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AS A PROMINENT LOBBYIST in Tallahassee, Sam Bell gets a lot of phone calls to raise money for candidates. But the one he got the other day was a doozy.
Bell, a former Democratic House member from Ormond Beach, took a call from Kent Sharples, president of Daytona Beach Community College. Sharples asked if Bell was willing to write a check to Republican House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's U.S. Senate campaign.
What Sharples didn't know is that Bell is married to Betty Castor, a Democratic candidate for that same Senate seat.
"Once he discovered that, he didn't press the point," Bell said.
College spokesman Glyn Johnston said Sharples made the call as a private individual, not a state executive.
Has Bell felt the cold shoulder from Byrd?
"Not yet," Bell said with a chuckle. "I try to keep a low profile."
THE USUALLY ACCESSIBLE Florida Senate is walling off the public, in the name of decorum.
For years, reporters and lobbyists have staked out the hallway near an elevator behind the Senate to buttonhole members on their way in or out of the chamber.
No more. Work crews have erected a wall at the chamber's back entrance, and the elevator is now behind a wall. Senators can leave the chamber for one of five floors in the Capitol, without facing any pesky questions.
The wall is part of a $114,000 project to add space for senators and staffers to quietly confer.
"You want to buttonhole a senator, go to his or her office," Senate President Jim King said. "Legislators were having to run a gantlet every day - not so much of reporters but special interest people. To the common man visiting Tallahassee, it looked very unprofessional, like legislation being done at a bottom-basement bargain sale."
TOM DENHAM HAS a sense of humor. He'll need it.
The former reporter turned Tampa public relations man started work last week as Byrd's press secretary.
Denham already is earning his $72,516 salary. On his third day on the job, he went into damage-control after Byrd referred to House members as "sheep."
"We're off and running," joked Denham, 53.
Denham is used to high-profile bosses. One former client was a low-key fellow named George Steinbrenner.
DON'T THINK YOU'RE SPECIAL if Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist sends you money.
Last week, Crist, a former St. Petersburg state senator and likely 2006 Republican candidate for governor, doled out nearly $2-million to 143,814 Floridians.
It's kosher. Recipients were members of a nationwide class action lawsuit against the recording industry. Pursued by 43 states, the suit alleged manufacturers fixed minimum prices for CDs, violating antitrust laws. Manufacturers admitted no wrongdoing, but paid $67.4-million in cash and another $75.5-million in CDs to the states.
Florida also received 313,000 free CDs, worth $4-million. But don't expect Charlie to send you one. He's talking to libraries and schools about how to distribute them, spokesman Bob Sparks says.
HE RECEIVED SCANT attention from the Florida press running for governor in 2002, but Bob Kunst has gotten into newspapers and TV stations up and down the East Coast and Iowa since September. The veteran Democratic activist from Miami has put about 100,000 miles on his 1993 Buick trying to draft Hillary Clinton for president.
"We're urging Democrats to reconsider this hari-kari suicide mission they're on with John Kerry," said Kunst.
Last weekend, he finally met her in Miami. TV footage showed Clinton enthusiastically greeting her drafter. "She never told me to stop doing this," Kunst noted.
A BOLD POLITICAL MOVE, it's not. But Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson are expected to throw their support to John Kerry on Tuesday night at Centro Ybor in Ybor City as he's on the cusp of locking up the Democratic presidential nomination. Kerry will await the results of the Super Tuesday results in Tampa and then join a rally that starts at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, lawyers Steve Yerrid of Tampa and Roy Glass of St. Petersburg have what could be one of the bigger challenges on their hands: trying to persuade people to write checks to North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his prospects look increasingly grim. They are hosting a Tampa fundraiser for Edwards on Thursday evening. Some wonder: Will Edwards still be in the race?
- Times staff writers Steve Bousquet, Joni James and Adam C. Smith contributed to the Buzz.