TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Commissioner Rides His Poll Position To Victory

ADVERTISEMENT

By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 29, 2008

DADE CITY - If your campaign has money for nothing else, advised John Long, once upon a time Pasco's pre-eminent political scholar, pay for polls. Commercials can be muted; mailers go in the trash. But a proper poll identifies what preys on folks' minds, and how a candidate's message can best harmonize with those concerns.

The proof of his pudding - never a loss at the ballot box and hailed in his (lamentably brief) retirement as a canny, astute and essential public servant - stayed with Ted Schrader from the moment Long extended the spoon.

So it was that Schrader, grandson of a six-term county commissioner hoping to earn his own third term, polled the daylights out of Pasco until about two weeks before Tuesday's primary, when his hired experts said, essentially, enough already. You're 10 points up, and on voters' key concern - property tax relief - you're bulletproof.

Ah, but what if the polls seem to contradict themselves? Suppose your polls say one thing - big win a-comin' - and leaks coming from your opponent's camp say it's a 2-point dash to the finish line? Then you follow the advice of your friend and political guru when he says, "You've got the whip hand; use it."

"I've never been involved in a race yet ... that we didn't go in thinking we weren't going to lose," says Allen Altman, the school board member, Penny for Pasco architect and aforementioned sage. "That's why we continued to work until 7 o'clock Tuesday evening" when the polls closed.

An 'Unflappable Person'

Ultimately, Schrader's pulse-takers proved staggeringly accurate. The incumbent coasted home over a "humbled" - the challenger's term - John Nicolette, the Tampa firefighter whose campaign of disinformation, name-calling, character assassination and chicanery cost plenty, but failed to impress.

"To his credit, Ted is the most unflappable person I've ever known," Altman says.

When then-Commissioner Sylvia Young launched a scurrilous, distorted charge involving real estate shenanigans late in Schrader's first campaign for countywide office in 1996, Altman spat nails. He wanted to hit back, hard. Sharing the cab of Schrader's pickup, sailing east toward home on State Road 52, the candidate spoke instead of his lode star.

"What's right is right," Schrader said, "and what's wrong is wrong. I'll speak the truth and live with the consequences."

Young buried him, but though thoroughly schooled by the veteran politician, Schrader neither whimpered nor changed course. He'd run for the seat again, he said, but only when Young retired. Four years later, he ascended to the boardroom on his terms.

Tabulate This

Now, having endured a barrage of nonsensical tax/spend, rubber-stamp GOP-come-lately rantings from a rival who never quite made the case for himself, Schrader is back for another four years of alliance brokering, legacy building and truth-telling.

Or, as County Administrator John Gallagher greeted him Wednesday, "Welcome back to the misery and the pain." Schrader shrugs, Gallagher's ruefulness unshared.

Volunteering for this rough-and-tumble duty means looking past the competing factions and those who would torture your record for political gain toward well-ordered vistas called Longleaf, Connerton, Bella Vista and Pasadena Hills - each adding value to Pasco. Negotiating in good faith with the sheriff for scarce resources. Seeing new fire stations erupt from vacant lots, bringing new levels of safety to remote outposts.

And doing it all with the lid slammed shut on millage rates.

Promises made, promises kept. You don't need a pollster to figure out why that's a winning concept.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT