Sure, we’re still three years out, but wherever there’s a lame-duck office-holder, there’s successor speculation.
In the case of Tampa, where Mayor Pam Iorio is in her second — and final — term, there’s no lack of could-be contenders for City Hall 2011. Any list would surely include incumbent City Council members, most of whom have been taken aback by an Administration they consider communications challenged and high-handed. Among the more prominent could-be’s are the respected tandem of John Dingfelder and Linda Saul-Sena.
In that mayoral context, it’s instructive to note what the last month has wrought.
Dingfelder morphed into John Edwards channeling William Jennings Bryant in his defense of minority workers targeted for job loss through privatization. It looked like populist grandstanding to everybody but those minority workers, many from East Tampa. And it inspired the less-than-nuanced signage: “No justice, no peace.”
Saul-Sena, whose normal mien is that of cultural and environmental elder, turned embarrassingly juvenile in her one-woman protest-snit of IKEA’s light-green agenda. That it was, in effect, more environmental foe than friend. And that, if it didn’t re-think its Adamo Drive site plan, she would go YouTubing to humiliate it. All this, despite the fact that the Council had previously signed off on IKEA’s store plans by a 6-1 vote.
So, what this last month has wrought is this:
South Tampa’s Dingfelder can say he’s not just a “neighborhood” guy to the affluent with developer and zoning issues, but that he also cares about the little guy in East Tampa. It will resonate.
Saul-Sena’s YouRube behavior will still haunt her. One trial balloon deflated.