Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Keeping the Castor name in spotlight

Kathy Castor has stepped up her profile as she engages in a race for Congress.

By BILL VARIAN
Published October 2, 2005

TAMPA - Kathy Castor already enjoys some formidable advantages in the race for the congressional seat representing much of metropolitan Tampa.

The Castor name alone gives her a head start. Voters know it well, thanks largely to her mother's long, groundbreaking political career. And she's been out in front raising money as well.

But Castor has another potential edge over the other four Democrats seeking to replace Jim Davis in the U.S House of Representatives.

As a Hillsborough County commissioner, she alone holds a full-time political job that guarantees her regular free ink and television face time, building her profile even more.

And she is capitalizing on her perch, attaching her name to an array of issues after a comparatively quiet first two years on the commission. In many ways, when she declared her candidacy for Congress, it represented her coming-out party as a county commissioner as well.

Here she is, warning of threats to privatize the county's indigent health care plan for the poor. There she is, getting commissioners to talk about cleaning up canals clogged by silt.

No issue is too big or too small. She is pushing this week to get the county to stand firm on slowing residential development where schools are overcrowded, which is building into a bona fide donnybrook. In between making pleas for campaign cash, she met with 30 residents for an hour Thursday to hear their concerns about the entrance and mailbox locations at a new West Tampa post office.

Castor says her heightened activity is typical of most politicians running for office. Government gets active in campaign seasons, when people are paying attention and assessing their elected officials.

"I think it's natural, whether I was running for re-election to the commission or running for Congress," Castor said. "It's natural for anyone who is running for offices to be working on issues that are important to the community."

So far her successes have been modest. The proposal to privatize the health plan appears to be on the ropes, though the issue remains undecided. And Castor nabbed $500,000 in this year's budget to begin carrying out some of the canal cleanup she backed.

But she has run into roadblocks from the majority Republican bloc on the commission on other modifications to the health plan. A pitch she made last month for $25-million toward carrying out several community redevelopment plans was summarily rejected.

Indeed, these days, her biggest role may be that of the loyal opposition. Castor is one of only two Democrats on the seven-member board, and often the only one standing against the majority.

It's a role with its pluses.

It means Castor is often the one getting called on to articulate the opposing view of her decidedly right-leaning board, most famously of late as the lone vote against the commission's ban on gay pride recognition. Her name enjoyed one of the top 10 biggest spikes as a search term nationally on Google during one week following the vote.

She's also opposing Commission Chairman Jim Norman's proposed $40-million amateur sports complex in the Hillsborough countryside.

Castor is running for the largely urban 11th Congressional District that concentrates Democratic voters and leans left in its politics. It covers Tampa and portions of surrounding Hillsborough County, running south along to northern Manatee Count y and taking in parts of south St. Petersburg. While five Democrats have already declared for the seat, no Republicans have, though it's early.

The other declared candidates in the race are state Sen. Les Miller, lawyers Scott Farrell and Michael Steinberg, and Al Fox, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist best known locally for his fight to open U.S. relations with Cuba.

Farrell said that ultimately Castor must be judged by what she accomplishes and her ability to bring other elected officials on board for a just cause. Therein lies the rub for Castor, and a likely line of critique by her opponents if she continues to be perceived as the front-runner for the seat.

"It's not enough to make the right vote if that vote's not having an impact," Farrell said. "Whether it's Ronda Storms here or Tom DeLay in Congress, it's tough at every level."

[Last modified October 2, 2005, 01:57:16]