A Governor on Jeb’s plans?

A recent Sunday New York Times piece made the case that “Jeb Bush’s easy victory made him an obvious presidential candidate for 2008, and President Bush’s announcement that he would keep Dick Cheney as vice president avoided anointing a rival to his brother.”

Taking the second part first, the president was supportive of Vice President Cheney in answer to a press conference question. How else could he be expected to respond under those circumstances? Should he have gone with: “Actually, Rudy is waiting in the wings and there are numerous cover story scenarios that will allow for a Bush-Giuliani ticket”?

Frankly, three Bushes, regardless of what else happens on George W’s watch, would be one too many for America. Granted, we do like our political legacies — as in Adams, Harrison, Taft or Kennedy — almost as much as we like our athletic ones — as in Manning, Bonds or DiMaggio.

But while John and Quincy Adams are father-and-son precedents, going to the family well a third time, one suspects, would smack less of legacy and accomplishment than aristocracy and entitlement. Jeb Bush, to whom arrogance is not unfamiliar, is not the best candidate for noblesse oblige poster pol.

America may love its faux Camelots, but don’t expect to see it abiding monarchial trappings.

Judgment Call

Like most everyone else, I didn’t exactly pour over every political mailing and ad I was privy to. But I must admit being taken aback by this one. It was an ad in the Tribune on behalf of (defeated) County Circuit Judge candidate Woody Isom. There were a half dozen boxes comparing Isom and Monica Sierra; all, of course, favorable to the more experienced Isom.

This one hit home: “Jury Trials Over Career”: Isom 60+, Sierra 0. Is it too much to expect that you’ve at least tried a case before a judge before becoming one? Shouldn’t a judgeship be more of a career capstone than stepping stone?

Political Junkie’s Junkie

Political junkies attending last week’s Tampa Bay Tiger Bay Club luncheon were treated to something other than candidate-speak. Served up were election postmortems by the Bay Area’s consummate political junkie, the University of South Florida’s Susan MacManus.

Over the last decade, the USF political scientist and author has been carving out a national name for herself — and USF — from Time magazine to USA Today . The homegrown MacManus and Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia are among the more frequently quoted sources nationally.

MacManus had a number of interesting takes on what happened here in Florida. A sampler:

* “Senator Bob Graham should have been draped around Bill McBride — not Gore or Clinton or Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.”

* “You can’t run a single-issue campaign in such a diverse state.”

* “McBride exasperated his staff by refusing to do mock debates.”

* Re: Voters re-electing Bush, yet passing the class-size amendment he was so adamantly — even deviously — opposed to. MacManus said it really wasn’t the dichotomy it seemed. McBride gets credit for having “pushed the agenda” on education, which resonated with enough voters, she noted. And Bush, she said, got credit for knowing how to be governor. As a result, “Voters thought Bush was the better person to push it” to implementation, opined MacManus.

* “The independent voter is what’s happening. One fifth of Floridians are independents. The swing group went heavily Republican.”

* Jeb Bush’s out-of-school comments on ‘devious plans,’ lesbian references and smug debate demeanor “should have been enough to lose.”

* The attack ads in Florida’s 5th Congressional District, where Republican challenger Ginny Brown-Waite squeaked by Democratic incumbent Karen Thurman, were the worst of the worst. Actually, “hideous,” assessed MacManus.

* Re: Jeb Bush’s second term. “His first four years will seem like a picnic.” His challenges, opined MacManus, are hardly limited to the daunting likes of DCF, the bullet train, the class-size amendment, roads, water, et al. They also include a “crazy Florida Legislature” and “trouble with his own cabinet. Look for a lot of jockeying (for Jeb’s job in 2006).”

Boston D-Party Impacts Tampa — And Media

Two points regarding Tampa’s bid for the 2004 Republican convention:

Make no mistake, Thursday’s news that Boston had won the Democratic convention was significant for Tampa.

Not determinative or decisive, mind you, but very important. Had New York outbid Boston, Tampa’s chances for the 2004 GOP convention — with all of its media exposure and 9-figure economic impact — certainly would have improved — a lot. No way that New York, 9/11 notwithstanding, hosts both the Democratic and Republican conventions. New Orleans, for what it’s worth, is a consensus third.

Needless to say, New York state is odds-on to once again keep its electoral votes solidly in the Democratic column. Florida, a king-making swing state, is odds-on to, say, tilt Republican. The 2000 race remains a graphic reminder that Florida is not only critical, but combustible and maybe closely called again.

As a result, given Tampa’s facilities, affordability, security management, favorable impression made on the GOP site selection committee, proximity to beaches and Disney World, some unabashed payback for 2000 and electoral insurance for ’04, Tampa’s shot is a very viable one. That Jeb Bush has family in high places hardly hurts.

Had New York outbid Boston for the Democratic convention, Tampa’s chances would have been better than good.

Thus, the Boston D-party’s impact on Tampa.

So how was it that the Tampa Tribune buried that story on page 11? It was a bare bones Associated Press account that carried the pedestrian head: “Boston Set To Have ’04 Convention.” It included a couple of pro forma quotes from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe. That was it.

The St. Petersburg Times saw the regional implications as meriting page one, above-the-fold status. It carried the head: “Tampa’s Convention Bid Gets Tougher.”

Two points: First, either someone at the Trib was comatose — not just asleep — on the news-judgment job or the Trib allowed itself — again — to get beat on a story with a lot of local import. Either way, it’s unconscionable. Even if the following day’s lead editorial was almost fulsome in its chamber of commerce praise of Tampa as the perfect GOP choice.

Second, the Times deemed the convention piece worthy of placement above the latest details on the war on terror. Arguably, the Dems-to-Boston story wasn’t that important, but it certainly didn’t deserve a page 11 burial.

The Times , of course, sees a Tampa GOP convention that also impacts, well, the Times . It paid a lot — in dollars and ethical potshots — to put its name on the erstwhile Ice Palace. It can recoup some of that $33-million investment — and marketing rationale — if George W. Bush is renominated in the St. Pete Times Forum. The nation — and a lot of vested interests around the world — will watch his coronation at the ultimate forum for the St. Pete Times . Whether the Times can recoup its Poynter Palace ethics hit, however, will remain problematic.

Should the GOP convene here — in the very state that delivered the presidency to the Republicans in 2000 — many interests, from civic to political to economic, will benefit. Some more than others.

Campaign In The Ass: “Get Out the Vote”

With apologies to supervisors of elections and civics teachers everywhere, it is blasphemously suggested here that not everybody vote. I know; I know. That’s un-American, probably subversive and certainly elitist. And Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio is already launching a heat-seeking epistle my way.

But hear out this heresy.

America’s love affair with democracy has always had its incongruous side. Our Declaration of Independence accommodated both the essence of equality and the nature of slavery. The franchise to vote had quirky exceptions regarding land ownership, race and gender. And elections, as it turns out, aren’t necessarily won by the candidate with the most votes.

Relatively speaking, this is not nearly so iconoclastic.

In the idealistic interest of a more meaningful, participatory democracy, let’s encourage — because we can’t actually mandate — the truly clueless to either find out what’s going on or just pass on the polls come election day. Let’s stop wringing our societal hands about all those who don’t bother to vote. Not voting is as American as not taking the stand in your own criminal defense. Let’s just recognize it for what it is; such non-voters have, in effect, disenfranchised themselves out of ignorance, born of laziness and apathy.

The only viable choices should be these: a reasonably informed vote or no vote. Wooing, cajoling, pleading, humiliating, browbeating and bribing need no longer be part of our pre-election ritual.

Simply showing up because some “Get Out The Vote” campaign exhorted and shamed you is not a good enough reason to vote. How about because you care? Because it’s important. Because a viable democracy requires an informed citizenry. And because there are those still risking their lives to defend rights that include this one.

And simply showing up because of some political party’s “knock-and-drag” vote trolling shouldn’t even pass muster with a Jimmy Carter election monitor. Such scenarios, of course, always come with party line marching orders — lock step democracy at its finest.

Why do you think there were some 10,000 “overvotes” in Duval County in 2000? Because the Democratic Party’s “Get Out The Vote” campaign targeted a lot of first-time minority voters and sent them to the polls with nothing more than directions and directives to vote Democratic and punch every page. The presidential ballot, alas, had two pages. Those literally following orders literally “overvoted.” If you believe this ballot parody was better than not voting, then you might also believe that courageous civil rights activists sacrificed and died for the right of future generations to overvote.

Put it this way: If it takes a shame campaign, a personal entreaty by Barbra Streisand or Charlton Heston or a special interest’s dragnet to get you to the polls, try sitting it out. Exercise, if nothing else, some restraint and consider it a duty not to make a sham out of the sacrosanct right to vote. Not casting that manipulated or ill-informed vote is arguably a patriotic act.

One man, one vote sounds unassailably good, especially to the Supreme Court that decreed it in the 1960s. One man, one informed vote, however, still sounds infinitely better.

Tampa Hits New Heights

This city has realized a major redevelopment milestone with the announcements that Tampa Heights will be home to Bank of America-developed condos and town homes and a Stetson University College of Law campus.

But here’s a scenario no one could have foreseen not long ago: competition. Three developers have submitted bids for the same city-owned property not far from the BOA and Stetson parcels. Plans range from office space to office-and-retail to more condos.

Obviously the Stetson deal has been catalytic. Florida’s oldest law school bought the old police station property from the city and paid for site preparation. Anyone regret not being able to give that land away to FAMU last year?

Panhandle With Care

In an action well noted by Tampa officials and residents of Ybor City, Lakeland has passed an ordinance making it legal to tell pushy panhandlers to take a hike or face arrest. Seemingly, downtown merchants are as pleased as the resident homeless who are also unnerved by some newly arrived, aggressive panhandlers.

Such ordinances, however ultimately necessary, are always dicey legal gambits — protected speech under the First Amendment-type stuff. Moreover, they sometimes can have unintended, ironic results.

In a Tampa Tribune story last week, a homeless Lakeland man underscored the dilemma. “If they stop us from panhandling,” noted Johnnie May, “people are just going to refrain back to stealing.”

Should Lakeland officials hear more such refrains, they may also want to have extortion statutes at the ready.

Religiously Targeting “Infidels” in a Moscow Theatre

As horrible and harrowing as the hostage-taking in that Moscow theater was, the most chilling aspects had nothing to do with deadly gas. They were the Chechen threats made in pre-assault videotapes. They were delivered — predictably and disturbingly enough — to the Moscow bureau of al-Jazeera, the Muslim-friendly, Qatar-based news channel that often serves as an al-Qaida conduit.

First, some background. Since it was conquered by czarist armies in 1859, Chechnya has smoldered under Russian rule. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin deported many to their deaths during World War II. After a war in the mid 1990s, the breakaway republic in southern Russia gained de facto independence. Three years ago Russian troops re-entered in response, Russian leaders said, to rebel raids and bombings.

It’s your basic, intractable, sovereignty-and-freedom dilemma that has festered across the generations and cost countless lives. It is further fueled by religious affiliation. The population, approximately 1.2 million, is mostly Muslim.

For those who still harbor hopes that this increasingly polarized, terrorist-traipsing world is not a battle of civilizations and that it’s “not about Islam,” the Chechen videotape is required reviewing.

On one tape, a rebel acknowledged that the 50 or so Chechen hostage-takers, approximately half of whom were women, were on a “martyrdom operation.” To underscore their leverage, as well as a perverse sense of presumption, he said, “I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living.”

On the other tape, five veiled women stood before a banner that proclaimed “God is Great” in Arabic. For the sake of argument, agreed. In fact, keen. But their point being? Could it be that nobody knows intractable sovereignty issues like Allah — especially after a century and a half to deliberate?

“We have chosen this path, the path of struggling for the freedom of the Chechen,” said one of the women. She then alarmingly added: “It makes no difference for us where we will die. We have chosen to die here, in Moscow, and we will take the lives of hundreds of the infidels with us.”

You knew it was coming.

This bloody conflict — borne of subjugation and thwarted self-determination since the middle of the 19th century — has been reduced to its 21st century, sectarian essence. This is no run-of-the-mill battle of dictatorial oppressors against the generically oppressed. It’s infidels vs. true believers.

Once you’ve assigned the “infidel” label, an assignation too easily accommodated by Islam, it’s no quantum leap to dehumanize the other side. Hitler, of course, was a foremost exponent, but pathologic power was his only religion.

Islam, we are told, is a religion of peace.

Islam, we are not told, is too easily perverted and too susceptible to dividing the world into “believers” and “infidels.”

Once someone — say, a theatergoer, an actress, an airplane passenger, a bus rider, a restaurant patron, an office worker, a wedding-reception guest, a child — has been designated an “infidel,” that person is unfair game for the religious fanatic. Especially a zealot who has seethed too long in a culture more intent on avenging the Crusades than competing with the West.

The historic, geographic and geopolitical trappings may be different — as different as New York, Jerusalem, Bali and Moscow — but make no mistake. This is about Islam.

You better believe it.

Especially if you’re an “infidel.”

Welcome home, Lou

There’s good reason for all the euphoria that surrounded the Devil Rays’ hiring of Lou Piniella. He’s arguably the best manager in baseball, not just the best candidate available.

Piniella’s track record of success prominently — and pertinently — features Seattle. Before his 10-year tenure there, the Mariners had been a hauntingly familiar, sad-sack, dome-homed loser. So bad, so poorly supported that the franchise seriously considered relocating — to St. Petersburg.

Piniella knows talent — and how to motivate it. He also can teach, a skill invaluable for the youth-dominated Rays.

He also brings uncommon passion to a franchise too accepting of laid-back losing.

Then there’s Lou the marketing coup and all the promotional promise inherent in the return of the native hero. The Malio’s crowd alone could be a major attendance spike. If there’s a St. Pete Times Forum in downtown Tampa, why not a Tampa Rays’ identity in downtown St. Pete?

But most of all, Piniella means credibility. The bedeviled Rays have become synonymous with losing and a go-to line for David Letterman. Piniella’s a winner. Big time.

In addition to the roots-and-family factor, something else clinched the deal for Piniella besides wads of money. He apparently likes what’s in the Rays’ talent pipeline. And he obviously got the right answers from Vince Naimoli and Chuck LaMar to no-nonsense questions about how this show will be run.

There is also this. Piniella, who is financially flush and hardly without prospects outside baseball, is a proud man. He doesn’t need to tack on a lot of losing at the end of one of the most successful managerial careers in major league annals.

But he also loves a challenge. Turning around the hometown Rays would be the ultimate, crowning achievement. He doubtless thinks it’s doable. He’s not the sort to pull a Casey Stengel and become a Met-like “Come See Lou Explode” promotional mascot for a bad baseball team.

Still, there’s no dearth of expert skeptics, not all of whom are in New York, who say he’s embarking on an ill-advised, legacy-skewing venture. Piniella, however, has never been known to make career decisions based on such consensus.

In fact, he’s already disproved Thomas Wolfe by going home again.