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Politics

Race remark prompts attack

Gwen Miller's camp calls voters after Joe Redner's "more black" comment.

By JANET ZINK
Published March 22, 2007

TAMPA - Tactics in the City Council race between Gwen Miller and Joe Redner shifted significantly this week, and the Miller camp says the change was prompted by one remark in a television interview.

"I'm more black than she is," Redner told Fox News in an interview broadcast Monday.

"To say I'm blacker than she is, that was a real low blow," said Les Miller, Gwen Miller's husband and campaign manager.

Redner, asked about the comment, said what he meant was that he "will do more for the poor community than she does."

Miller said the comment was an affront to his wife, who fought for civil rights, sitting at a Tampa lunch counter not open to blacks; taught in segregated schools, earning less than her white colleagues; and as a human relations specialist tried to maintain peace between black and white students during the early days of desegregation.

The Miller campaign decided it was time to go on the offensive, he said. This week they began telephoning voters, reminding them that Redner owns a strip club and has been convicted of allowing a lewd act, battery and cocaine possession.

Redner dismissed the phone calls, saying they are an attempt to draw attention away from the issues in Tuesday's runoff vote.

"Can she not talk about the issues? Can she not talk about our water problems? Can she not talk about our transportation issues? Can she not talk about the solution to affordable housing?" he asked.

"She's trying to get people's attention from the issues because she's going to lose if people focus on the issues," he said.

Redner openly discusses his checkered background. He has been arrested more than 50 times according to state records, and more than 150 times according to his own count.

The vast majority of Redner's arrests over the past three decades occurred early in his career as a strip club owner, when the city tried to close him down.

In 1976 alone, he was arrested 30 times, according to state records. Many of the charges were dismissed because courts had ruled nude dancing was protected by the First Amendment.

He has had only three convictions, one in 1978 for allowing a lewd act, one in 1983 for battery and another in 1983 for possession of cocaine at a Buccaneers game.

"That was 25 years ago," Redner said. He acknowledges past problems with alcohol and drugs and says he touches neither now.

"I'm clean and sober and wiser for it," he said.

Miller also took issue with Redner's comments in a newspaper that a black person couldn't beat a white person in a citywide race.

Redner said he was pointing out that the city has a shameful history of prejudice when it comes to black candidates, because voters have not accepted them in city-wide races. He was not condoning the bias, just pointing it out, he said.

Miller became the first African-American to hold a citywide seat when she was elected to her current post in 2003.

With election day less than a week away and voters streaming to early voting centers to cast their ballots, the race has become the political phenomenon of 2007.

Turnout in the first three days of early voting is 49 percent higher than the same period in the primary election. Typically, voter turnout for runoffs is substantially lower than primaries.

Election day is Tuesday.

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or 813 226-3401.

[Last modified March 22, 2007, 06:33:01]