as vision so far is little more than political spin. It has drowned out, not accompanied, the bread-and-butter issues. To their credit, the long-shot candidates in this race have tried to focus on real-life problems, and we hope, with six full weeks remaining in the campaign, that the debate will take a relevant turn.

For all the records this multimillion dollar race will break, it's worth remembering that Tampa's mayor is really a glorified city manager. The candidates may want to dazzle voters with their vision and their legacy projects, but what most people think about is the livability of the neighborhood they go home to every night. This election won't be decided on new high-rises or international trade. There are signs the candidates are catching on, but the failure by them all to grab the real-life issues is why it's still -- this late -- a wide-open race.

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