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.

Pinellas DEC Election Results

Last night, before heading off to the the Pinellas Democratic Executive Committee's biennial elections, I unleashed a little rant. The question at issue was whether Ed Helm, the erstwhile Chair of the Pinellas Democratic Party should be given a new, full two year term, or whether four months was more than enough for Mr. Ed.

For those of you who did not see the front page of the Metro section in the St. Petersburg Times on December 14th, here's a news flash:

Democrats oust Helm as leader

When it was announced that Toni Molinaro of St. Petersburg, who teaches English as a second language in the Hillsborough County school system, had bested Helm 142 votes to 72, her supporters cheered and chanted her name.

Here's a great big shout out to the following Democratic elected officials who showed up to support Toni Molinaro:

State Sen. Charlie Justice, State Rep. Bill Heller, State Rep. Janet Long, Pinellas County School Board Member Linda Lerner, and Pinellas County Commissioners Calvin Harris and Ken Welch. State Rep. Rick Kriseman couldn't attend, but he had already signed the letter also signed by these other Democratic elected officials as well in support of Toni Molinaro.

This was an unprecedented show of support by Democratic elected officials in Pinellas County for a Party Chair candidate. Every Democrat in Pinellas County should thank these elected officials for getting behind Toni Molinaro and the need for a change. These officials supported us in our time of need. We now need to make sure that we support them. We also need to make sure that we stay in close contact and consultation with these elected officials. We will all benefit from that.

To Toni and her team of Vice Chair Arlin Briley, Secretary Chris Piccone, Treasurer Norma Roberts and Sergeant at Arms Ed Fink, Congratulations.

To all you Democrats who helped bring this change about, THANK YOU and congratulations to you as well.

OK, so celebrate for a day or two. When that is over, let's get going to make the changes that we need to make. Let's get more Democrats involved in the Party. Let's get ready to elect a Democratic President in 2008, to increase the number of Democratic Members of Congress in Florida, to increase the number of Democrats in our Counties' State legislative delegation, to get more Democrats on the County Commission and to finally get a Democrat elected to a County Constitutional Office.

If we want to accomplish all of this, the time to start is now.

Pinellas DEC Elections Preview

Well, tonight's the night. Do we get rid of Ed Helm tonight as DEC Chair or don't we? Toni Molinaro is primed and ready to go. In a few hours from now we should know.

This should not even be a close question. Ed Helm has done nothing but divide this party and lose elections since he has become Chair. He became involved in Democratic Primaries (against Party rules), and lost every one of those elections. He was soundly outvoted about giving the Pinellas County YD's the money that was budgeted for them, and he has still refused to disburse the funds.

Oh, wait, I was wrong. Ed Helm has done something other than be divisive. He has brought the Party into disrepute. One need only look at the St. Pete Times editorial page to see that.

And to top it all off, we now have Ed Helm, the Mayoral candidate who could not win a single precinct as our Party Chair.

Oh, please, oh please. If there is a God, please spare us from this madman.

Down below is something I wrote in an earlier post about the Pinellas Democratic Party under Helm. Pray for us.

The Pinellas Democratic Party, well, what can you really say about them? The local Dems have been a complete horror show since July when Chair Carrie Wadlinger resigned. She was succeeded by Ed Helm. That's when the fun really began. To say that Helm has been divisive is a massive understatement. In a year that Democrats seemed to have everything going for them, Helm has made the local Democratic Party more fun than a three ring circus. For everybody but members of the Pinellas Democratic Party, that is. Helm decided to violate Florida Democratic Party rules by endorsing his own slate of candidates in the September 5th Primary. Showing what an adept politician Helm really is, every one of his candidates lost in the primary. Helm stirred things up during the primary by suggesting that the winning candidates were not "real" Democrats, whatever those are.There will be an election of officers for the Pinellas Democratic Party on December 13th. Former Party Webmaster Tony Molinaro, who Helm unceremoniously fired in the middle of the general election campaign, will be running for Chair against Ed Helm. The Pinellas Party meetings since Helm took over as Chair have been real donnybrooks. The election meeting on December 13th should be no different. Look for a Credentials fight before the voting begins. I say it is even money whether or not a vote will even be held on the 13th. Stay tuned. We'll be sure to have more on that later.