Gary Condit’s prime time

So, after more than 100 days of saying nothing in public about his relationship with Chandra Levy, Gary Condit goes on ABC’s Prime Time with Connie Chung and proceeds to continue to say nothing. It was the verbal equivalent of silence, accompanied by a rhetorical nose thumbing to Ms. Levy, her family, the police, Condit’s constituents and anyone within earshot.

If the Modesto voters, out of stupidity or amorality, re-elect Condit after that performance, they deserve him. Moreover, they might then consider a vote on secession. He taints all of us.

He not only denied that he lied to Mrs. Levy over the nature of his relationship with her daughter, he attributed such an impression to her misunderstanding of what he told her. He even had the effrontery to use the Levy family as a shield to ward off Chung’s questions about his relationship with Ms. Levy by saying he was honoring their “specific request” that he spare everyone the truth.

For good measure, he labeled Anne Marie Smith, who says she is a former paramour, an opportunist looking for her “15 minutes of fame.”

As for that affidavit sent her requesting her written denial of a sexual relationship between them, that was not a suborning of anything — merely a bunch of lawyer-to-lawyer yada yada.

To this day, asserted Condit, he remains “puzzled” at how so many folks — from the Levys and Chandra’s Aunt Linda Zamsky to Smith and former aide Joleen McKay to the D.C. police — can get so many details wrong about how he has comported himself and what he has said.

It was an hour-long exercise in giving scoundrel a bad name. And for the first time in memory, it was the media who we were empathizing with — even in the person of someone married to Maury Povich.

As a public relations ploy, the interview was a disaster. Condit apologized for nothing, merely acknowledging that he was not exempt from the human condition, for he too had made “mistakes,” albeit unnamed, in his life.

Indeed.

It was quintessentially Clintonesque, chapter and verse. Remember Bill Clinton admitting to “60 Minutes” in 1992 that he surely had “caused pain” in his marriage. That was his “answer” to a question about his involvement with Gennifer Flowers.

Enough to make us all nostalgic for the credibility and candor of Ted Kennedy’s moving mea culpa over Chappaquiddick.

Is Tampa a victim of racial profiling?

Could it be that the Florida A&M-Bethune Cookman Florida Classic, formerly held in Tampa, has been replaced by the Punch Bowl?

Some would say so, including at least one “progressive” religious leader, who sees a continuum of racial slights and insults. Same racist game, but different visiting teams.

By now, we’re all too familiar with the recent incident, the anatomy of a rumor and the birth of an indignation, over at downtown Tampa’s Marriott Waterside Hotel.

A member of the predominately black Progressive National Baptist Convention saw a melanin-challenged Marriott staffer spit into a fruit punch bowl. Or maybe he took a sip. Or retrieved a ladle. Or dropped in a Baby Ruth bar for comic relief. Moreover, he then tainted a 1,000-person, sit-down meal of grilled salmon and filet mignon. Or not.

Whatever, by the time the general manager, who was not on site, could be summoned, the Rev. C. Mackey Daniels, head of the PNB convention, had issued marching orders. The group then walked out on the pricey repast. They marched to the nearest, next-biggest hotel, which mercifully wasn’t an Adam’s Mark. Presumably, they didn’t call ahead requesting a table with a viewpoint for 1,000. The downtown Hyatt Regency should be commended for scrambling to put out the mother of all chicken wing spreads.

The person, later identified as the Rev. Frederick Jones, who saw whatever it was that was to be seen at the Marriott is not talking. Except to PNB lawyers. Certainly not to anyone in Tampa, including the Marriott, the mayor, the media and the police. In fact, Jones checked out of his hotel early and left town.

The person, later identified as Istvan Kovacs, who was seen doing whatever it was that was done, says he merely retrieved a ladle, taking pains to avoid dipping any digits into the punch.

The truth is out there somewhere, but the staffer’s credibility is understandably — and likely irretrievably — undermined. Not only is he white, but he unfortunately hails from that hotbed of racial intolerance — Hungary.

Bigot-guilty until proven otherwise.

Only reinforcing the Napoleonic code was Paul Catoe, the untenably positioned president of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. “Until someone comes forward to prove to us something didn’t happen, we’ll assume it did,” Catoe told the St. Petersburg Times.

It’s come to this. City officials, including Mayor Dick Greco, apologizing for whatever, if anything, happened. And it’s incumbent upon the city to prove a negative. It’s not incumbent upon the PNB convention, however, to even help clarify the matter, except to its legal counsel.

Since the case for black victimization is so easy to make in politically correct America, including, some would contend, in racially retro Tampa, then it must be true. Whatever “it” is.

As a city, Tampa is racially profiled. Call it hosting while white. It’s based on incidents past, some legitimate and some not. It now feeds on itself.

For example, notice how the first Marriott media accounts also referenced the complaints of black Florida Classic visitors in 1994 who were angry that Tampa Bay Center, across from what was then Houlihan’s Stadium, closed early on game day.

The ensuing racial flap, which made the rounds again last year during the FAMU Law School site-selection charade, led to the game being moved to Orlando. What’s never mentioned in the media mantra is that TBC merchants welcomed the middle-class, middle-aged fans in town for reunions and shopping — but not the problematic onslaught of unaffiliated teenagers who historically flock to major “black events.”

Interesting that when the Rev. Daniels convened an ad hoc board meeting a couple of days after the Marriott incident, he presented a list of 20 racially charged incidents in Tampa’s past.

And it was current enough to include the racial discrimination lawsuit involving black women basketball players at the University of South Florida. He had no details about the damning allegations the PNB convention had made, but he had his show-and-tell Top 20.

His moral high ground was a sinkhole, but it didn’t matter. This is no more about M.L. King and Rosa Parks than Sean King and Bert Parks.

What seemed paramount to Rev. Daniels was leverage not enlightenment. For all of its civil rights lingo and the rhetoric of outrage and humiliation, The PNB Convention is after a financial settlement. Somebody will get stiffed because rumor-mongering must be a sacred calling.

The PNB Convention is playing the extortion game because it can. Tampa will be held hostage to further soiling of its reputation as a convention city unfriendly to blacks, whatever the merits of the Great Expectoration incident.

But give the Rev. Daniels credit for something. He is pursuing restitution, if not the truth, religiously.

The letter(s) of the law in Tampa

So now the court, or at least the one where Hillsborough County Judge Elvin Martinez holds forth, has thrown out Tampa’s lap-dance law as unconstitutional. Too broad. Public health or safety, said Martinez, are not at risk from lap dancing. Some marriages, perhaps, but that’s outside the ambit of the law.

For those scoring at home, that’s one out of four, because the other three county judges hearing lap-dance cases — which are alphabetically assigned — have ruled otherwise. Ultimately, of course, this unappealing issue is headed for appellate court.

For now, however, it means arrested patrons with last names beginning with the letters C, I, K, R and T, will be brought before Judge Martinez. Talk about the letter of the law.

Tampa Theatre gets twisted

Perhaps it’s generational, because I don’t get it. The way I didn’t get “The Blair Witch Project” or the way I don’t get Derek Washington’s art. Maybe I’m missing the “edgy” gene. But hopefully taste and standards are valid factors.

Anyway, I’m now talking about the recent, week-long “Spike and Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation” over at Tampa Theater.

Summarized St. Petersburg Times film critic (and “Blair Witch” apologist) Steve Persall: “Nothing is out of bounds, from physical deformities and child abuse to religious icons and unnatural sex. Graphic drawings of genitalia and body wastes and fluids are common threads

G-8 protestors should start rethinking strategy

Now that this year’s G-8 Summit is history — and the host city trashed — the usual postmortems have been rendered.

Lawlessness has been deplored, globalization has been defended and the plight of the world’s have nots has been denoted in the final communiqué. More Third World debt relief, for example, may be on the way — but it’s probably presumptuous to attribute that to the leverage of riotous behavior.

As for the 100,000 or so anarchists, idealists, union surrogates and unchaperoned, parentally subsidized Marxists, it’s time for them to collectively rethink strategies, priorities and summer vacations. Demonstrations of nastiness and naivete don’t win converts to a cause, unless the cause is chaos.

Getting some public relations help, although unconscionably bourgeoisie, would probably be worthwhile.

What do you do when you have a global forum? If you act like your city just won an NBA championship, who will that impress? The deportment department matters. The medium is still the message.

Bad messengers ill serve any cause, including a dissonant, anarchical one.

Here’s a better idea: Skip next year’s G-8 Summit in Canada. Pick another target, one that’s less amorphous than globalization, one where the moral high ground is yours to lose.

Then take on some causes that will earn you global respect from those that, well, matter most: the industrialized democracies. Instead of, say, WTO or G-8 road trips to Seattle or Genoa to decry sweatshops, how about sorties to Beijing, Khartoum, Freetown, Kabul or Pyongyang?

Rather than protesting globalization and thus incurring the very real risk of seeming clueless and chaotic again, why not start with human rights abuses by the world’s biggest bully? A Falun Gong Showing will play well in the West. And how about this year’s running total of 1,800 executions, many for political crimes and thievery? And don’t forget those summarily harvested organs of the executed. Meaty stuff. Great banners. Slogans to die for.

The only problem: Actually standing up to a police state, as opposed to a permissive democracy. The Chinese mean business and are more like the Red Brigades than the Genoan police.

In fact, word is that they are still pushing for the dissident toss as a demonstration sport in the 2008 Olympics. Protesting in Beijing for unequivocally noble causes that don’t require a modicum of economic sophistication should be a no brainer. Unfortunately it would mandate guts.

But it’s not as if Beijing is the only alternative. Credibility can also be built by disciplined protests in Sudan, where there’s a viable slave trade; Sierra Leone, where genocide is now a cultural more; Afghanistan, where the Taliban want to repeal civilization; and North Korea, where the government thinks starvation is an acceptable tradeoff for expensive weaponry.

Or perhaps the movement needs to think smaller — and for Americans, closer to home –before tackling any of the above, admittedly formidable, challenges.

It would, again, take some guts, but how about taking to the streets of Miami or Cincinnati? A principled protest against the Cuban embargo down Calle Ocho in Little Havana would earn widespread plaudits, as might a bold denunciation of the urban plague that is black-on-black crime in the city now ominously synonymous with “de-policing.”

There’s obviously no lack of critical issues and legitimate causes that need the world’s — and this country’s — immediate attention.

Summer in Canada on daddy’s credit card, however, will likely carry the day.

Oddfest at the Trop: thanks for sharing

Cultural kudos to both the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times for their in-depth coverage of the recent Ozzfest concert at Tropicana Field.

The Times, in particular, should be commended for devoting the lion’s share of a Monday Floridian section to a photo spread of the “ordinary people” behind the piercings and tattoos.

My personal favorite was the Melbourne mom-to-be who compared the “once in a lifetime” experiences of seeing Black Sabbath and having a baby. In that order.

Lucky kid-to-be.

Thanks again for sharing.

Wilson Alvarez: Rays’ retiring sort
At least it was a diversion from the hapless handling of the Fred McGriff soap opera. Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ officials were reportedly taken aback by some comments by Wilson Alvarez, the sore-armed, multi-millionaire pitcher on perpetual rehab assignment. Seems that Alvarez indicated that he just might walk away from his (otherwise) guaranteed $8-million 2002 salary and retire.

One question: If Alvarez were to retire, how could we tell?

Buckhorn’s candidacy: votes in the ‘hood

Now it’s officially official. Bob Buckhorn is officially running for mayor.

As you may have noticed, presses didn’t stop, eyebrows didn’t arch and Pam Iorio didn’t issue a concession statement. The official announcement had all the drama of a call-center ribbon cutting. The Florida Aquarium’s name changing of “jewfish” to “goliath grouper” was a bigger story.

But while at least one prominent pundit — ok, Dan Ruth — has already noted that Buckhorn’s chances are “no worse or better than anybody else’s,” that’s likely not the case.

Buckhorn’s chances are better than most, especially those named Miranda, Ferlita, Hart and Alvarez — Dennis or Wilson. Name recognition and fund-raising are, as always, critical. Buckhorn’s been working on the former forever. The latter works in tandem.

Where he has a leg up is where most of us live — in neighborhoods. Populism remains ever popular, and Buckhorn expertly played the neighborhood-crusader card during the high profile, high stakes, Community Investment Tax pitched battle.

Remember, in that 6-1 City Council vote to use CIT money for a cultural arts district downtown, he was the 1. The only one, we will be reminded incessantly from a well-worn script, who didn’t “cave in” to Dick Greco’s “monument-building” agenda.

Buckhorn’s other leg is firmly planted atop a certain six-foot ordinance. Libertarians, Joe Redner, Luke Lirot and anyone who frames the issue as “government legislating morality” have taken serious umbrage at Tampa’s lap-dance law.

Of course, no one wants a Taliban Tampa or a Gestapoized First Amendment. But a lot of people, certainly not just Buckhorn, see the matter as a “quality of life” issue. The location and nature of adult businesses, they would argue, is an appropriate community question to raise — and not quietly either. Not unlike, say, what passes for entertainment over at WXTB, 97.9 FM.

And as to those who see the adult-business issue as purely a moral crusade, well, Buckhorn will gladly accept those votes as well, thank you.

The holdout CIT vote and the aggressive, publicity-generating lap-dance campaign are certainly not everyone’s agenda, but it is a constituency.

Yin, Yang, Ybor
Call it the architectural yin and yang of Ybor City.

For too long Ybor had gone, well, Ybor-less when it came to statuary honoring historic figures. There’s Queen Isabella, Jose Marti, Nick Nuccio, Tony Pizzo, Cesar Gonzmart and anonymous immigrants. And some day there will be Sam Leto and Dick Greco and maybe Ferdie Pacheco and Roland Manteiga.

But now, finally, by the entrance to Centro Ybor, there’s a six-foot bronze replica of Vicente Martinez-Ybor, without whom there would be no Ybor City. Muchas gracias (great-grandson) Rafael Martinez-Ybor, the Ybor City Rotary Club and sculptor Steve Dickey.

But then there’s the proposed 170,000-sq-ft., modern entertainment center on Seventh Avenue and 15th Street. With its blue, conical, smokestack-like skylight, portholes and reliance on the color gray, it is as incongruous to the surrounding architecture and history as the Martinez-Ybor statue and Centro Ybor are complementary.

No one is telling land-owner/developer Penet Land Corp. to rebuild the Blue Ribbon Supermarket that previously stood on the site or to replicate its yellow-brick look. No one is even telling Penet it can’t exceed the national historic district’s height allowance — by 14 feet.

But what the Barrio Latino Commission is saying is that the Penet project, while no Hillsborough Community College abomination, is an inappropriate fit in an historic district.

The Barrio, while compromising on the height restriction, is doing the right thing by issuing a small-craft warning to the ship-shaped building. Now it’s up to architect Kenneth Kroger to transcend his ego and remember why it is that we have designated historic districts in the first place.

Media Self-Policing As Slain Officer’s Legacy

We’ve all had it happen in our communities, especially urban ones. A heretofore anonymous cop, otherwise taken for granted, is gunned down and a whole community is traumatized. In the media aftermath, we’re graphically reminded that a police officer’s life is a precarious one. Ask their wives. And their widows.

The other day we lost another one here in Tampa when a cornered bank robber shot Officer Lois Marrero three times in the neck and face. She never had a chance. The gunman then took a hostage in a nearby apartment, which was quickly surrounded by a SWAT team and a swarm of media. The killer eventually offed himself after hearing on TV that his victim had died. Fortunately the hostage escaped unscathed physically.

Tampa, unfortunately, has had more than its share of such murders. Three years ago the nation recoiled in horror when a piece of human flotsam named Hank Earl Carr, aided by a hidden handcuff key, shot two Tampa detectives at point blank range in a squad car. He later gunned down a Florida Highway Patrol officer before taking a hostage and then his own life.

During the hostage standoff, a Tampa Bay radio station managed to phone through to Carr. Outraged police had to, in effect, wait their turn before getting their negotiator’s call through. The result was a non-binding agreement between police and local media to “voluntarily restrict live coverage” in such circumstances.

This week’s death of Officer Marrero left a family shattered, a police force in mourning and a community aggrieved. She was, as we’ve come to realize, much more than badge number 327. She was one of us, only more giving, less fortunate — and much braver. Her tragic murder appropriately prompted memorials and eulogies to a heroic, fallen officer who had faithfully and courageously served her community — on and off the job — for two decades.

Her legacy is that selfless service for those 20 years. Gratitude, honor and tragedy will be synonymous with her memory.

And yet her legacy can also transcend her own considerable community contributions and the heavy-hearted precedent of being the first TPD female killed in the line of duty. This can happen if we reflect on more than Officer Marrero’s tragic slaying.

We can ask why a compact, semi-automatic submachine gun — the murder weapon — doesn’t even require a permit, but that’s part of another battle.

But we can also ask the electronic media — whose charge is to inform, especially where there’s a public safety issue — to do an even better job of policing itself on live coverage of scenarios such as hostage-taking homicides. Not all TV stations acquitted themselves well. The local ABC affiliate, for example, aired much of the action live and unconscionably released Officer Marrero’s identity before her family was notified. Her killer found out before her parents.

The nature of television, of course, is immediacy. And live video from a crime scene, one where human drama continues to unfold, is as compelling as TV ever gets. But “officer down” should always be more than a media all call, especially when other lives hang in the balance.

Yes, there is a non-binding agreement between the local media and law enforcement to restrict live coverage of volatile and fluid situations such as those involving hostages and would-be suicide cases. It asks the media not to show — or even describe — locations or actions during tactical operations. But that still permits wiggle room and allows for less-than-prudent decisions made in the heat of coverage. That, of course, cannot be avoided — absent the legislating of responsibility or the morphing into a police state.

But here’s a suggestion: Affix somewhere a copy of the public’s “Marrero Rights” on every news set, satellite van and helicopter. It would read:

*”Never confuse ‘just doing my job’ with doing the right thing.

*Never leave home, let alone the station, without your empathy.

*If I were a hostage, what would I most not want my captors to hear and see on TV?

*Sometimes less is more appropriate.

*In a breaking-news crisis, first priority is everyone’s safety — not the competition.

*Take the news seriously, but not yourself. However important our role in a free society, the public could care less who’s actually informing them.”

No, we haven’t seen the last officer, male or female, tragically fall in the line of duty. That danger is ever present and a variable we ultimately cannot control.

However, there is a variable we should be able to control. Media must never provide counterproductive, possibly life-threatening information — including the status of any wounded officers — to (cop-killing,) hostage-taking criminals with access to a TV set. But if a ratings-challenged station feels compelled to choose otherwise, please don’t do it under the self-serving guise of informing a public that would surely want to wait on the details given the circumstances — and trade-offs.

McBride makes case for gubernatorial run

Meet Bill McBride, a man who would be governor. The personable, high-achieving, 56-year-old attorney who has never held public office is one of a half dozen Democrats vying to be the party’s choice to take on Jeb Bush in 2002.

The serious winnowing process is yet ahead.

In some parts of Florida, he may be the least known of the seven. Even here in the Tampa Bay area, his home base, he’s forced to share the early media spotlight — and fund-raising and endorsements — with another aspirant, Congressman Jim Davis.

In front of a hard-core political crowd, he can still seem charisma challenged. Moreover, conventional wisdom accords former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno the overall favorite’s role in a winner-take-all primary with no run-off.

Having said that — as well as acknowledging that conventional wisdom is always more conventional than wise — no one in the know is dismissing his chances.

“Bill McBride is smart, likeable, a good listener and just bulldog tenacious in what he wants to accomplish. I think he’ll be very competitive,” assessed former Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman, who has endorsed McBride’s candidacy. “He’ll be able to raise money; he’s got a fantastic network. And he’s a fresh face, which is good for the party. Everything he’s done in life has prepared him well for this, and he has a marvelous story to tell.”

McBride’s is an intriguing, hybrid candidacy.

A populist, a patriot, a profit-and-loss guy who believes in an activist role for government. And still a Little League coach.He grew up in Leesburg, Fla., the son of a TV repairman. As a kid, he picked oranges and sold watermelons door-to-door. Went to Leesburg High, where he was student body president and runner-up Florida Scholar-Athlete of the Year as an honor student/fullback-linebacker. Was recruited to the University of Florida in the same class as Steve Spurrier. Blew out a knee and became the “Best player who never played for me,” according to head coach Ray Graves.

After college, he rejected additional student deferments, joined the Marines, served in Vietnam and earned a Bronze Star. His reasoning was simple, but its impact profound.

“It was only by accident of birth that I was born in this country,” reasoned McBride, “and not in, say, Bangladesh. That makes me pretty lucky. I felt it was my obligation to serve. I’m glad I did.”

And as the only college graduate in his Marine company, McBride eventually saw the war through the prism of a socio-economically-skewed America. “Lower middle class to poor kids were being asked to die for their country, but had the least stake in what was going on,” figured McBride. “An experience like that shows the awesome power of government. Making decisions that change people’s lives.”

Captain McBride then looked to become Counselor McBride. He returned to Gainesville, entered UF School of Law and graduated with honors and as a member of the Law Review.

Over time, he would become a name familiar to many in legal, political and civic circles, from Tampa to Tallahassee and beyond. His chairmanships range from the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation to the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Hillsborough County. He’s a member of the Tampa Bay Business Hall of Fame. He has several dens’ worth of testimonial plaques, including awards from the National Council of Christians and Jews and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Committee.

In an election that could likely turn on education, the environment, ever mounting black alienation and Bush Brothers’ payback, McBride could be well positioned.

It’s also a given that his legal and business connections should enable him to raise money nationwide. In fact, Alex Sink, his wife and former state head of NationsBank, is a fund-raising force in her own right.

With bona fides in business, the military and football, McBride’s quite comfortable in a corporate suite, a military base or the University of Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. But when it comes to core ideology, no one in the field outflanks him on the left. That, of course, could be a ruinous niche nationally, but not statewide.

He’s unabashedly supportive of public schools and teachers and activist on behalf of the environment and minority inclusion. He sees the value in unions and the good in affirmative action. He believes gays and lesbians should enjoy the same legal rights and benefits as married couples. He is, as he has said, a “proud and unapologetic Democrat.”

“Almost all of my positions are from the premise that people need a helping hand,” explained McBride. “I’m not muddling about in the middle on that.”

No more than he muddled around at the top of Holland & Knight, where he served as managing partner from 1992 until last month, when he went on a non-paid leave of absence. He expects to resign from the firm “shortly” and opened a campaign account last week.

Under his hard-charging leadership, the law firm expanded into one of the largest in the country and among the top 20 in the world. Two years ago he was a keynote speaker at the White House on diversity and pro bono legal work.

“Bill McBride’s very bright, a quick study and a forceful personality,” said John Belohlavek, political consultant and chairman of the history department at the University of South Florida. “You’d have to be to lead that crowd.

“In terms of his persona, I think he’s electable,” added Belohlavek. “He’s large and imposing. Has a military and business background. He’s a Florida guy who understands economic issues and growth development. I think he can make the case for government being a positive force in improving the quality of people’s lives.”

And nothing ranks higher than education on McBride’s Florida agenda.

He calls Gov. Bush’s approach “mean spirited.””The A+ plan is just testing,” noted McBride. “He gives bad programs a good name and then tries selling it. ‘Opportunity Scholarships’ take money out of public schools. To suggest that any private school is better than a public school is disgraceful

Reno rally: run, Janet, run

Could it be any more obvious? Harbor no more doubts about the gubernatorial intentions of Janet Reno. Two Saturdays ago, the erstwhile attorney general attended the bat mitzvah of a girl who had written her a letter of support for her handling of the Elian Gonzalez case. Even had to go to Albuquerque, NM, for the occasion.

The pandering season is upon us.

Meanwhile, it’s still anybody’s guess as to who would be most pleased by a Reno run:

–The Democrats, who see widespread name recognition and fund-raising clout

–The Republicans, who see Waco, Elian, special prosecutorial favors and health questions or

–Will Ferrell, who foresees a reprise of “Janet Reno’s Dance Party” on Saturday Night Live.

Overkill on McVeigh execution
Most days during the drought the sign above Garland’s Garden on Bay-to-Bay Boulevard in Tampa touts the merits of mulch and soaker hoses. Last Monday, however, it wasn’t your garden-variety signage. It said: “System 1, McVeigh O, VE Day.” It was the day of Timothy McVeigh’s execution.

I was taken aback. Media overkill is part of the culture, but not when I’m retreating to a plant nursery to window shop orchids and buy more liriope and hibiscus.

There’s no escaping it. I felt like I was being implored to join the celebration of a mass murderer’s execution. If anyone deserved execution — and probably less benignly than lethal injection — it was McVeigh. But I don’t celebrate executions, even McVeigh’s.

Anyhow, I asked Dan Bagley, an advertising professor at the University of South Florida, about the merits of using your advertising forum for a political message. The net result, said Bagley, is probably a wash.

“On politically laden issues, such as gun control, right to life and capital punishment, you probably have an equal chance of alienating those who disagree and appealing to those who agree,” said Bagley. “These commonly are just statements to the world; they’re not done for advertising purposes.”

So what says Garland’s Garden co-owner, Earl Garland?

“This is the first I heard of it,” said Garland. “I was off that day. But we’ve never put up political signs, and we’ve been doing business at this location since 1939. I better ask my sister, Sharon. She was here that day.”

Oops.

Communication skills key to Iorio’s options

The curly hair, the tiny glasses, the disarming smile, the unflappable manner are readily apparent. Less so, the unwavering ideals, the sense of history. And that ubiquitous presence — from CNN to Kathy Fountain to Local Access TV to high school assemblies to Rotary Club luncheons. Sound like any supervisor of elections you’ve seen lately?

Since last November, no local public official has had more statewide and national exposure than Pam Iorio, Hillsborough County’s supervisor of elections.

You may have seen her holding court in Tallahassee, testifying before a House Committee in Washington or waxing informed and articulate on “Larry King Live.” Out-of-town reporters had her on their notable- and-quotable short lists.

For the record, she doesn’t miss it — not that those days are totally behind her.

“I thought the national media were very much like the local media, trying to get at the facts and telling the story,” recalled Iorio. “I thought they did a good job; the print media in particular. But, no, I don’t have satellite-dish withdrawal.”

What she has are superb communication skills equally applicable across a range of constituencies and media, pointed out John Belohlavek, author, political consultant and chairman of the history department at the University of South Florida. Skills, say some, that would well equip her for a run at the Mayor’s office in 2003. More on that later.

“Pam can speak to people anywhere,” noted Belohlavek. “She can translate the language of bureaucracy to the people in the community and beyond about decisions that will impact them. But she doesn’t come across as glib or slick. She’s a wonderful interpreter of what can be confusing rules and regs.”

Indeed. During and after Chadfest 2000 and amid all the FloriDUH references and Katherine Harris parodies, Iorio seemed like a central casting godsend to the Vote-a-Matic state. She came across as pro-solution and non-partisan, a rare political parlay.

Now the three-term supervisor of elections is in the vanguard of voting reform: in Hillsborough, in Florida, in the U.S. Within the next 60 days she’ll be popping up all over the county — from Sun City Center to College Hill — to get voter input on post-punch card technology, both optical scanners and touch screen.

“I’ll take the technology to the public and let them test it out,” said Iorio.

This is possible, of course, in the aftermath of Florida’s recently revamped election system.

“I was pleasantly surprised with the final product of the Legislature,” assessed Iorio. “They listened to the input of the supervisors.” Especially, it appeared, to the president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections: Iorio.

And what they heard, loudest of all, was the need for modern, precinct-based technology. The resultant law includes $24 million to help counties buy optical scanners. Hillsborough’s cut is $1.2 million toward the cost of $3 million for the county’s 319 precincts. Should the county opt for a touch-screen system, the cost would be at least four times more than the scanners, unless Hillsborough joins other counties for a joint purchase. The situation, emphasized Iorio, is “still fluid.”

Vendors “coming out of the woodwork” underscore the need for purchasing prudence, she stressed. Ultimately, however, Iorio will make proposals on both systems to the Board of County Commissioners, who will foot the equipment bill.

What is not up for debate, according to Iorio, is Florida’s national reputation, however battered by the election debacle where 537 votes — out of 6 million cast — decided the presidency.

“The election of ’02 will get rid of that image,” predicted Iorio. “But keep in mind that what we had here was an extraordinary margin of victory. Some states probably had better written election laws than Florida — for example the automatic restoration of voting rights to ex-felons.

“But most states have a hodgepodge of technologies,” she noted. “If this had happened in California or New York, they would be unearthing all kinds of irregularities. As for Florida’s reputation, it only takes one election cycle. I think we will be a national model.”

She also thinks Florida, now a bona fide, two-party state with 27 electoral votes, will be a permanent, quadrennial battleground.

“Brace yourself in 2004 for an even bigger barrage of political commercials,” warned Iorio. “Florida is a microcosm of the country. As Florida goes, so goes the election.”

But what of that other election? Is a run for City Hall in the offing, as the media has routinely speculated? After all, a cursory glance at her public-service resume reminds you she’s more than the sum of her communications parts. It includes two terms on the County Board of Commissioners and chairmanships ranging from the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Hartline and Tampa Bay Commuter Rail Authority to the Hillsborough River Board and Tourist Development Council. She sits on boards the way the rest of us sit down for dinner.

The 41 year old is even scheduled to receive her Master’s Degree in American History from USF in December. She also hopes to turn her thesis, a look at election 2000 from the point of view of election supervisors, into a book.

You betcha she’s “seriously looking at it.”

The time to make that announcement, said Iorio, is January. Too early, too presumptuous and too busy right now.

“This is a wonderful and dynamic city,” she gushed in vintage candidate-speak. “It’s of a scale that’s livable. The economic base is sound. It would be a great honor and challenge to be part of charting its future. There is so much potential in the community. There is no other place I’d want to live.

“I have, however, a full agenda for now.”