Iorio Plays Hardball

Mayor Pam Iorio acquitted herself well on her recent appearance on “Hardball With Chris Mathews,” even if the confrontational format is hardly her forte. She was on in the aftermath of her endorsement of Barack Obama. Her counterpoint partner was U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the South Florida congresswoman who is a national co-chair of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

“I am not sure I am ‘Hardball’ material,” assessed Iorio. “I don’t like to cut people off and argue so much.”

Basically, Iorio and Wasserman Schultz disagreed over the ultimate Florida disagreement – how to count the Sunshine state’s primary votes and parcel out the delegates. Iorio was about moving forward and then fixing a process that is an obvious mess. Wasserman Schultz was about looking back and fixating on the vote and delegate counts.

The tete-a-tete was an apt metaphor for the Obama-Clinton primary marathon. Pam was upbeat Pam and above the fray. She could have been weighing in on concerts in the park. Wasserman Schultz, who began more than one interruption with the disingenuous “With all due respect,” was unyielding and strident.

McCain Rants On Obama’s Parade

Like any other political junkie, I checked out last Tuesday’s hat trick of political speeches by the two presumptive presidential nominees, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, and the one leveraging holdout, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Let’s briefly put salient issues aside. On oratorical points, Obama carried the historic night as expected.

Clinton speaks well but couldn’t speak to Obama clinching the nomination. McCain was McCain with the Snide Talk Express. A sore loser and a sour nominee.

I would if I could, but I can’t top this assessment by “Rolling Stone.” The magazine nailed McCain’s awkwardly delivered, ungracious presentation:

“Worst. Speech. Ever. Good God, John McCain gives bad podium. It’s like watching the out-takes from an Andy Rooney kvetch.”

No To Olympic Golf

When the International Olympic Committee meets next year, its agenda will include a vote on whether to admit golf as a summer Olympic sport. Maybe by 2016.

Sorry, Tiger Woods’ fans, but here’s hoping golf misses the cut. Here’s why:

First, the Olympics shouldn’t be a venue for anything less than a given sport’s ultimate stage. Whether it’s team handball, the biathlon or the 100-meter dash. Track and field, swimming, gymnastics and wrestling are prime examples.

But as long as there is a World Cup, a World Series, a Wimbledon or an NBA Finals, the sports of soccer, baseball, tennis and basketball, for example, will always be relegated to Olympic afterthoughts. In fact, baseball is on its way out. (The problem is, it could take softball with it, which would be a shame.)

Golf is a similar scenario. As long as there is a Masters or a British Open, there will always be events to tower over any Olympic competition. Whatever the field.

Second, while the genie of professionalism can’t be rebottled, it can be contained. The basketball “Dream Team” of 1992 will do for the ages, thank you. But wealthy, elite players deigning to do their country and their sponsors a favor by participating — and being accorded special accommodations befitting their lofty status — is hardly an Olympic ideal.

Joe Magrane: A Believer In The Booth

While Tampa Bay baseball fans gradually accommodate to the reality that the Rays really do seem as good as their record indicates, the perspective of Joe Magrane is telling. For the past decade, he’s been the color analyst for Rays’ TV broadcasts. He’s seen it all; all too often.

“This team isn’t going anywhere; it’s good,” assesses Magrane. “And it will be together for some time. It’s hard for (announcing sidekick) Dewayne (Staats) and I to contain our enthusiasm. For 10 years we’ve seen so much bad baseball and so many vagabond players coming through here.

“It is now what it should be,” he adds. “It’s fun to wake up and go to the park.”

And as for those fans who still stay away in droves when the Red Sox or Commodores aren’t in town? He’s not discouraged. There’s a pattern at play, he says.

“We’ve seen a nice spike in our TV ratings,” points out Magrane. “That, historically, is the first sign. Then on the back end, attendance goes up as more people want to see the team live.

“I think there are a lot of Rays’ fans living in the shadows,” notes Magrane. “They used to be embarrassed to even wear the hats. Now the Rays are a talking point around town.”

*Speaking of talking points, Magrane’s bullish on the notion of that proposed stadium on St. Petersburg’s downtown waterfront.

“I really think a baseball team in an area can be a source of community pride,” he says. “And I think that location is special. I’ve been coming to this area (initially as a spring-training, Major League Baseball pitcher) and to Al Lang (Field) since 1985. I remember looking at the marina and thinking: ‘What a great place to play games for real.’ I think a stadium there would be a crown jewel for downtown St. Pete. Make it even more of a destination and fitting in with the trend of people migrating back to the cities.”

*Magrane also wanted to set the record straight on the return of the prodigal, Josh Hamilton. He’s the “can’t miss,” uber prospect that the Rays made the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 draft and lavished a ton of bonus cash on. After endless frustrations with alcohol, cocaine and rehab, plus a three-year suspension imposed by MLB, he was — in a bureaucratic roster move — left technically unprotected in December 2006. The likelihood was that no other team would take a chance.

Oops.

The rest is history – and the biggest comeback since Lazarus. Hamilton’s arguably the best player in baseball right now – for the Texas Rangers. A book and a movie are givens. And the Rays, especially Vice President for Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman, have taken their share of criticism for letting all that awesome potential, however tainted, go – with virtually nothing in return.

Magrane puts it in perspective.

“As a society we view those who have gone through transgressions as heroic,” says Magrane. “The bad decisions, the bad judgments — we want to forget all the dark sides. I don’t think the Rays should be blamed – but celebrated for all the opportunities they gave him to get his life back on track. Friedman took a very human, personal interest in his life – not just his career – and I find that commendable.”

If Only Hogan Really Knew Best

In a moment of notable candor — in the aftermath of his son’s notorious no-contest plea for reckless driving — Terry Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan) let it be known that teenager Nick was nicer than the way he portrayed himself on the reality TV show, “Hogan Knows Best.” In fact, Bollea revealed — in contrast to what he had said previously — much of what passed for the inane dynamics of “reality” were, in actuality, scripted.

Well, maybe some script writers — or spin doctors — should be on retainer.

Left to their own devices – dumb and dumber words and actions – the Bolleas are their own worst enemy when freelancing off stage. Most recently on a series of taped telephone conversations.

Everyone knows that jailhouse calls are recorded; it’s one of the indignities of not being free. And the Bollea family calls were, indeed, recorded – by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. And most everyone realizes that such communication qualifies as a public record. And, given what qualifies as “news” these days, that they probably qualify as fodder for a juicy, public-records request.

And, of course, those tapes have aired – like ripe socks. From Nick complaining about his small, windowless cell to carping about being alone. “It’s so much worse than you could ever imagine,” he lamented. “This is like a state prison.”

Oh.

But it got worse than the whiney trivialization of a tragedy. The 17-year-old crassly asked his father to look into a reality TV gig centered on him and his slammer experience, one where he could “make the most money.”

In a subsequent conversation, Linda Bollea, Nick’s mother, bad-mouthed the mother of John Graziano, the passenger who was critically injured in that crash last August and remains in a semi-conscious state. “She’s not sad,” asserted Linda Bollea. “She’s just acting angry like she just wants the money.”

Just when we thought this story might be on hiatus – or couldn’t get worse – we get conversational scorched earth.Not that a happy ending looms for anyone, but a real sense of remorse and reflection would have been welcome, humanizing and downright appropriate. But apparently it would have required serious script help. Instead, we got whiney and crass when we should have gotten this:

Dad: “How you doing?”

Nick: “I don’t like it, but it’s not meant to be liked. As punishment, I deserve a lot worse”.

Dad: “You’re right. If he were conscious, you think John wouldn’t trade places?”

Nick: “I know. In a heart beat. That’s all I think about. Life is so unfair. Here I am – and I’ll be out in 8 months. And there he is and

Obama Baracks The House In Tampa

Susan Bennett is a white Tampa lawyer and an early Hillary Clinton backer. She was among the 15,000-plus who attended last week’s Barack Obama rally at the St. Pete Times Forum.

“I supported Hillary, but I’m also a realist,” said Bennett, 58. “When I saw him speak (at the Democratic Convention) in 2004, I remember turning to my husband and saying, ‘This could be the next (2008) president.’ We need to unite the party, and we need a new direction that starts with bringing troops home from Iraq and doing something about health care. It was an easy transition.”

Then there was Chris, a software engineer. He’s a 36-year-old black man who didn’t want to give his last name. That’s because he was at the Obama rally – when he should have been back at work.

He called it an “extended lunch hour.” He also called it an invaluable experience.

“I wanted to see for myself,” said Chris, who was with a younger, black colleague who craved even more anonymity. “Sometimes on TV, what you see is manufactured, either by editing or by the crowd shots they show.

“I mean, I get the intelligence part, and I get the well-spoken part,” explained Chris. “But I wanted to see the inspiration part for myself. Maybe get involved in the campaign.

“Now I might,” added Chris. “This is good to see. The crowd is so diverse. This looks like America.”

The multi-racial and multi-generational gathering of true believers, Clinton converts and the idealistically curious had come to see the return of the candidate — now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. He hadn’t, shall we say, been around in a while. This is, in part, what they saw and heard:

*Frank Sanchez, the erstwhile mayoral candidate and key Obama operative, did the early audience warm-up. “Take a look around,” intoned Sanchez. “This is change!” The crowd ate it up. “As goes Tampa Bay, so goes the nation!” The crowd had another helping. Sanchez never looked this animated in his run against Pam Iorio five years ago.

*And speaking of, Sanchez urged the crowd, already at full “Yes We Can” and “O-Bam-A” throttle, to “give it up” for Pam Iorio. The mayor, who’s politically parsimonious when it comes to endorsements, then told her listeners that Obama was “My choice for president, and I know he’s yours.”

The support of the I-4 Corridor’s female anchor mayor has obvious value to Obama. And Iorio more than hinted that — if the political planets properly align — she may have finally found a federal partner for some Tampa priorities, notably mass transit.

*You can tell something about a campaign by the music it chooses. The Clinton-Gore ticket chose “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac, and it successfully symbolized a generational shift and a commitment to a better future. John McCain uses Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode – but it doesn’t really resonate.

The Obama folks like Aretha Franklin’s (outdoors) “R*e*s*p*e*c*t,” The Temptations’ (pre-Obama appearance) “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and Stevie Wonder’s (post-Obama) “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” Seems to work.

*Rep. Kathy Castor of South Tampa, who has made everybody’s short list for Congressional rookie of the year, was accorded the honor of introducing Obama.

*After his deus ex machina entrance from the Forum wings, Obama would soon get down to the tricky business of looking unflappable while firing up a crowd. He pulls this off with uncommon aplomb.

With microphone in hand and crowd in thrall, he served up familiar refrains on Iraq, health care, outsourced jobs, poorly paid teachers and the special interests bogeymen. But never has boilerplate been punctuated by so many “We love you!” hosannas. Nor literally responded to with “I love you back” retorts.

In more detail, he cited such platform staples as an annual $4,000 college-tuition credit as a quid pro quo for community service; the elimination of income taxes on Social Security payments; the reallocation of ($10 billion a month) Iraqi war resources into infrastructure needs and jobs; and a $150-billion investment in alternative energy sources.

The loudest boos were reserved for mentions of a “Bush third term,” and the loudest applause line was prompted by a reference to America’s fighting men and women — and the respect and help due them when they return.

*Obama continued his diplomatic offensive vis a vis Hillary Clinton. It’s now a discernible no-boo zone. He praised her as someone who has run “an outstanding campaign” and “deserves our admiration and respect.” He noted that she had “broken through barriers and will open up opportunities for people including my two young daughters.”

It’s a sensible tact to help hold on to the hordes of ardent Clinton followers, but Obama also sent a message of comity and unity to others. He indicated he would be reaching out to “independents and Republicans, a lot of whom don’t recognize their own party.”

He didn’t declare victory but nuanced his majority-of-elected-delegates milestone with a “threshold of nomination” parse.

*Obama ended with a biographical touch, one intended to undercut the elite image of an Ivy League intellectual. It’s effective in such settings. The single mom

The Iorio Factor

To a lot of observers, the endorsement of Barack Obama by Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio was a surprise. She rarely does such things.

“I have been watching the campaign closely and continue to be impressed with Obama,” explained Iorio. “His intellect, his outstanding ability to communicate, his grasp of the issues facing this country and his superior campaign skills, which he will need come November, all convinced me that I should get involved in this election and endorse.”

The immediate impetus was provided by Rep. Kathy Castor who actually invited Iorio to the rally and suggested the time was right to meet Obama. The Tampa venue and the timing so near the end of the primary season were major factors.

“In the few minutes I had backstage with him, he asked what issues concerned me, and, of course, I mentioned mass transit and the need for federal help on infrastructure and housing,” added Iorio.

And will we see Iorio on the Obama hustings?

“I will help Obama from here to the general whenever he comes to Tampa or the Bay Area,” she said. “Introduce him or help with logistics or whatever helps.”

Venezuela Revisited: Keeping It In Context

My recent Venezuela column in the Tampa Tribune prompted a prominent response from a local Venezuelan activist who took exception to some points I made. Fair enough. On this subject, I’m not an expert on anything but my own first-hand impressions based on what I saw — from health clinics to brazen street crime — and to whom I spoke — from Hugo Chavez acolytes to scornful opposition.

In responding, I want to underscore what my agenda for traveling to Venezuela for a fortnight was NOT. It was not to presume to learn enough to write a definitive treatise. Nor was it to disparage anyone forced into expatriatation by a socialist autocrat. I can never know what it’s like to walk in the shoes of anyone who feels orphaned from their motherland.

What my agenda WAS — was two-fold:

1)To look beyond the understandably easy caricature and demonization of President Chavez and get some sense of what on-site Venezuelans saw in him.

2)To see what a “Bolivarian Revolution” looked like up close and personal.

My conclusions:

1)Chavez, who’s mestizo, literally looks like so many historically disenfranchised Venezuelans. He induces a visceral, father-figure empathy. And his anti-imperialist, re-distributionist populism plays to their plights and hopes.

Key projects dealing with access to health care and education, for example, seem quite welcome, however imperfectly implemented.

In the highly divisive political climate that is Venezuela, Chavez plays the polarizing role of “Kingfish” with oil. Petro to many Venezuelans; snake to others.

2)Venezuela, as I had noted, looks like it’s in the midst of a hybrid upheaval, rather than a zero-sum revolution that was the Fidel Castro Cuban model. It has too many entrenched interests, including self-perpetuating bureaucracies and bourgeoisie consumer tastes, to do a dialectical 180 – no matter how embedded the historic inequities or how horrific the slums surrounding Caracas.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want Hugo Chavez for my president. But if his socialista siren song plays well with a majority of Venezuelans, then it’s their sovereign call to elect or recall him. They have done the former and tried the latter.

Even a high U.S. Embassy official, who didn’t want to be quoted by name and obviously finds a lot not to like about the Chavez government, made a relevant concession. Chavez, he said, was “clearly not a dictator. I probably would have voted for him myself at first.”

And one other point — actually unsolicited advice — about Venezuelan and Cuban activists demonstrating together in Tampa as protestors-in-arms. Strategically, this is not a good idea for Venezuelans. The Cuban-exile cause still entails an unyielding approach on normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Indeed, it is specifically associated with a hard-line stand on the counterproductive economic embargo, which is hardly in the best interests of the U.S.

For Venezuelans trying to make the case for increased U.S. leverage against Chavez, this is not the geopolitical company you want to keep, however understandable the animus is towards the Chavez and Castro governments.

Obama-Clinton Not The Ticket

Amazingly enough, media speculation remains rife about “dream team” scenarios that could yield a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket.

As has been well documented – and orchestrated – Obama’s allure, aside from being intelligent and articulate, is his avatar-of-hope and change-agent appeal at a time of consummate cynicism.

If he were to put Clinton on the ticket, he morphs into yet another hypocritically pragmatic politician. Actually, he’d be worse, because of the level of inspiration and aspiration he’s induced. Clinton, the princess of pander and blatant political calculation, is also the personification of Washington-insider entitlement.

Obama can’t load all that baggage on the ticket – including assistant vice president Bill Clinton — and retain any prospect of appealing to the electorate’s desire for change, let alone long dormant idealism. Plus, he’s outnumbered in a key inner circle.

Moreover, would Obama really want somebody who would be to the vice presidency what Vladimir Putin is to the prime ministry of Russia? Or who, in her heart of hearts, prefers that he actually lose in November — thus validating all those self-fulfilling jeremiads about him not being the best candidate to defeat John McCain? And thus ushering in her de facto 2012 presidential run?

Recall why few observers really thought John Kennedy was rooting for Adlai Stevenson in 1956.

Local insider Frank Sanchez of Tampa, who heads Obama’s national Hispanic fund-raising campaign, is among those dismissing the notion of a spot for Clinton on an Obama ticket. Sanchez likes Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. His dark horse veep candidate: former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham.

Offensive Announcer At FSU?

When Florida State University recently fired its popular (football) radio color analyst Peter Tom Willis, the reason was no secret. Willis, a member of the FSU Sports Hall of Fame, had become too critical of the ‘Noles, who have fallen from their seemingly permanent perch among the country’s elite programs. Willis cited some coaching inadequacies, notably those of offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden, Bobby Bowden’s son.

The ouster of Willis sparked a debate sometimes phrased as “Should Announcers Be Biased?” What it should have prompted was a realistic acknowledgement of what a home-team announcer’s role is.

It’s several-fold.

*To objectively analyze what happened and why it happened.

*To subjectively play the fan surrogate and root for the good guys.

*To identify with the team without devolving into the tacky, third person plural “we.” Sorry, Gene Deckerhoff, (FSU and the Bucs) and “legendary” Larry Munson (Georgia). But it’s bush league. And a more fire-able offense, frankly, than characterizing – as Willis did – Jeff Bowden’s unimaginative and predictable offense as “a high school offense” – although Plant High should have been insulted.