Minor players are savory morsels in a vanilla ballot
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published October 28, 2004
The heck with Bush-Kerry and Martinez-Castor. Here are 10 other interesting things about next Tuesday's ballot:
(1) Pardon me, Jeb, is that the passing of the choo-choo? This might be the closest call of the eight amendments on Florida's ballot. Will voters agree with the governor that passing the bullet train in 2002 was a bad idea after all? Or will they stamp their feet and say that they really, really meant it?
(2) A "credible" Libertarian? Face it: Most Libertarian candidates on the ballot serve as cannon fodder. But maybe less so this year in state House District 47 in northwest Hillsborough County, where incumbent Republican Kevin Ambler is being challenged by Libertarian Kim Snow. Ambler's bitter primary divided the party.
By all accounts Snow is smart and energetic and has long-standing community ties. For a Libertarian she is un-crazy (c'mon, I'm kidding). Will she do better than most?
(3) Frankly, my dear Nobody has been a better soldier for the Republican Party in the Legislature than state Rep. Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg, even when that meant doing the dirty special-interest work for Speaker Johnnie Byrd. But he's always had a competitive district.
Farkas' challenger in House District 52 this time is a Democrat named Liz McCallum. I'm not saying she's a carpetbagger for just moving into the district or anything, but her purse has a "Karastan" label. Farkas is friendly and a hard campaigner, which so far has made up for his bad votes. How close will McCallum get?
(4) Oh, you wanted me to COUNT them? Really, this is not the year you want glitches to crop up in the election process. Yet tardy returns in the Aug. 31 primary and the sloppiness surrounding 245 lost early votes has made things interesting in Hillsborough County. The incumbent elections supervisor, Buddy Johnson, a Republican, faces a Democratic rival, Rob MacKenna.
(5) Citizens to City Hall: Who's your daddy? The city of Indian Rocks Beach in Pinellas County has a passel of 17 proposed charter amendments on the ballot, all but one put there by a citizens' committee. In general, the citizens want to keep a short leash on the government and any future tax increases.
My favorite proposal would bar the city or city officials from taking sides in elections, even referendums. Nothing makes me madder than the government spending tax dollars to "educate" voters on which way they should vote.
(6) Mind if we stick around? In every election, the politicians in one burg or another around here get the idea the citizens couldn't possibly have intended THEM to have term limits. This year it's Oldsmar, which has a proposal on the ballot to repeal term limits for city officials. Good luck.
(7) If those liberals up north can do it Earlier this year, Pasco County voters narrowly passed a tax increase for schools, the first pro-tax victory there in years. Now Pinellas County, where even most Republicans are moderate souls, is proposing a half-mill property tax increase to help teachers and programs.
(8) Hey, the Red Sox beat the Yanks, didn't they? It is a rare thing for a sitting county commissioner to be defeated. But Josh Wooten, chairman of the Citrus County Commission, is getting a strong challenge from repeat commission candidate Joyce Valentino. Gotta keep a scorecard here. Valentino: Republican, backed by environmentalists. Wooten: Democrat, backed by builder-types. Life is so confusing these days.
(9) Check the rebar this time, okay? Citrus School Board member Sandra "Sam" Himmel, a Democrat, is running for school superintendent against a newcomer Republican, Ted Sgouros, and a gadfly with no political party named Ansel Briggs. Nobody is running on a platform of building more elementary schools without steel, grout or roof connections, but maybe that part goes without saying in Citrus County.
(10) You two guys again? Hernando Sheriff Richard Nugent won last time over James "Eddie" McConnell, a Brooksville police detective. McConnell is trying again; everybody is being nice so this is somewhat a matter of disgruntled-versus-gruntled insiders.
See? Ten interesting races. It's not all doom and gloom and negative TV commercials. Vote early, and as often as they'll let you.
