City Council Money Race

Now that the match ups have been settled for the St. Petersburg City Council elections this year, it is time to take a look at how the fund raising race is going. Money does not always equate success in local elections (see John McQueen in 2003, or Darden Rice in 2005), but it can provide some clues.

Leading the money race at this point is Gershom Faulkner running for Renee Flowers seat, District 7. Faulkner has raised an astounding $9,933 in the reporting period ending June 30th. Faulkner started raising money in earnest in April when he garnered over $2,000. Much of this money was raised from connections he had made in Tallahassee during his tenure as legislative assistant to State Rep. Frank Peterman. This money can also be viewed as the high regard Faulkner is held in by his Tallahassee contacts.

In May and June, Faulkner turned to his fund raising ability in St. Petersburg. Supporters such as State Senator Charlie Justice, and State Reps. Bill Heller and Rick Kriseman helped him raise the balance of the $ 9,900. The good news for Faulkner, he has yet to tap the fundraising assistance from many more of his high profile supporters including County Commissioners Ken Welch and Calvin Harris. Also, Rep. Frank Peterman has yet to tap his fundraising base for Faulkner.

The bad news for Gershom Faulkner? He spent $8,700 this past quarter. Much of this money went to his high profile Campaign Manager, Mitch Kates. However, a substantial portion also went into campaign literature most of which is still in inventory.

Wengay Newton, Faulkners' opponent in the general election in November has raised only $2,300 to date. Like Faulkner, he has already spent most of it. Newton has spent over $1,600 to date. This doesn't leave him with a lot of cash on hand either.

The other big money raiser is Ed Montanari. Montanari will be facing a September primary in the race for the Distrcit 3 seat being vacated by Bill Foster. Montanari raised $6,400, the vast majority of it in June alone. Unlike his counterparts in District 7, Montanari has spent only a paltry $743 to date. Most of that ($500) went for consulting fees to the Mallard Group in Clearwater. Montanari better hope Mallard will break out of the losing streak they went on in 2006.

In contrast, Montanaris' opponents have raised only $2,300 combined. Bill Dudley, who lost this race to Bill Foster in 2003 has raised only $819 to date. This despite the fact that he has been running for this seat for the past 4 years. Cathy Harrelson contributed the $500 that her campaign reported raising this period. She did not officially get into the race until June. The fourth person in this race, Cliff Gephart, has yet to file a campaign finance report.

In the District 1 race, Herb Poslon, appointed to the Council to replace Rick Kriseman, raised $2,625 this period. $1,000 came from the Polson family. Herb's wife wrote a $500 check to the campaign and Herb loaned $500. Polson spent a considerable amount already on campaign start up costs, but still had $1,300 cash remaining at the end of the reporting period. Polson's opponent, former Council Member Bob Kersteen, loaned his campaign $100. This is the total extent of Kersteen's fundraising so far.

In District 5, incumbent Jamie Bennett was waiting to see if he was going to draw an opponent. He has only loaned his campaign $500 so far. He wound up drawing two last minute opponents, Chris Kelly and Debra Woodard. Neither of the challengers have had to file a finance report as of yet.

Tampa Bay Week That Was

It was another interesting week in St. Petersburg, my hometown. It started off with an interesting and effective procedural move at the Pinellas Democratic Executive Committee meeting. And it ended with the mother of all Florida Pride Festivals in St. Petersburg. Then there was all kinds of other interesting things going on in between.

Tuesday night, Acting Pinellas DEC Chair Arlin Briley knew how to solve a knotty problem. Between the summertime doldrums and people showing up for meetings but refusing to sign in and be counted, the Pinellas DEC had been having trouble getting a quorum. This was holding up the election of new and appointed DEC members. Mr. Briley was acting in the place of DEC Chair, yes she had the baby, Toni Molinaro. Arlin was not going to let this situation go unchallenged. When told that the meeting was four members short of a quorum Briley knew just what to do. he called a special meeting of the DEC Board of directors right there and confirmed the new appointed and elected members present. All legal within the By Laws of the DEC. And it was all done before those not officially present knew what was going on. Good for you, Arlin.

Also at the DEC meeting Tuesday night, most Pinellas Democrats got to hear Reverend Charles Mackenzie for the first time. The former FL-13 Congressional primary candidate showed that hew will clearly be the best speech giver in the expected to be crowded HD-55 primary for the term limited Reverend Representative Frank Peterman's seat.

Wednesday was marked by John Edwards House Parties. Uber One Corps leader Liz France graciously made her Pass a Grille home available for the South Pinellas party. As a reward for her efforts, Liz got to ask Senator Edwards a question during the Q&A portion of the conference call. She gave him a real hot potato, asking his stance on Israeli - Palestinian issues. Senator Edwards handled it as flawlessly as if he had been playing softball with little Jack. We got the extra added bonus of speaking with Elizabeth Edwards before Senator Edwards got on the call. Thanks to Liz and all her hard work to make the house party a smashing success.

Friday was all about John Edwards again. This time Edwards was holding a Small Change for Big Change low dollar fund raiser at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo. Remind me again why anybody would want to put their candidate in a zoo? Actually the Saunders Pavillion at the Zoo is a terrific venue for this kind of thing. And the staff of the Lowry park Zoo treated us great. A real pleasure to work with.

Despite the heat and humidity and the fact that weather delayed Senator Edwards take off from Washington for two hours, the event was a smashing success. The Edwards advance team was a well oiled machine and the Lowry Park staff could not have been more helpful. Round that out with a terrific volunteer contingent headed up by the aforementioned Liz France, and you have the full recipe for success.

After getting wheels up in DC, Senator Edwards closed the time gap down as much as humanly possible. He took the stage at about 8:45 and had the crowd rocking for the next 20 minutes. As reported in all the news accounts, Senator Edwards led off with praise for his wife standing up to that vile hate monger, Ann Coulter. The Edwards campaign has taken a page right out of the Bill Clinton playbook. When the other guys hit you, you hit back harder.

Senator and Mrs. Edwards are doing just that. Edwards talked about his signature issues of fighting poverty and providing universal health care coverage. He did not waste the chance to tell the crowd of 300 plus that on his first day as President he would close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and that he would be getting our troops out of Iraq. Edwards closed his speech with a heartfelt plea for support from everyone in attendance.

Saturday was the 5th Annual St. Petersburg Pride Festival. The Festival began with the Promenade led by Grand Marshall Susan Stanton. Democratic Presidential Candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich was seen touring the Promenade assembly area. He had the oh so successful (not) political wannabe Ed Helm sniffing up his elbow the entire time. BTW, Helm was seen craning his neck for a better view of John Edwards on Friday night.

State Representative Bill Heller and St. Petersburg City Council Vice Chair Jamie Bennett participated in the Promenade, dispensing beads along the way. State Representative Rick Kiseman (he of the leg broken in the legislative softball game) had a table a the event. Bennet and fellow Council member Jeff Danner read the Festival Proclamation for the St. Petersburg City Council. This occurred immediately after the St. Petersburg Police arrested four pretend religious people from Georgia who violated the Festival's permit's sign requirements and would not comply with police requests to lose the offending signs.

Most of the estimated 70,000 who attended the Festival did not appear to be bothered by the imported hate mongers. I must say when we had to march past the bullhorns that were permitted during the promenade, my ears hurt when there were bullhorns blaring on both sides of our entrance onto the parade route. Turns out the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats have tougher ears than I do. Maybe mine are just older than most of theirs? Following the Pinellas Stonewalls were the Suncoast Stonewalls from south of the Skyway. Their banner holders came all the way from Venice for the event.

Perhaps the largest crowd in the Dem group were the green shirted supporters of Hillsborough County Commission candidate Brian Beckner. Beckner will be running county wide against incumbent Brian Blair in November of 2008. Beckner's campaign manager, Mitch Kates is also handling the race this November of Gershom Faulkner who is running for the St. Petersburg City Council seat being vacated by the termed out Rene Flowers.

Next week will be dominated by the Fourth of July celebrations throughout the Tampa Bay area. Hard to see how we could get more fireworks on Wednesday than we had this past week.