Month: July 2007

Rooting For The Home Team

Note to Yankee and Red Sox fans at Tropicana Field: If you’re down here on holiday, then by all means root away for your Yanks and Bosox. You support your team on the road. It’s what hard-core fans do. And, by the way, thank you for visiting the Tampa Bay Area and attending the game. The Devil Rays can use the attendance boost. And win or lose, please come back.

To those Tampa Bay relocatees from New York and Boston who retain childhood allegiances and persist in putting them on display at Rays’ home games: Hey, you live here now. By choice, presumably. Act like it.

And, no, I don’t root for the Phillies, Eagles or Flyers when they’re in town to play the Rays, Bucs or Bolts. There’s a reason I no longer live in my home town of Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay has everything to do with it. But you do have to be born somewhere.

Of course, once the Rays get competitive, and tickets aren’t so easy to come by, such issues become moot. Remember those hordes of New York Ranger and Chicago Bear fans at Lightning and Bucs’ games, respectively?

Winning ultimately conquers all. And that’s on the home team.

Naming Rights’ Wrongs

Was that the perfect naming-rights storm or what? The deal to put the name of Tampa-based Academic Financial Services on the University of South Florida Sun Dome had no chance. The generic national scandal involving the student loan industry and higher education was beyond awful timing. And from the standpoint of AFS, the episode aired the company’s — and the founder’s — considerable dirty legal laundry, resulting in a public relations nightmare.

But USF, which would have realized about $2 million net on the ill-fated deal, still needs a Sun Dome sponsor, ideally one that is relevant to the college-student experience. Fortunately, that leaves Hooters, Budweiser, Trojan, Lou’s Tattoos, Apple i-Phone and Cliff’s Notes still in the hunt.

Tampa’s Sanchez On An Obama Mission

The epiphany was palpable that summer night in Boston in 2004.

Tampa’s Frank Sanchez, a political shaker who once worked in the Clinton Administration and ran for mayor in 2003, was among the enthralled thousands at the Democratic National Convention who were moved by Barack Obama’s mesmerizing speech to the delegates.

At a gathering that was viscerally united in whom it was against, Obama clearly stole the show by projecting a positive, charismatic persona, one that would have been easy to rally around that very night.

“There was definitely this feeling,” recalls Sanchez, 48, “that this was a guy who might one day run for president. I just assumed it would be 2012 or later.”

Fast forward three years later. The rally is on.

Obama, 45, is a rookie senator from Illinois who is heavily in the hunt for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanchez is a key policy adviser on Latin America. He’s also the Obama campaign’s finance chairman for the seven-county Tampa Bay region and a member of Obama’s national finance committee.

To date, Obama, a competitive second to Sen. Hillary Clinton in most early polls, has raised more than $56 million through the first two quarters of 2007. Moreover, that figure reflects a donor base of some 260,000. Clinton has raised nearly as much but from less than half as many donors, many of whom are now tapped out. At a comparable point in 2003, the “phenomenon” that was Howard Dean had 70,000 donors.

“I was confident he would do well,” says Sanchez, “but no idea it would be this quickly. The Clintons have been developing a national network for 25 years. Senator Obama’s had a national network for six months.”

Sanchez, the CEO of Tampa-based Renaissance Steel, a growing, regional player in the Light Gauge Steel building business, concedes that the roles of busy executive and campaign adviser/financial guru have been taxing. “I wouldn’t kid you,” he acknowledges. “It’s been a real challenge to juggle. I try to limit the campaign work to after hours, weekends, some lunch time and the occasional call at the office.”

Sanchez is one of those indispensable, go-to sorts that national campaigns require. He’s at home in corporate suites or hustings haunts. He has that killer rolodex and access to activists with money. He can delegate; he’s likeable; and he’s Hispanic. And this, of course, is Tampa Bay, which you must have to win Florida, which you must have to win the nation.

“I do it, frankly, because I enjoy the process, it’s worth it to make a difference and I can’t remember the country being more divided,” explains Sanchez. “I consider it a mission.”

A mission, he underscores, to help elect someone who is more than Democratic boiler plate in an intriguing, bi-racial package. Someone who is the antithesis of divisive and polarizing. Someone, he says, uniquely positioned to send a signal to the rest of the world that they do, indeed, misperceive America as an arrogant, hypocritical hegemon.

“He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” states Sanchez. “A defining characteristic is that he’s an amazing listener. He’s not some superficial glad-hander. And he’s perfect for a time when people are genuinely sick of Washington politics.

“He’s also perfect from the international perspective,” adds Sanchez. “He would be our strongest voice overseas. He’s intelligent, has lived overseas and has a sensitivity to points of view outside the U.S. I think it would speak volumes that we would elect someone of his background and world view. That’s a very positive message to the world.”

Campaign Outtakes

*Florida commitments. July 22 – Obama (and Hillary Clinton) will address the Hispanic-affiliated National Council of La Raza in Miami. August 24 – Obama in Tallahassee. Late September – Obama in Tampa for a private fund-raiser with a public component.

As to the uncertainty surrounding Florida’s early Jan. 29 primary: “We’re still formulating our resources,” says Sanchez. “But put it this way for now: This (state) is too important not to compete.”

*Media. “Obama genuinely likes meeting people,” says Sanchez, “and yet he feels there’s this element in the press that invokes ‘gotcha politics.’ So you have to be careful. But to his credit, he hasn’t lost his authenticity.”

*Trade. Obama voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement two years ago. “He’s hardly for reversing globalization,” notes Sanchez, “but he doesn’t want to give lip service to labor issues and environmental concerns.”

*Latin America. Overriding theme of Sanchez’s advice: “For starters, we need to re-engage with Latin America. Brazil and Chile come readily to mind. For the last six years we’ve ignored Latin America – much to our detriment.”

*Cuba. Do not expect any dramatic policy shift from Obama beyond making the case for reversing the travel ban for Cuban-Americans. Sanchez is certainly not recommending any bold initiatives on the embargo, which he considers “leverage” for changes on the island.

“Thoughtful” and “inclusive” and “incremental” are the watchwords of caution and calculation. Don’t anticipate a diplomatic stroke that would “turn on a dime.”

*Iraq. In a recent TV interview, Sanchez had noted Obama’s position to “redeploy out of combat by March ’08.” He’s reluctant to speak definitively on the core issue that is as protean as it is controversial. But he does say this: “Obama was against the war six months before it started – and foresaw the consequences. I am very comfortable with that.”

In fact, here’s what Obama said in 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.

Obama: Overseas Appeal

Like a lot of folks, I’m, well, intrigued by the presidential candidacy of Illinois Senator Barack Obama. I know, I know. He’s not experienced enough or specific enough. And for some, he’s not angry enough or even black enough – and probably never will be.

Enough on that for now. Neither the current president nor his predecessor could claim prior experience as a justification for holding such high office. Specifics typically aren’t necessary until primary season. The Iowa caucus is Jan. 14, 2008. The Florida primary – with or without the parceling of delegates – is Jan. 29, 2008.

Here’s what seems overridingly relevant right now about the next presidential election. Unless we figure out the role of the United States on this planet, everything else – from universal health care to capital gains tax rates – could be moot. That’s because America’s international role – and its perception by the rest of the world – directly affects our national security and our involvement in the global economy. Like never before.

Of course, the United Nations is feckless on a good day and a major chunk of Europe is, indeed, “Olde,” and too many countries give autocracy a bad name. But this is the world we’re saddled with, not the one we would dearly love to have, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld.

But aside from Israel, Palau and Tony Blair, that world is increasingly looking askance at the U.S. as something other than a force for good and a paragon of liberty. And the Jihadi prism of fanaticism, of course, is even more distorted.

Which brings us back to Obama. It certainly helps that he’s quick-study bright and articulate, which at one time seemed prerequisites for the presidency. Think Bill Clinton without the, uh, baggage.

But he also has the most international upside — at a time when it’s never mattered more.

With his Kansas-Kenya lineage, he even looks like much of the rest of the world.

And in the midst of a civilizational war, where putative friends qualify as allies, Obama certainly has at least the potential to fix the fractured relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Tampa Now A Sports Magnet

That Tampa is a major sports-venue market is hardly a secret. But it’s more than the occasional mega event such as a Super Bowl, Women’s Final Four, ACC Tournament or even Frozen Four (NCAA hockey). To wit: Earlier this month Tampa hosted the American Athletic Union Age Group National Gymnastics Championship, which drew 1,500 participants. A week earlier it was the 60-team state softball championships and the 74-team girls national basketball championships.

According to the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, that threesome was worth 6,200 visitor room nights in the off season. Last year Tampa hosted 85 sports-related events worth 127,000 visitor room nights. That was almost double the 69,000 figure in 2005.

“It’s a testament to the entire community’s focus on sports,” says Rob Higgins, the executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission. “Major events are certainly great and result in unlimited promotional value, but the youth and amateur events really fuel the hospitality and tourism industry.”

The Rap On Ybor City

How’s this for some simple rules of thumb concerning night clubs in Ybor City?

1) Drink specials and nonstop hip-hop are incompatible. Not with each other, necessarily, just with this city’s historic/entertainment district, which doesn’t wish to be known as Tampa’s epicenter of rap.

If this well-Fueled powder keg should explode, instead of merely propelling violence piecemeal, Ybor – and Tampa by extension — will be years recovering from the national notoriety.

2) If a business needs to pat down its customers for weapons, it doesn’t need to be in business.

The CIA, Castro And Santo Trafficante

According to newly released CIA documents, Santo Trafficante of Tampa, along with some other Mob bosses, conspired with the U.S. government to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960. Food poisoning was to be the means.

To anyone who’s been around awhile, this was hardly news. Trafficante, who died in 1987, testified to the failed plot when called before the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978.

Moreover, he even put a patriotic spin on the CIA-recruited assignment. “Being that the government of the United States wanted it done,” Trafficante told the Committee, “I go along with it, the same thing as a war.”

But according to Trafficante’s late lawyer, Frank Ragano, there was more than underworld patriotism involved. And Trafficante was more than skeptical about trying to slip someone into Castro’s inner circle.

In his 1994 book, “Mob Lawyer,” Tampa native Ragano quotes Trafficante: “Sam (Giancana, the Mafia boss of Chicago) told me to play along to help Johnny (Roselli, a Las Vegas underworld figure with deportation issues), and I introduced the CIA guys to some of my Cuban friends and Raul Gonzalez (a Cuban-exile acquaintance from Havana). The CIA had all this foolish talk about poisoning Castro. Those crazy people. They gave me some pills to kill Castro. I just flushed them down the toilet.

“Nothing ever came of it. We didn’t expect to make any money, but we had a windfall. They paid us a lot of money and nobody intended to do a damn thing. It was a real killing.”

JFK’s Fate

“Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” by David Talbot is a compelling read. And bear in mind, I’ve never been a Kennedy fan. I never even bought the Irish-Catholic thing. Would that Bill Clinton’s boyhood idol had been Harry Truman and not JFK.

Anyway, you don’t have to be a conspiracy obsessive to conclude this: In retrospect, it’s amazing that – for all the Camelot choreography and charm – John F. Kennedy made it through almost three years of his presidency.

Start with a truly rogue, Cold War-revved CIA that never accepted Kennedy and kept him out of key loops. Then there were Strangelovian generals such as Curtis LeMay who found Kennedy and his Ivy League coterie frightfully weak on the Communist threat and no friend of pre-emptive warfare.

Having speech writer/advisor Ted Sorensen, a World War II conscientious objector married to a Quaker, sitting at JFK’s right hand only made it more visceral.

Kennedy would always be considered a liability on national security and the military. As the scion of Joe Kennedy, he was also the suspect son of a disgraced (World War II) appeaser with Mob ties.

Then add the vendetta-hungry Mob that knew that the elimination of JFK and the elevation of Vice President Lyndon Johnson would likely sandbag Attorney General Robert Kennedy – and reduce a sustained assault on organized crime as an administration priority.

Some Mafia kingpins, notably Chicago’s Sam Giancana, considered JFK the avatar of betrayal for reneging on political debts and unleashing his brother on the Mob after Mafia help in the 1960 presidential election. Other bosses, such as Tampa’s Santo Trafficante, who was heavily invested in Havana hotels and casinos, never forgave JFK for backing off on air cover for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. Trafficante’s circle included lots of apoplectic Cuban exiles.

New Orleans’ powerful Carlos Marcello had already been deported once by Robert Kennedy. Both Marcello and Trafficante had enjoyed a veritable treasure trove of loans from the Teamsters’ Union pension fund. All this was at risk from Robert Kennedy’s crusade against Jimmy Hoffa.

And then there were JFK’s notorious liaisons – from celebs to hookers to foreign nationals – all of whom represented the quintessential worst-case scenario for a sitting U.S. president: blackmail. Plus Vietnam. At the time (1963), there were 16,000 U.S. military advisors in Vietnam. By all accounts, JFK had no intention of escalating the war. His domino-theorizing generals disagreed, often vehemently and disrespectfully.

And it hardly helped that Southern segregationists were inflamed that the Kennedy Administration would use U.S. troops, however reluctant to mobilize, to ensure that James Meredith could enroll at the University of Mississippi.How ironic that it would be a lone, unaffiliated gunman who ended Camelot

Immigration Mess

Let’s see if we have this straight. Nobody who doesn’t live in the shadows thinks the current immigration policy with Mexico works. Everybody, quite arguably, thinks it’s a national disgrace and that something must be done.

Yet with the defeat of the proposed immigration bill, which had something for everyone to dislike, it is guaranteed that the status quo, deservedly unacceptable to everybody, will continue to prevail.

Well done.