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Baker's ace was city's too familiar race card
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001 Rick Baker made his last stand Tuesday at 22nd Avenue S and Dr. M.L. King St. in St. Petersburg. The polls would be open another hour. Baker held up one of his red and white signs with one long, bony arm and now and then hollered hello to someone in a passing car. He had people holding those signs on all four corners, including Mike Atwater, owner of the soul-food landmark at the intersection. There was also an outsider, a short guy from Tampa. He was constantly a step behind Baker and was also carrying a sign. Adam Goodman, a spin doctor who worked for Rudy Giuliani when he ran for U.S. Senate and who was called in to save Secretary of State Katherine Harris while Florida's presidential vote was sorted out, was also working for Baker. Goodman won't appreciate being so publicly identified. But seeing him revealed just how complex politics is in a city that likes to play it simple-minded. The game goes well beyond race, even though race was exactly what Baker was playing to as he took his last stand at the intersection, the heart of Bartlett Park, one of the city's black neighborhoods. Goodman was on the scene because Baker, a Republican in a non-partisan office now, can do much good for Jeb Bush the next time the governor makes some dumb move and alienates black voters. You can bet that the next time the governor is in town, he'll stop at 22nd and MLK. Nobody knows Adam Goodman outside the hothouse of national politics. But in a place like Bartlett Park, Baker's pledge to keep Go Davis police chief was what people wanted to hear. Some day, black and white won't matter in a St. Petersburg election. This thing about black and white won't be used to divide and confuse. Some day. If it is true that Kathleen Ford's continuing criticism of Chief Davis has been racially motivated, then it is also true that Baker played the race game. If it was true that Ford never gave Go Davis a chance -- he would go, and that was that -- it was also true that Baker did nothing to acknowledge that Davis' critics in the police union and some neighborhood groups might have a legitimate viewpoint. By doing so, he sent them a loud message: no change, no compromise, no discussion, no way to the middle ground. The combat within the Police Department will continue. And its ripples will continue to be felt in neighborhood after neighborhood. Does Baker really mean that? If Kathleen Ford had won the race and had hugged Jack Soule, the president of the PBA, before the crowd, she'd be called every racist name now. The rules are apparently different for Baker. Just before Baker gave his acceptance speech at Mansion by the Bay in downtown St. Petersburg on Tuesday night, he hugged police Maj. Cedric Gordon for all he had done during the campaign. Gordon is one of Davis' closest friends in the department. Is this a proper beginning for a mayor who said in his victory speech he would unite the city? When I talk about black and white, I'm not talking solely about race, but about the amazing and distressing habit this city has of casting all public debates in the most extreme terms. There is no nuance, and no shade of gray. Kathleen Ford was done in by her own runaway tongue, yes. But she also was painted, particularly on this paper's editorial pages, as a homegrown Cruella De Vil, evil to her blond core. Had she no decent qualities? Ford campaigned in black neighborhoods, and 17 percent of voters in mostly black precincts voted for her. That isn't much, but is something wrong with those people too? When a town plays politics this way, it pays a price. You can't negotiate, because you don't know the language of negotiation. You can't compromise, because you don't know the language of compromise. Mostly, you can't move forward.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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