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A city undivided

The bitter battles of past election campaigns are happily absent in St. Petersburg so far

By ADAM C. SMITH
Published September 18, 2005

St. Petersburg is in the midst of its most extraordinary election season in decades.

Extraordinarily languid.

The last several mayoral races in St. Petersburg have been downright explosive: fears of racial unrest; the prospect of upheaval at City Hall; stark divisions between neighborhoods and downtown; polarized views of the police department and basic city priorities.

This year's hot-button issues? Curbside recycling. Height restrictions for the booming downtown development. Whether the city can be more effective recruiting cops. Arcane nuances in affordable housing policy.

In two competitive City Council races with primaries Sept. 27, it's often tough to see where the candidates disagree.

For a city rocked in recent memory by violent racial unrest and notorious for turbulent elections, these days looks mighty content.

That's certainly the conclusion to be drawn from an internal poll Mayor Rick Baker conducted for his re-election campaign. The July 31-Aug. 1 telephone survey of 300 likely voters found that a stratospheric 70 percent approve of the job Baker's doing and 70 percent have a favorable view of him. Satisfaction with the city's direction and leadership largely crossed all ideological, geographic, racial and gender lines.

We should be skeptical of internal polls released by a campaign, of course. They are inevitably self-serving. The Baker campaign released a nine-page summary of the results but not all the data.

Still, this one was conducted by the Tarrance Group, a well-respected Republican polling firm. Its rosy findings for Baker (six in 10 believe the city is heading in the right direction) also are backed up anecdotally.

St. Petersburg is loaded with politicians aspiring to higher office, and all opted to take a pass against Baker. When City Council candidates met with the St. Petersburg Times editorial board recently, the general difference of opinion was whether Baker was doing a great job or good job.

"It becomes very tough for challengers," said USF St. Petersburg political scientist Daryl Paulson, a longtime student of city politics. "What's your issue? What's wrong? What are you going to change?"

Ed Helm, a retired government lawyer and first-time candidate, jumped into the mayor's race at the last minute. Helm sounded incredulous at the suggestion that city residents are overwhelmingly content with the direction of St. Petersburg.

"How many people have you talked to about curbside recycling?" he asked.

Kim Trombley, a thoughtful City Council candidate aiming to unseat Virginia Littrell, insisted that many residents are worried about crime: "That's a strong undercurrent, and it needs to be talked about."

Helm added that parts of the city, such as Midtown and western St. Petersburg, feel isolated.

Western St. Petersburg has long been the mecca for anti-City Hall sentiment and a crucial base of support for challengers wanting to oust incumbent mayors.

City Council member Rick Kriseman represents the area. "If Ed is trying to use that, it's not going to be successful," Kriseman said. "The mayor's really been focused on the west side more than anybody I've ever seen."

Baker's poll had a high margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points. If it's even remotely on target, it paints a stunning picture of St. Petersburg's political environment.

Consider that seven in 10 Republicans and seven in 10 Democrats had a favorable view of Baker. Two-thirds of white voters had a favorable view of the mayor (24 percent unfavorable), and 85 percent of African-Americans had a favorable view.

That African-American and white voters share an overwhelmingly positive view of a politician is not merely impressive; it's virtually unprecedented for any politician in any office in the country. Pollsters see a racial gap everywhere.

That Baker has been outspoken about his Republican allegiances - Gov. Jeb Bush headlined a fundraiser for him in his first election, and Baker helped lead George W. Bush's Pinellas campaign in 2000 - makes his his broad-based support, especially among African-Americans, all the more notable.

In fact, Republican strategists would say he could use a little more partisan edge. A mayor who's being talked about as a future gubernatorial or congressional candidate could stand to antagonize more Democrats - and excite more Republican activists in the process.

Some candidates - including Helm and City Council candidates Maria Scruggs-Weston and Dwight "Chimurenga" Waller - dismiss the additions of a bank, grocery store and post office to Midtown under Baker's watch.

"I live in Midtown, and while those things are nice to have, those things are not economic development," Scruggs-Weston said. "At the end of the day, how will it benefit the lives of the people in Midtown? They will now have access to jobs that pay $6 an hour at the grocery store. Is that a major coup?"

Baker's poll suggests the bleak assessments of his record on Midtown are well out of the mainstream: More than 80 percent of minority voters think Baker has done a good job in Midtown, and more than two-thirds of all voters think he's done a good job there.

As if Baker weren't heading into the election with enough of an advantage, Helm seems bent on helping him. Helm contends there's a big divide in St. Petersburg between "progressive" Democrats and conservative Republicans.

So far, though, Helm has bashed two of the most popular African-American Democrats - county commissioners Ken Welch and Calvin Harris - for backing Baker in an officially nonpartisan race. Never mind that he helped publicize Baker's broad support in the process.

Before stepping into the mayor's race, Helm, the Tampa Bay leader of Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign, also antagonized environmentalists by picketing a news conference where Baker joined environmental activists to promote environmentalism in St. Petersburg.

"It was just about the most boneheaded, unprofessional thing you could do," said Darden Rice, a Sierra Club leader running to unseat Earnest Williams on City Council. "If you care about curbside recycling, why on earth would you alienate the Sierra Club? Things like that really make me question Ed's political smarts."

St. Petersburg voters appear more optimistic than they've been in ages. As he strives to emerge as anything but a nuisance candidate against Baker, Ed Helm can use all the optimism he can muster.

Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 16, 2005, 18:18:03]