Election Postmortem: Security And Values

Now that the rhetorical debris from the election and the analytical dust from the postmortems have settled, we can be more objective about what happened a fortnight ago.

If you believe the exit polls, a plurality of those voting for President George W. Bush did so on the basis of a moral agenda. Gay marriage and abortion, apparently, trumped the war on terror and the economy. The Christian fundamentalist right, it would seem, was turned on and turned out the vote.

Two points.

First, that’s dumbfounding. Nothing in these United secular States is more important than security and the war on terror. Everything else – from protecting creationism and displaying the Ten Commandments in public places to partially privatizing Social Security and denting the deficit — is moot if we don’t win this one.

How will you feel, for example, about an otherwise mundane trip to Publix or a sortie to International Plaza after a suicide bomber detonates himself — or herself — at the Mall of the Americas? What will be the price in lives lost and economic chaos if a container-concealed dirty bomb goes off in a major American port? Nothing less than how we live the lives of free and free-enterprising Americans is at stake.

The question thus begged is: Have we helped or hurt our chances of maintaining those lives by what we’ve wrought in Iraq? While we hunt down whatever insurgents hadn’t already fled from Fallujah, are we addressing the root causes – ranging from being Ariel Sharon’s blank check-writing patron to being supporters of the corrupt Saudi royal family – that compel Islamic fanatics to attack America? Are we safer for having alienated a good chunk of the civilized world in a Middle East neo-con end game? Have we squandered the moral high ground we were accorded immediately after Sept. 11?

The election of 2004 should have been a referendum on Iraq. Nothing else should have been close. A foreign quagmire with American body bags is the sort of campaign crucible that deterred Lyndon Johnson from running for re-election in 1968 when much less was at stake. Ho Chi Minh was no Osama bin Laden.

But this time, according to exit polls, revenge for the Scopes trial might have mattered more than the security that guarantees such a debate in the first place.

Iraq is seen by some as a legitimate, pre-emptive extension of the war on terrorism that helps keep the homeland safer. Moreover, a time of war is never the right time to change commanders-in-chief. And, candidly, there’s never a good time to entrust a patrician liberal – even one with Super 8 footage of himself in Vietnam — with America’s security.

To others, Iraq is an ill-advised invasion followed by an ill-conceived occupation so botched that it has turned that country into a bloody, jihadi pep rally that imperils us even more. There’s no wiggle room here.

But back to those seemingly inexplicable exit polls that sited “moral values” as the overriding factor.

Here’s a possible explanation – one that doesn’t have anything to do with evangelicals. A sizable portion of that “moral values” vote might simply have been a cultural protest in the context of the United States now three years removed from Sept.11. The sort of message-sending vote that might have gone to George Wallace in another era.

Those voters, in effect, could have been echoing sentiments expressed memorably by the Peter Finch character in the movie “Network.” They were “mad as hell” and weren’t going “to take it any more.” The ballot as bullhorn.

Quite possibly, they were those who never fully recovered from trying to explain to their kids what it was that a former president actually did that brought on his impeachment. They were those who had nowhere else to turn and ranted against a popular culture that has never been more adversarial to those trying to raise kids properly. From Britney Spears to Grand Theft Auto. From “wardrobe malfunctions” to reality TV. From internet flotsam to vulgarian sports role models.

And in no particular order: Howard Stern, Michael Moore, Whoopie Goldberg, 50 Cent, institutionalized liberal media, champagne socialists, the ACLU, entitlement mentalities, mainstreamed hip-hop, in-your-face gaiety, diluted academic standards, celebrity trials, “edgy” anything, immigrants who don’t want to be Americans, diversity definitions that only apply to favored groups, the “Blame America First” crowd and get-out-the-vote campaigns that amount to little more than dragnets for the clueless. And Michael Moore…But, then again, that’s just a theory.

Curfew Coming In Ybor

If ever there was a slam dunk issue coming before City Council, it was the recent hearing – and final vote this week — on the Ybor City curfew. And if ever there was a sad commentary on the sorry state of some parents’ priorities, it’s this proposal, which will ban those younger than 18 from Ybor from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., Thursday through Saturday.

Government’s role shouldn’t be surrogate parenting. In effect, however, that’s its charge here. That is, keeping somebody’s 17-year-olds – and a lot younger — from hanging where they don’t belong: the adult entertainment district that is late-night and early-morning Ybor. It’s also the city’s highest crime-rate area during overnight hours.

To recap, the curfew was necessitated by a rash of late night incidents this summer that involved teenagers harassing – and sometimes robbing – Ybor patrons. A beefed-up police presence then reduced the number of incidents.

Some, if not most, of the teens were attracted by Club Bling, which caters, if you can believe, to the 13-to-17 crowd. Now the Blingers will have to clear out early – not the 12.30 a.m. closing time. Mercifully, it’s only open on Saturday nights now.

Credit should be given to city attorneys who crafted an ordinance that – by virtue of covering a limited area and providing for exemptions — can likely withstand legal challenges already being salivated over by the ACLU.

What Ybor couldn’t withstand for long was an eroding reputation as a place that was both welcoming and safe for visitors and locals – the very adults that Ybor must continue to attract to survive. A rigidly enforced curfew can help make that happen.

Any help from parents would be appreciated.

Community Ritual Important In Voting

Not unlike a lot of you, I put in some decent down time last week waiting in line to vote. In my case, over at the Kate Jackson Community Center in South Tampa.

What commenced in the late morning — transitioned well into the lunch hour. What started as an autumn rite — turned into a sultry, summer-like exercise. What began as a solemn right — turned into a community conclave.

While assessing the line that was snaking along Rome Avenue, I noticed my next door neighbors, Gordon and Cathy, as well as a buddy, Tom, right behind them. Near Tom was Steve from down the street. And there was Pete and Nancy, holding partisan signs, and hoping for the best. Apparently I just missed Mike, and wasn’t that Roger and Joan from down on Bayshore?

Martinez Sold Soul For The Senate

It’s an axiom as old as politics itself: Once elections are history, the losers get over it and unite behind the winners for the common good. That said, you have to believe it was especially challenging for Betty Castor to take one for Team Florida. But she did – by not challenging the senate-race results and further fracturing an already polarized process. So what if her concession smile masked gritted teeth.

Senator-elect Mel Martinez prostituted his “American Dream,” Pedro Pan immigrant story to cut a Faustian deal with the Bush Administration. He did whatever he was told: basically, no more Mr. Nice Guy. The overriding message: Win at all costs. Play every card – from the Sami Al-Arian, soft-on-terrorism ploy to an unethically edited outtake from a debate.

It worked – barely – and resulted in the most contentious senatorial campaign ever run in Florida. It wasn’t, as political euphemisms sometimes term it, “spirited.” It was certifiably sleazy.

It was also the likely last hurrah for Castor as a political candidate. But she lost with her dignity intact – something Martinez never approached in victory.

Greco’s New Gig

Former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco is looking forward to his new commute to work.

As the recently hired executive vice president for Lindell Properties Inc., a real estate development company, he’ll be able to travel from his home on Harbour Island to various Lindell venues in the Tampa Bay area – especially Hillsborough and Pasco counties. In fact, Lindell Properties plans to break ground next month on a condo project on Harbour Island. Greco could Segway there.

In his previous position as vice president for development at the DeBartolo Property Group, the 71-year-old Greco had been traveling extensively.

“I was going constantly,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times I was in El Paso. Maybe, 8, 10, 12 times. It was time to get off the road.

“At this stage, I’m more interested in what’s near here,” explains Greco, who was elected mayor of Tampa four times. “I mean I feel proud when I drive around and I see a park or Stetson (College of Law) that I had something to do with. My interest is the Tampa Bay area and Florida. Frankly, a nice shopping center in Michigan didn’t do anything for me.”

While Greco leaves a long-time relationship with DeBartolo that dates to 1974, he’s hardly a stranger to the man who heads Lindell Properties, local businessman Carl Lindell. The two have been good friends for decades.

While Greco’s traveling travails have ended, he’s not totally precluding working with DeBartolo again. “We (Lindell) might do some development together,” speculates Greco.

Gonzmart’s Agrarian Side

Ever wonder what might have been, had you done this or not done that? Of course. But how about those fortunate enough to have been born into a successful family business, where one’s destiny is to perpetuate a legacy? What might they have done otherwise?

Well, here’s the response of Richard Gonzmart, 51, who presides over the day-to-day operations of the Columbia restaurant – and has been cooking since he was seven. He thinks nothing of traveling to Spain to research Spanish bottled water and olive oil.

“Maybe a farmer – or a coach,” says Gonzmart. “I love animals and I used to belong to the 4-H when I was a kid.” He also has coached track at the Academy of Holy Names and track and junior varsity football at Jesuit High School.

Leadership Wanted: Inquire, Port of Tampa

The Port of Tampa.

It’s not your father’s bulk-cargo seaport anymore. It’s not just petroleum and lumber coming in and phosphate and citrus pellets going out.

While bulk remains the lion’s share of cargo, these are sometimes turbulent, transitional times at the Port of Tampa. To wit:

*The cruise market is back and growing.

*Serious efforts to gear up for a piece of the container business are under way.

*More Latin American trade is in the offing.

*Opportunities in Cuba beckon.

*The port owns sizable tracts of real estate coveted by developers.

*Thanks to proximity to the Florida Aquarium, The Forum, the Channelside entertainment complex and the Channel District’s exploding residential development, scruffy, maritime ambience no longer dominates the port’s fringes.

If ever the times demanded sophisticated leadership — with a premium on communication skills, conflict-resolution acumen, consensus-building ability and international savvy — they are now.

However, anyone remotely familiar with this region’s foremost economic colossus has to be disturbed — and probably dumbfounded — by recent happenings at the port.

Since March, when former port director George Williamson resigned, the port has been without a semblance of meaningful leadership. Granted, the port was hardly without issues prior to Williamson’s departure. Most notably, it was the frustrating efforts to navigate the tricky shoals between maritime interests and real estate scenarios.

After Williamson left, however, the unraveling commenced with the surprise elevation of deputy director Zelko Kirincich. The cabal-like move by three of the five Tampa Port Authority commissioners prompted immediate and indignant responses from Mayor Pam Iorio and Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms — the other two TPA board members. A few subplots and a couple of high-profile, Kirincich-initiated firings later, the Mayor had recommended a respected outsider, retired GTE executive Bill Starkey, as a care-taking, interim director. The plan, later approved by the board, is to keep Kirincich, a knowledgeable insider, as deputy.

The goal is to fill the top post permanently within four months. Moving expeditiously on this highest of priorities will be a notably good sign.

However it all shakes out, this much is abundantly evident. This has been no way to run an enterprise that’s worth $13 billion to the regional economy and supports more than 100,000 jobs. The Port of Tampa is this state’s largest deepwater seaport, annually handling some 3,700 vessels and more than 47 million tons of cargo.

What’s good for the port is good for the whole region.

The Port of Tampa is a major player in the national and international marketplace — and a formidable force in Channelside development. It can’t permit morale to founder, and it can’t allow long-time maritimers to feel marginalized. Nor can it countenance, slow, secretive decision-making.

What’s bad for the port is bad for the whole region — and the entire community.

The time is now to right this ship before it strays too far off course. The next captain will have sized up the board, his deputy, the culture of the port and its multiple — and sometimes conflicting — charges.

The new boss will then make a difference. He’d better.

Aria Green: Fired Chief

It may be as classic a no-win situation as a public official can face these days: Firing a prominent black employee. Case in point: Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio forcing the resignation of Fire Chief Aria Green.

Green’s departure — after less than a year and a half on the job — wasn’t accompanied by any of the familiar rationales we’ve come to expect in such circumstances. No sexual harassment charges, no D.U.I. arrest. Not even resume padding or pyromania suspicions. The mayor’s explanation: lack of leadership and plummeting morale. As she tersely told the Tampa Tribune: “Morale had reached a point where I thought it was detrimental to the department.”

By all accounts, Green was smart, conscientious, by-the-numbers and unyielding. When you’re running a blue-collar shop of 500 hands-on politicking, union members, the first two traits don’t trump the last two. He was a good guy, a family man, a religious person. The wild card was people skills and management style. It matters in any managerial position.

Green apparently had lost favor with his staff as well as the rank and file. It was an untenable situation; you can’t fire a staff or blanket blame the membership.

One question, however, is still begged. Given the nature of a private, distant, straight-arrow and often unbending personality and a good-old-boy membership, did it take more guts to hire him or to fire him?

Graduation Rate Reality

The NCAA just released figures showing graduation rates for Division I athletes holding steady at 62 percent — which is 2 percent higher than the general student population. It then broke it down by gender and race. For example, 70 percent of female athletes graduated — as opposed to 55 percent of men. In addition, 55 percent of major college football players graduated. Among all Division I sports, 48 percent of black male athletes and 59 percent of white males graduated.

Even more telling — and hopefully helpful — would be a breakdown across all sports. It’s a lot easier to bury men’s basketball statistics in the context of cross-country, tennis, gymnastics and swimming.

Moreover, it might be illuminating to look at majors and to separate prize-recruit, front-line players prepping for the pros from those who mainly ride the pine. Many of the latter are often better students than athletes — and their GPA’s and graduation rates help inflate the overall averages that their teams, universities and NCAA can then tout.

Brokaw Bows Out

When Tom Brokaw finally signed off on election night, it was, in effect, the veteran NBC anchor’s last hurrah. The 64 year old, who has anchored the “Nightly News” for more than two decades, officially steps down Dec. 1.

Unlike Dan Rather, or other mass communication-mass culture notables, Brokaw didn’t linger past his prime. He never trafficked in the shout-a-thons and gotcha gestalt that characterize so much of news “analysis.” He leaves a network that continues to lead in the evening news ratings race.

Say what you will about America’s sensationalistic news culture, including its celebrity- anchor cult, but Tom Brokaw never made the news. Except when he called it a career.