Stop Sign

No, that notorious “Support Our Troops” sign standoff in Westchase has not quietly faded from the public eye. In fact, look for it to be prominently aired next week on “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central’s faux news program.

To recap, Stacey Kelley won’t take down her patriotic front-yard sign that’s at odds with her community’s deed restrictions. She rejected a good-faith compromise, told the neighborhood association to “bring it on,” agreed to representation by First Amendment/adult business specialist Luke Lirot and generally seemed to revel in the notoriety.

Now the last laugh may be Jon Stewart’s.

Some issues deserve better than that.

Florida’s Primary Role

For too many years the small, demographically skewed states of Iowa and New Hampshire — which hold the nation’s first presidential caucus and primary, respectively — have played disproportionate national roles. Worse yet, Florida, a microcosmic, delegate-rich state with a key role in electing presidents, is reduced to bystander status when it comes to nominating them.

By the time Floridians cast primary ballots, more than half the states and the District of Columbia have already done so. Florida’s primary is all rubber-stamp ceremony and no substance.

The good news, however, is that incoming speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Marco Rubio will be pushing for a bill that will move up Florida’s 2008 primary date – to the week after New Hampshire’s. Florida, the nation’s fourth largest state, is currently six weeks after New Hampshire’s February primary.

Even better news is that the prospects are propitious. It’s something – more clout for Florida — that both Democrats and Republicans can readily agree on.

You go, Rubio.

Talk about hitting the ground running.

Rays In The News

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were the subject of a page-one story – “Case Study: Fix a Baseball Team” — in the business section of last week’s New York Times. Much was made of the “boys club” chemistry and “slap happy camaraderie” among principal owner Stuart Sternberg, 46, and his 20-something assistants, Executive Vice President Andrew Friedman and President Mathew Silverman.

Terms such as “positive arbitrage” came tripping off the tongues of all three when discussing player valuations. Their quantitative approach, it was noted, has much in common with “Moneyball” subject Billy Beane, the well-regarded, iconoclastic general manager of the Oakland A’s.

The contrast with 75-year-old senior coach Don Zimmer, practically a boyhood chum of Abner Doubleday, couldn’t be more stark. Zimmer acknowledged a recent “heated argument” with Friedman over whom to keep on the major league roster.

The upshot?

“Stu Sternberg is no dummy,” Zimmer told the Times, “and he must think they will grasp a lot. I say give them a chance.”

I say he has no choice.

* In the NYT‘s baseball preview, it listed six players “knocking on the door” of major league impact. Among them, Rays’ outfield prospect Delmon Young. “The only thing keeping the 20-year-old Young out of the major leagues is his organization’s unwillingness to start his salary-arbitration and free-agency clock,” stated the Times.

True, but in fairness to the Rays, that’s not the only factor. Young did not have a particularly impressive spring.

* The Wall Street Journal ran a recent piece on Baseball Info Solutions, a statistics firm that has devised what some baseball insiders say is the most accurate gauge of fielding. It doesn’t focus on the players with the fewest errors, but the players who convert the most batted balls into outs. By BIS’s calculations the best-fielding leftfielder over the past three years has been Carl Crawford of the Rays. Ironically, the worst-fielding third baseman is the Rays’ Ty Wittington, based on his play with the Mets and Pirates.

A “Pottery Barn” Occupation And “Democracy”

Even if Afghani apostate Abdur Rahman lives happily ever after in Italy, his case underscores a disturbing, but hardly novel, point. To what degree is the word “democracy” even applicable in our cross-cultural, Middle East mission?

And is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going to intervene every time there’s Shariah shock — such as capital punishment for opting out of Islam — that flies in the face of civilizational norms? Realistically, what is the best we can hope for? That Americans have died for Taliban Lite?

Is this part of what Colin Powell was alluding to when he warned of the “Pottery Barn” principle of “you break it, you own it”?

While it’s politically incorrect to imply that “those” people aren’t ready for or receptive to democracy as we think we know it, the question of meaningful self-government still needs posing — even if it invites the wrath of those on the ethno-centrism watch.

Put it this way. We in America have no delusions about perfecting democracy for ourselves. Maybe we never recovered from Tammany Hall. Or perhaps Florida’s role in the 2000 election is all too illustrative.

And most elections, when you think about it, are variations on a student-council theme. Popularity-driven celebrity, looks and sound bites, slickly-packaged pandering, well-heeled supporters and plenty of vicarious-living worker bees can carry the day.

When more than half of registered voters (and that’s quite the qualification no matter how easy we make it) actually vote, it’s typically cause for self-congratulation. If newspapers didn’t make recommendations and endorsements, most voters would be totally clueless about local candidates, especially judges. The candidate-campaign process – from fund-raising to negative advertising – deters most of the best and brightest from running. National and local polls remind us that “civics education” is now an oxymoron. Anybody recall “hanging chads?”

We send Jimmy Carter forward and lecture the world at our own peril. We overlay democracy in our own vainglory.

But we are, to be sure, the world’s foremost democracy with a largely literate electorate in a free-press culture — not a Third World, post-colonial, feudal state.

What we should want for others in the Middle East is what anybody anywhere really wants. Stability. A guarantee that tomorrow won’t bring chaos. No one lives life in the democratic abstract.

Electing someone in the context of zero-sum tribalism and sectarianism is of problematic value no matter how many inked digits are waved in front of cameras. And such photo-ops are arguably a lot less important than delivering electricity, potable water, sewage control and freedom from assassination, chronic terror and infrastructure sabotage.

Couching our legitimate geopolitical priorities in the utopian rhetoric of democracy fools nobody but the na

Rays on a Roll

From free parking and bring-your-own food allowances to a total attitude adjustment, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have been doing more than talking a good game.

Now add one more touch: Bringing in Al Lopez Jr. to toss out the first pitch at the Rays’ opening game on Friday, April 10. It’s a classic win-win. A classy gesture to honor the memory of the area’s only Hall of Famer – and an astute, inclusive move to reach across the bay to the Tampa market.

State of the City

Another year, another State-of-the-City report and accompanying DVD, and another reminder that this mayor has a lot to juggle. From making a dent in chronic neighborhood needs, such as drainage, to helping shape downtown’s future — as in a destination for visitors and a home for thousands of urban-core residents.

“Downtown is everybody’s neighborhood,” reminded Pam Iorio at her annual progress-report presentation. It’s part of her mayoral mantra.

And while she can — and does – cite, for example, improvements in East Tampa, an impressive dip in citywide crime and significant movement toward re-development of Central Park Village, there’s little doubt that downtown is where her legacy will be built – literally. The “downtown core,” once dormant, now features some 2,500 residential units built or under construction.

But her City Hall touch is all over the riverfront location for the new art museum as well as the 2.4-mile Tampa Riverwalk project now underway. These are public-private partnerships that will ask locals to dig deep and require Iorio to proselytize and educate.

And while Tampa’s downtown – most notably what’s along the river — is “everybody’s neighborhood,” it can be argued that not “everybody” gets it. Especially those whose perspectives — or agendas — are more county-centric.

“These messages take years,” acknowledged Iorio. “When people are able to access these amenities, then it will be easier to get them back downtown. Our job is to make it more attractive, more accessible and help with parking and signage and adding more two-way streets.

“I would hope that one day we could see folks from Odessa and Riverview coming into downtown as if they worked here,” Iorio adds. “This is a long-term message, one that has to be backed up by tangible improvements.”

County Mayor Campaign

Mary Ann Stiles, the Tampa attorney who is leading the fight for a Hillsborough County mayor, is not without her challenges and obstacles.

*She needs 75,000 signatures by July 6 to get the proposal on the November ballot. And there continue to be delays over the layout of the petition questions.

*She also acknowledges the need to “educate” citizens about why “it’s right; it’s ready; and it’s necessary.”

*She – as in Taking Back Hillsborough County Political Committee, Inc. – also needs money.

Stiles told a recent gathering of the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa that she has “no big money” behind her. “We need lots of contributions.” She also said she wasn’t worried. If necessary, she would “make up the difference.”

While Stiles wasn’t passing the hat, she didn’t leave empty-handed.

On his way out, Joe Redner dropped off a $100 bill for the cause.

Conventional Wisdom

Hopefully, this isn’t déjà vu all over again.

Officially, Tampa — along with 30 other cities — is in the hunt once more for the GOP national convention. Prime players, such as Al Austin and Dick Beard, chair and co-chair, respectively, of the bid committee and Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors’ Bureau President Paul Catoe, are back with a pitch for the 2008 gathering. As are key cohorts in Pinellas County.

Recall that Tampa was one of three finalists (along with New York and New Orleans) for the 2004 convention before losing out to NYC. Since its previous bid (in 2002), Tampa has added another 5,000 hotel rooms and more are in the offing — plus condo rentals downtown. The economic impact of the ’08 convention is estimated in the neighborhood of $300 million.

“We lost out by a flip of the coin (to New York),” recalled Austin at the formal announcement of the bid plans.

Actually, Austin, the good Republican soldier who heads the GOP finance committee in Florida, was being diplomatic. He got little help from Gov. Jeb Bush last time, and Karl Rove got his way with Ground Zero symbolism.

This time 9/11 won’t be a driving factor – and more weight can be given to Florida’s pivotal election role and the Tampa Bay amenity package. This time Miami and Orlando figure to be the toughest competition for the late August gathering.

Which, of course, is hurricane season.

It’s never easy.

Iran: Return To Sender?

Iran’s apocalyptic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, takes no rhetorical prisoners with his belligerent declamations. Threatening to wipe a whole country, Israel, from the face of the earth is only Exhibit A. He’s also the personification of menacing brinkmanship with his nuclear nose-thumbing to the United Nations, common cause with Shiite insurgents in Iraq and threats about playing Iran’s OPEC oil card.

And, yet, there is a governor on his actions, no matter how confrontational and odious his orations. He’s the president of a sovereign country — albeit an “axis of evil” one — not the leader of a terrorist organization. As such, he and the Islamic Republic of Iran have a return address.

Selfless Spring Break

They could be at the beach. Or a bacchanalian resort. Or queuing up for an MTV backdrop. Or just sleeping late.

But this year some 10,000 college students are spending their spring breaks – as well as their own money – to help clean up Katrina-ravaged regions in Louisiana and Mississippi. It’s all part of Campus Compact, a coalition of colleges and universities that promotes public service.

Locally, USF is represented by some 200 students.

It’s a reminder of the ultimate inter-disciplinary approach: majoring in your fellow man.