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Gov. Bush also visits a Boys & Girls Club to promise improvements.
By BRYAN GILMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 13, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- Gov. Jeb Bush endorsed the candidacy of his friend, Rick Baker, for mayor of St. Petersburg on Friday night in front of a crowd of 250 people who donated up to $500 each to Baker's campaign.
Before that, Bush stopped at the Suncoast Boys & Girls Club on 22nd Street S and stood on a floor of mismatched tile. He announced the club will get 10 new computers and a new $42,000 air-conditioning system.
"Twenty-five years is a long time to wait for anything," club director Carl Lavender Jr. said in introducing the governor. "That's how long this club, right here, has been waiting for air conditioning."
The two disparate events, occurring only a mile apart, demonstrated the priority that both Bush and Baker place on healing resentment left over from Florida's presidential election. Both men stressed a commitment to African-Americans, many of whom voted for Al Gore and still question whether their votes were fairly counted.
Not everyone was buying it.
A sticker stating "Beat Bigot Bush" still hangs on a traffic sign on 22nd Street S, a block north of the Boys & Girls Club where Jeb Bush spoke Friday.
Some African-Americans reacted with dismay last month when Baker announced the fundraiser and aligned himself closely with Bush. Some black voters see Bush as the governor who courted their vote, then dismantled one of the important achievements of the civil rights movement: affirmative action.
"This is a sincere, concerted effort to embrace diversity in every way," Bush said of his governorship after the Baker rally. He said he has appointed a higher percentage of African-American judges than his Democratic predecessor, Lawton Chiles, and he touted black enrollment at state universities under his One Florida plan.
"Eventually, people will believe," Bush said.
Baker made African-Americans and issues important to many of them prominent in his speech. Stimulating economic development in the city's poor, largely minority neighborhoods is one of the four main elements of his "Baker Plan" campaign platform.
Baker decried high unemployment rates in poor neighborhoods south of downtown.
"That's not acceptable," he said. "Economic development in the Challenge area is going to be a major part of my administration."
Baker's other three key issues are public safety, neighborhood assistance and education.
He introduced local people and told their stories to show why each issue is important. About half were African-Americans.
Bush said Baker's "administration will be a mirror of this great community" in terms of diversity.
Outside the rally at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg student activity center, about 20 protesters shouted "Jeb Bush must go!" and "Rick Baker must go!"
Many are members of the National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a black socialist organization of which rival mayoral candidate Omali Yeshitela is the chairman.
One marcher, Gaida Kambon of St. Petersburg, called Bush's Front Porch Florida program and his visit to the Boys & Girls Club hollow gestures.
"They cannot take away the fact that he disenfranchised the African-American population," Kambon said. "They have taken away the vote; now the question is if they can soothe us with a few African-Americans in the administration and a few dollars here and there."
Although city elections are non-partisan, Baker has served the Republican Party as both Bush brothers' campaign chairman in Pinellas County.
"I have had so many friends from diverse backgrounds throughout my life," Baker said. "A special one of these friends is Jeb Bush, the governor, whom I've known for many years."
http://sptimes.com/News/122100/SouthPinellas/Mayoral_hopeful_plans.shtml>Mayoral hopeful plans fundraiser with Gov. Bush (December 21, 2000)
Lawyer dipping toe into St. Petersburg mayoral campaign (November 4, 2000)