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For their own good Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
TAMPA - Republicans were leading in all four Hillsborough County Commission races late Tuesday, with GOP candidates backed heavily by the building and development industry picking up two seats previously held by Democrats.
Democrat commissioners are vacating two countywide seats, and Republicans Brian Blair and Mark Sharpe claimed them, the first political victory for each man. Meanwhile, incumbents Ronda Storms and Ken Hagan cruised to easy re-elections in their Republican-leaning suburban districts.
Blair, a former professional wrestler and owner of four Gold's Gyms, was narrowly leading former Tampa City Council member Bob Buckhorn despite Buckhorn's war chest of $220,815, the largest of any commission candidate.
With all but three of the county's 360 precincts counted, Blair was ahead of Buckhorn 50 percent to 49 percent, a lead of about 3,000 votes.
"I think the difference was I've been an athlete and a businessman," Blair said. "I've assembled teams. It takes a team to build a dream."
Sharpe, development officer for the private Cambridge School, led Democrat Denise Layne of Lutz and strip-club mogul Joe Redner of Tampa, running with no party affiliation.
"The numbers look good," Sharpe said, although he declined to claim victory. "We've been holding our own through two-thirds of the precincts, so we've been consistent."
Two of Hillsborough's longest-serving Democrats are leaving the commission. Jan Platt was forced out by term limits, and Pat Frank resigned in midterm to run for Clerk of Court. In replacing her, Sharpe will face re-election in two years.
All five candidates for the two countywide seats were trying to rebound from losses in previous elections. Redner had run for Tampa City Council last year, Sharpe had run three times for Congress in the 1990s, Buckhorn had run for Tampa mayor last year, and Blair and Layne lost County Commission races two years ago.
Tuesday's outcome returns a Republican majority to the commission for the second time since 2002. That brief majority had ended after two years when then freshman commissioner Stacey Easterling left her seat to challenge fellow Republican Jim Norman in a losing effort.
The majority means a commission already known for its aversion to doling out tax dollars could become more so. Each of the Republicans running for office has pledged at some point in the campaign to fight raising taxes.
Buckhorn, 46, cast the election as one in which government experience mattered most. Blair, 47, said the county needs to make greater use of business principles.
Their race mostly remained civil until the final days, when Blair and some of his supporters unleashed a barrage of attacks against Buckhorn that he mostly left unanswered, except in press responses. Blair and his supporters depicted Buckhorn as a liberal who supports tax increases and didn't sufficiently oppose adult businesses.
Buckhorn's mailouts and phone bank efforts mostly argued that the commission needed someone who could hit the ground running.
Sharpe ran a campaign that portrayed himself as a moderate choice Democrats could trust. He extolled the virtues of smart growth, although much of his campaign treasury came from developers and builders. Sharpe, 44, said he sent all of his 65,000 mailers to Democrats and independents with a history of voting.
"Our strategy was that we could hold our Republican base," he said. "And we felt comfortable that we could reach out to Democrats."
Layne, a growth management lobbyist for the Sierra Club and owner of a paralegal firm, campaigned on a similar platform of easing suburban sprawl and improving transportation, including mass transit. Like Sharpe, she focused on Democrats, who she said would decide the race.
Redner, the 64-year-old owner of the Mons Venus strip club, said he was the best choice to stop sprawl because he was more independent than Layne or Sharpe. His personal fortune, exceeding $20-million, could certainly buy independence.
Hagan, 37, won his third straight cakewalk at the polls after emerging two years ago at the top of a bruising Republican primary. In August, he dispatched two fellow Republicans with 61 percent of the vote.
Tuesday's race appeared to be Hagan's easiest of all. He suspended most campaigning after September's storm season and mailed campaign materials only to absentee voters.
But that was more than Hagan's Democratic challenger, Dave Cutting of Carrollwood, could manage on a $5,642 budget. In contrast, Hagan raised $153,016, more than a third from loyal allies in the building and development industry.
Storms easily survived a challenge from Jean Batronie, a Brandon hypnotherapist running without party affiliation, to earn a third term on the board.
Storms had faced her stiffest challenge during the Republican primary. Even then, she handily defeated two challengers, more than doubling their combined vote.
Staff writers Bill Varian, Michael Van Sickler and Elisabeth Dyer contributed to this article.
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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