Hosting A Political Fundraiser? Here’s Some Advice

Part of the landscape of every presidential political season is high-profile fundraising. Often the hosts are familiar. Around here, they have names like Scarritt and Lykes. And then there are those who are curious about getting involved. A few pointers.

*Hosts lend their credibility as well as their digs. No scandals and a big veranda.

*Hosts cannot be network challenged.

*Campaigns spring for security. The Secret Service is not typically assigned until a candidate becomes a nominee.

*Campaigns meet with city officials and fire marshals to pre-empt issues.

*Campaigns will take care of valet parking.*Hosts must actually dial down. Hold the caviar and champagne. Go with moderately priced wine, not liquor. And get as many in-kind donations as possible, including catered fare, musicians and bartenders.

“The biggest challenge (for prospective hosts) is that these are people who are used to entertaining, and they want to treat royally any guest in their house,” says Tampa’s Frank Sanchez, a key Barack Obama advisor and Tampa Bay organizer. “But you have to tell them not to spend a lot of money. ‘Don’t go overboard.'”

A host can spend up to $2,000 – a donation in kind – points out Sanchez. “Over that, the campaign has to pick it up. We would rather tap the coffers for TV time.”

Norma Gene Lykes, whose Obama fundraiser brought in nearly $250,000 back in April, has no regrets – and some salient advice.

“If you really believe in somebody, do it – and do get some help,” advises Lykes. “Go to the grass roots office. It has a ripple effect.

“We were very pleased with how it turned out,” she recalls. “Very diverse; not just the traditional high rollers.”

Lykes also was pleased that the experience at her Bayshore Boulevard home didn’t leave her feeling as if she had been in royal company.

“There’s all this excitement and attention to detail, but at the end of the day it was just like having a wonderful house guest. Obama’s a very nice man. Incredibly likeable.”

Huckabee – Or Not To Be

The Mike Huckabee appeal is obvious. He comes across as a really nice guy. Not commander-in-chief nice or unpardonably nice, but the kind of guy you wouldn’t mind throwing back a couple of Yoo-Hoos with.

And he’s riding surprisingly high because the demographically-skewed, Silo Majority in Iowa wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of divine intervention. Caucus Christians love a good, theocratic candidate who has worked religiously on his bully pulpit skills.

But here’s what’s hard to get beyond. Should Huckabee actually get the nomination, he would face GOP attacks that won’t be limited to Willie Hortonesque ads that question his clemency judgments. Or references to ethical citations for accepting gifts as Arkansas governor. Or intimations that a 23% national sales tax in lieu of federal income and payroll taxes might be fiscally questionable. Or cheap shots at the “Hickabee” name and Gomer Pyle resemblance.

No, most prominent will be those video outtakes of Huckabee raising his hand when CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer asked if anyone didn’t believe in evolution.

Just when you think politics or politicians can’t devolve anymore, we get these sorts of questions – and that kind of answer.

Hockey Holiday

There’s a lot that the National Hockey League doesn’t get right – from schedules that make no sense to the inability to land a profitable television deal. But they do get Christmas. No lip service to the message that both players and fans belong with their families over Christmas. As a result, Christmas is a three-day, NHL holiday from business as usual.

The National Football League, however, still plays its high-profile Monday night game – even if it does fall on Christmas Eve. As last week’s Denver Broncos-San Diego Chargers game did. Sad commentary.

And to the National Basketball Association, which a lot of people actually watch, nothing says Merry Christmas like a Christmas-day triple header: Miami Heat-Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns-Los Angeles Lakers and Seattle Sonics-Portland Trail Blazers.

Pathetic.

Dems’ Florida Boycott

We all know what the Jan. 29 Florida presidential primary has begot, especially on the Democratic side. Candidates have sworn not to do any primary “campaigning” here. But they – or their surrogates – can still come in to the Sunshine State ATM and fundraise. That such a scenario is as ludicrous as it is hypocritical is well documented.

But according to the media, Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who doesn’t have the name recognition of Hillary Clinton, has been particularly hamstrung. And according to conventional wisdom, which is often more conventional than wise, Obama hasn’t, alas, been able to get his message to the state since the “boycott” was announced this summer. This is media mantra. This is nonsense.

You’d have to be comatose or living in a cave to not be privy to any candidate’s message. Especially in the nation’s pre-eminent swing state, where candidate organizations aren’t exactly sitting on their hands. You don’t have to attend a fund-raiser or a town hall meeting to find out where candidates stand. If newspapers, network television, cable talking heads, myriad debates and the blogosphere aren’t enough, than the problem obviously transcends a sham boycott.

Frankly, you’d hope that a candidate wouldn’t want the vote of anyone who, despite being part of the world’s most wired electorate, still couldn’t find a “message.”

Hyde Park Village Wins City Council Rezoning Reprieve

After going into late-night overtime the week before, the Tampa City Council finally gave its blessing – or at least its majority vote – to the rezoning plans of Wasserman Real Estate Capital to redevelop Hyde Park Village.

Despite all the histrionic fuss, partisan controversy and inevitable divisiveness, there’s actually a lot for most interested folks to agree on regarding the 10-acre Hyde Park Village and attendant plans to help revitalize it.

*Hyde Park Village is not what it used to be. Selena’s is still missed. Sharper Image won’t be back. Jacobson’s is gone forever. No more movie theater.

*Nostalgia is not a strategy for success.

*Wasserman’s motives aren’t altruistic. It wants what’s best for Wasserman.

*Compromise has occurred.

*An open air, urban village is for real shoppers, outdoor diners and imbibers, and serious strollers – not roving, mall-magnet teens. This is good. In fact, it’s very good.

*Upscale living proximate to retail works. Europe’s been doing it for centuries.

*(To virtually all but Councilwoman Mary Mulhern), the status quo has become notably lusterless and unacceptable. Not vibrant enough and not nearly enough retail traffic. International Plaza, WestShore Mall and Channelside are more than formidable. Synergy with downtown visitors has never happened.

*Tell-tale signs of a prominent, mid-neighborhood retail loser is a worst-case scenario for every stakeholder – from shop owners to nearby home owners.

*There is no pleasing everybody.

Even Wasserman should agree that shoehorning two mid-rises and 163 condos –along with improved curb appeal and more retail and business space — into the village is less than ideal. But the numbers on a $100-million investment have to work, and it’s not as if the immediate vicinity is totally devoid of structures taller than 40 feet.

Holding out for the Panglossian ideal in an imperfect marketplace has already bequeathed us the Woolworth and Newberry plywood palaces downtown.

Some observations from the recent City Council dynamics involving the Village vote:

*Do not do important business after 1:00 a.m. Some members, notably Linda Saul-Sena, seemed frazzled by the endurance test a fortnight ago. This is no way to decide matters of magnitude.

*Those members who live farthest away – Joseph Caetano, Tom Scott, Gwen Miller and Charlie Miranda – favored the redevelopment plan.

*While a lot of articulate, caring members of the public crowded into City Hall to speak up, nobody made a more pointed comment than Kit Stewart, who owns Kit’s Well Heeled & Well Dressed shop. “There are more people in this room than there are (shopping) in Hyde Park Village,” noted Stewart.

Amen.

Retirement Plans

Once again the names of Joe Paterno and – especially – Bobby Bowden are in the news because of speculation about their coaching tenures at Penn State and Florida State, respectively. Regardless of the subplots, there’s a prevalent feeling that two such highly successful coaches are uniquely qualified to call their own shots when it ultimately comes to retiring.

“It’s their call,” goes the rationale. “They’ve earned it.” Bowden, 78, and Paterno, 81, are numbers 1 and 2 in all-time wins at the major college level.

However understandable and well-intentioned, such thinking is simply wrong headed. However legendary or iconic, Bowden and Paterno are still just football coaches, albeit very special ones.

If anybody on a university campus is going to call his own shot, it should be the researcher who cures a disease or the distinguished professor who wins a Nobel Prize. But not a long-tenured football coach. Even if his name is Paterno or Bowden.

Vice President Clark?

If the Democratic presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards, the vice presidential running-mate ought to be Wesley Clark. He formerly commanded NATO; he’s a Rhodes Scholar; and he’s more than credible as a presidential successor in an emergency.

And if it’s Hillary Clinton, such a selection might also give Bill Clinton something to ponder. Clark is as good-looking as Mitt Romney.

Layoff Dispute

Whenever an employer – whether government or private sector – cuts a budget, it’s no secret what such a process is shorthand for: people losing jobs. The city of Tampa is no exception. When Mayor Pam Iorio announced that more than $3 million would be sliced from the City Hall budget, it also meant that as many as 88 jobs could be jettisoned in the janitorial and security services areas.

In this case, the city says it will show savings from privatizing. While bottom-line prudence is always expected, nobody is celebrating the loss of jobs and the people who hold them.

While a budget — and the priorities and judgment calls of those who oversee it — is always fair game, recent criticism of the privatizing plan has taken a misguided turn. It has focused unduly on the racial and ethnic composition of those in the affected areas. According to an analysis by City Council Finance Chairman John Dingfelder, an inordinate number of impacted employees are black or Hispanic.

Not to be insensitive, but – so? Would this have been an issue if a bunch of Euro-Americans were being laid off? Would the compassion for those who would lose health-care benefits be as palpable?

The point is this: It’s pertinent to make the case, for example, that privatizing isn’t the way to go. Or that these are the wrong departments to privatize. Or that attrition and re-hiring scenarios haven’t been sufficiently scrutinized. Or that City Hall continues to be communication-challenged.

And it’s laudatory, if unrealistic, to raise the specter of across-the-board salary cuts for everyone.

But don’t make this a minority issue. That’s the wrong bottom line. As wrong as “No justice. No peace.”

Radical Islam Is Offensive

The University of “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” Florida continues on its slippery-slope, First Amendment descent. The latest was the politically correct, administrative putdown of a campus group that sponsored a showing of the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

Posters advertising “Radical Islam Wants You Dead” as a movie tease prompted more than official disapproval. A vice president of student affairs demanded an apology because the publicity approach was offensive to Muslims on campus.

Two points:

*”Radical Islam Wants You Dead” is protected speech, even if it offends. Communicating in this democracy can, at times, be discomforting, unpalatable and insulting to some – or to most or, seemingly sometimes, to all. But it’s the price we pay for unsupressed, free speech.

*Second, “Radical Islam Wants You Dead” is, quite arguably, true. To anyone paying attention in the post/9-11 world, it’s not exactly hyperbole or character assassination. In fact, “You” also includes non-radical Muslims.

And, yes, I’ve seen Obsession . It ends, appropriately enough, with the famous quote of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

It still applies.