One of St. Petersburg's most unpredictable mayoral primaries has produced a familiar result. Two candidates, one who is invested in the city's progress and one who is agitated by it, have stepped forward from a field of nine, and political observers can be forgiven for their sense of deja vu.

In the upcoming general election showdown between attorneys Rick Baker and Kathleen Ford, however, voters should be wary of simplistic comparisons. Ford, a City Council member from a well-connected family who once argued for neighborhood code enforcement because "Snell Isle is only going to be so nice if the Old Northeast is a good buffer," already has tried to portray Baker as an elitist who is out of touch with city residents. Baker, a former Chamber of Commerce president, does indeed enjoy broad support from some of the city's top business, political and civic group leaders. But the notion that this race is a classic matchup between the downtown establishment and a neighborhood activist is dangerously misleading.

Baker is perhaps the first candidate since voters adopted the strong mayor form of government eight years ago to truly fit the image. He has been a leader in virtually every community endeavor in which he as been involved, whether as chairman of the Florida International Museum, president of the Suncoast Children's Dream Fund, founder of a YMCA Neighbor to Neighbor program helping disadvantaged families at Christmas, or founder of a neighborhood leadership program. He knows the city and its neighborhoods so well he even wrote a history about them. At the same time, he enjoys some of the connections -- to mayors, county commissioners and the governor -- that will help St. Petersburg compete in a broader political arena. In short, Baker is what most people would call a leader.

Ford is something else. Though she showed great zeal in her past activities as a neighborhood association president, she has spent her four years on the City Council creating headlines and little else. She has fired off letters to the state, calling for it to overturn actions of the council, and to the FBI, asking for personal protection from those "who would seek to harm me," and at one point she hired a court reporter to record a council meeting as though she was planning to sue her own colleagues. She has been so frequently on the losing end of 7-1 or 6-2 votes that her own campaign Web site is forced to tout what "she proposed but the city never tried." Ford's nasty diatribes at meetings ("I'm not a suck-up sort of person") have made the city government such a laughingstock that council members held a retreat in late 1999 to try to work out their differences; Ford refused to attend.

The election of 2001 will decide who becomes St. Petersburg's second strong mayor, and the political backdrop is demonstrably different than it was eight years ago, when David Fischer became the first. Fischer, who has endorsed Baker, reached out to neighborhoods in ways that made their progress and their quality of life a primary goal of his administration. Quietly, Fischer helped rebuild communities, heal divisions and bring new commerce, such as BayWalk, to St. Petersburg. That's a record Baker wants to build on, and one that contrasts sharply with Ford's characterizations.

In the next four weeks, voters should take care to look beyond the campaign rhetoric and examine the civic records of these two candidates. Which person has the competence and demeanor to get the job done? Which one will we trust to keep this city on the track of progress?

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