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The Maddox mess

Tax delinquency is not the only legacy left by former state Democratic Party chairman Scott Maddox, who is now running for governor.

The IRS has come calling on the Florida Democratic Party, and Scott Maddox is suddenly looking a little less like a miracle manager.

Maddox left his post as chairman last month, just as the IRS was placing a lien of roughly $200,000 on the party for failing to pay Social Security and federal income taxes that were withheld from employees' paychecks. Now he is running for governor, and the financial mess he left at party headquarters is something he is leaving to his campaign pollster. "He did not know about it," Dave Beattie told reporters Tuesday. "Any mistakes that were made he takes responsibility for."

The "mistakes were made" refrain has less than a gubernatorial ring to it, which may explain why Maddox let his pollster speak it. After all, just a few months ago, Maddox was boasting that: "I believe I have helped rebuild the Democratic Party, and I'm ready to help rebuild the state of Florida." Oops.

The IRS embarrassment could be dismissed as just another symptom of the Democrats' organizational disarray if not for the political mileage Maddox has tried to get out of the chairmanship. But as his successor, former congresswoman Karen Thurman, is discovering, tax delinquency is not Maddox's only legacy. She sought the job at a time when people were questioning how Maddox, while party chairman, could pocket $10,000 to sit next to a developer in a Leon County Commission meeting. She was asked to investigate a cozy contract Maddox gave his former spokeswoman, Allie Merzer. Now Thurman has party officials asking about $900,000 that seems to have vanished in a pile of illegible financial records.

In the race for governor, Maddox has used business acumen - at least that's what he calls it - as his calling card. Yet the two examples he consistently cites - Tallahassee mayor and state party chairman - are not building his case. As for mayor, he claims to have "helped run a police department, a fire department, an electric utility and an airport, among other things." Yet Tallahassee's mayor is the ceremonial leader; the day-to-day government is run by a city manager.

As for the party chairmanship, Maddox can't now easily square his rhetoric with the trail of debt he left behind. The state Democratic Party wasn't exactly a finely tuned engine when Maddox took the wheel, but the IRS wasn't putting it up on blocks either.

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 00:46:08]