Twas the Night Before Election

Yes, Virginia, tomorrow is Election Day in St. Petersburg. For the candidates and their families, the long ordeal of running for office will be over. There will be candidates who will be winners and candidates who will be losers.

But at the end of the day, will the City of St. Petersburg be a winner or a loser? The answer is, at this late date, not entirely clear. What is clear is that there has been a remarkable alignment of disparate candidates into what are effectively two distinct slates in this "non partisan" election.

On one slate you have Herb Polson, Ed Montanari and Gershom Faulkner. (For good measure, throw Jamie Bennett onto this slate as well.) These candidates could be considered the establishment or "insider" candidates. On the other slate are Bob Kersteen, Bill Dudley and Wengay Newton. These candidates could well be called the "outsiders" or the insurgents.

On the establishment side Herb Polson is an appointed incumbent who is now seeking election in his own right. Ed Montanari is the campaign manager for Bill Foster's last re election campaign. Gershom Faulkner is an integral part of the Democratic Party establishment in St. Petersburg. He currently works as Outreach Director for Congresswoman Kathy Castor. Prior to that, he spent 6 years as Legislative assistant to State Rep. Frank Peterman, and is seen to be a protege of County Commissioner Ken Welch.

Jamie Bennet is a 6 year incumbent, having been originally elected to fill the term of Larry Williams who resigned to run for Mayor in 2001. He drew no opposition to re election to a full term in 2003 and did not even appear on the ballot. This time, his opponent dropped out of the race after the Primary. This triggered a bizarre provision in the St. Petersburg City Charter that has Bennett now running against "New Election". That means if New Election were to garner the most votes tomorrow, the City will be forced to go back to square one in the election process for this seat.

On the insurgent side you have Bob Kersteen, who served on the City Council previously, but left to run for another office. (He lost.) Bill Dudley, a retired wrestling coach who was soundly drubbed for this seat by Bill Foster 4 years ago. And Wengay Newton is a neighborhood association president who's brother happens to be the head of the local firefighters union. Anyone want to take three guesses who the firefighters endorsed?

So here are the match ups. In District 1 it is Herb Poslon and Bob Kersteen. Polson was a long term employee of the City who for over twenty years was the City's lobbyist. He probably knows more about this City government than any other living human being. Kersteen was a member of what was described as the most dysfunctional City Council anyone could remember. Kersteen campaigns like an angry old man. Apparently this City has done nothing right in the time he has been off the Council and he is going to fix it all. Trouble is, everything he says he wants to do is solely within the purview of the Mayor. Bob, you are running for the wrong office.

District 3 gives us Ed Montanari and Bill Dudley. Montanri was Foster's campaign manager when they beat Dudley to a pulp last time. He was also Chairman of the Albert Whitted Blue Ribbon Task Force and by all accounts brought the disparate interests on that Task Force to consensus and the plan they brought forward is now being implemented.

To his credit, Bill Dudley is a much better candidate this time around. He ought to be. He has been running for this seat for well over 4 years now. However, he is still running with the same chip on his shoulder attitude. Like Kersteen, he apparently thinks nothing good has happened here lately, and that he is the only one who can get the City back on track. Bill, see note to Bob above.

District 7 provides probably the most competitive race. It didn't always look like it was going to be that way. Gershom Faulkner was clearly the candidate favored by the political establishment (of both parties). He had wrapped up the endorsement of just about every elected official on the planet. OK, it only seemed that way. Faulkner raised a prodigious amount of money early on. He also spent a prodigious amount of money early on. And then along came the Stonewall Democrats.

Actually, the night before the Stonewall Democrats meeting in August, came the CONA candidate forum. CONA (the Council of Neighborhood Organizations) took questions from the audience and presented them to the candidates through a moderator. All the candidates were asked if they would attend the St. Pete Pride Festival (one of the largest in the Southeast US). Gershom Faulkner said that he would probably not go, but he went on to say that he would ensure that no one in this city was discriminated against. His opponent, Wengay Newton, who claims not to be a politician, saw an opening and jumped all over it. Wengay said that he probably would go. However, he was no where in evidence a few weeks before when the Pride Festival was actually held.

The following night's events qualify Faulkner as a finalist in the stupidest political move of the year award. The Stonewall Dems, as do many organizations, sent the candidates a questionnaire and invited them to their meeting. Not surprisingly, the Stonewall Dem qustioned the candidates on their stand on a number of hot button gay issues, none of which were ever likely to be raised at the City Council level. Faulkner, like many socially conservative African Americans, apparently was not a supporter of the gay issues. So here is where Faulkner went all stupid on us. He filled out the questionaire with all the "wrong" answers and then went to their meeting.

A more seasoned candidate, or one who was listening to better political advice, would have not answered the questionnaire, but would have responded with a letter employing many non discriminatory platitudes, and regretting that a schedule conflict precluded him from being able to attend the meeting. But Faulkner, a hard headed Marine if there ever was one, charged straight into the lions den. And he got his ass kicked. Not only that, he enraged the Stonewall Dems President, who put out an email calling Faulkner a "homophobe". Note to Stonewall Dem President: my dictionary says a hompophobe has an unreasoning fear of homosexuals. I would say Faulkner was probably too stupid to be scared of you, because he came to your f-ing meeting, moron. He just doesn't believe in your issues. As does about half the country. That doesn't make him a demon. What it makes him is not the guy who is going to champion your issues. But then you have plenty of those already.

So Faulkner, who had been cruising along as a shoo in for election, had now angered a vocal but politically weak constituency. Two State Representatives pulled their endorsements of Faulkner. But Faulkner appeared unruffled. He reached out behind the scenes to leaders in the St. Pete gay community for private conversations. But he underwent no conversion.

However, his opponent was in no position to worry him. What little money he was raising, Wengay Newton, who looks like he hasn't missed many meals, was spending on meals at Burger King and MacDonalds. About this time, though, the insurgent candidates seemed to sense their affinity for one another. Newton seemed to benefit from that and his long, rambling discourses became somewhat more focused long rambling discourses. The self proclaimed non politician began feeling his feet come under him on the campaign trail, exactly as a good politician eventually does. He used humor to good effect, both pointed at himself and his opponent. However, he, like the other insurgents believed that everything the city had done should be blown up so they could remake the City in their own image, whatever that is.

Newton began distorting information he found in the newspaper as facilely as the best politicians seem to do. Again, pretty good for a non politician. Newton's favorite distortion involved a cost comparison for lawn mowing in parks. Seems the County pays a lot less than the City to mow lawns in parks. And that seemed strange because the County has much more acreage of parks than the city does. However, what was not mentioned by Newton is that much of the County's park land is kept in a natural state which does not require mowing. Conversely, most of the City's park land is in active parks that do require mowing. Newton either knew that and chose not to disclose that salient fact or he didn't know. If he knew, he was playing politics with the truth. If he didn't know, he should have done his homework, something he would need to do on the Council.

The final fiasco in this district race came in the form of a newspaper endorsement. Seems Gershom Faulkner had some minor run ins with the law. Well not entirely minor, he did get arrested a few times. A few is more than one, but less than many. There is some dispute about the number of "arrests". In any event, two of the possibly three arrests were for traffic infractions, so maybe they are minor after all. This information came to the public when the St. Petersburg Times endorsed Fulkner. Perhaps in an effort to make up for their past non disclosures, the Times felt compelled to disclose information supplied to them by Faulkner about his past. None of these incidents is recent and Faulkner has since married, and become a Deacon in his church. None of that stopped Newton from beginning to refer to himself as the candidate who hadn't been arrested. Again, that's just exactly the way a politician handles a situation like that. He doesn't talk about the other guy's arrests. He just says nothing like that ever happened to him. Just what a politician would do.

In my humble opinion, things have been going fairly well in St. Petersburg up until lately. While I personally disagree with Mayor Baker on any number of issues, and I don't much appreciate the "Stealth Mayor" approach, this City has been moving forward. Much, much more has been done right than has been done wrong. And now with the shameful shenanigans of the Republican politicians in Tallahassee, this City is going to be facing some difficult challenges in the next few years.

It is therefore more important than usual that well qualified people with the proper temperament sit on the City council. The insurgents do not fit that bill. They do not show the temperament that will be needed to deal successfully with the challenges this City is sure to face.

We will be winners in this City if we re elect Jamie Bennett and Herb Polson. And we will be winners if we elect Ed Monatanari and Gershom Faulkner. If we don't, someday soon we'll be wishing we had.