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By BILL STEVENS
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 4, 2000
After a week of sneaking up on my mailbox, I'm convinced that political attack ads are a lot like the angry man wandering the street, screaming at the top of his lungs. You know he's loud and upset, but you can't remember what he's saying.
And you don't much care. You just want to get away from him.
The award for the dirtiest campaign for Tuesday's primary goes to Hap Clark, hands down. It's hard to believe that at age 78, when he ought to be happy chasing snook and mullet, he's aggressively involved in a smear campaign against Tax Collector Mike Olson, his one-time good buddy and political confidant.
You would think from the mailers that Olson spent most of his time at the government center abusing women. Clark even managed to get the word "crotch" into his attack, along with a headline screaming of sexual harassment. (By the way, Hap, there's only one "r" in that word and no "h" in Petersburg.)
Olson fought back on Friday by filing suit against Clark, demanding $1-million. Such suits don't usually go far beyond Election Day, but they represent an emphatic denial. Up until last week, it didn't seem that Olson even blamed his old friend for the nastiness, suggesting that Clark was being manipulated by Republican strategists who see an opportunity to get rid of the man often called the godfather of Pasco's Democratic Party.
That, along with some of those highly unflattering photos of Hap looking like he just fell down a flight of stairs, recalls a line from one of the all-time cinema classics, Blazing Saddles: "Mongo only pawn in game of life." All the outrage about the way Olson runs his office when he's not harassing the women folk falls short on credibility when you consider that Olson helped direct Clark's campaigns for County Commission -- or when you consider that Clark's daughter seemed happy as a clam when she worked for the tax collector.
But don't feel too sorry for Olson. He didn't get that godfather label for nothing, and few understand better that politics is a mean business. When Clark surprised everyone by announcing for tax collector at the last minute, one of Olson's first criticisms was that Clark had taken money from developers who enjoyed political influence. Olson probably didn't figure there was anyone left in the county who remembered the thousands of dollars he took in campaign contributions from developers who had sold their turkey utility systems to the taxpayers while Olson was on the commission.
Highlighting contradictions and voting records is fair in political campaigns, and it helps voters make an intelligent decision. Barking unsubstantiated, sensational claims of misuse of office and personal abuse is just dirty politics. My guess is that after this week, Hap goes fishing for good.
A distant second for the nasty mailer award goes to an unlikely candidate, Eileen Ferdinand, who pointed out that Peter Altman wanted a GIANT NAKED WOMAN painted on the outside of a downtown building. "As a woman I'm offended, as a mother I'm outraged," she said in disingenuous literature that also claimed Altman was out of touch with community values.
Given that Olson is helping Ferdinand run her campaign for County Commission, you can sense a certain irony in Olson finding himself fighting against similar mailers, though admittedly there is a big difference in the nastiness.
Altman, at least up to now, has traveled the high road, electing to let his record as New Port Richey's mayor most of the past decade speak for itself. We'll learn this week whether Ferdinand's approach was effective.