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Tuesday's Big Winner Wasn't Even On Ballot

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By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 31, 2008

The breathless electorate of Florida's 9th Congressional District can rest easy tonight. Anita de Palma has bestowed her unequivocal endorsement on Bill Mitchell, her former rival and, as of Tuesday, the Democrats' nominee to take on incumbent Gus Bilirakis.

As if the committee to re-elect Bilirakis didn't have enough to celebrate already. Mitchell, the 61-year-old Tampa lawyer driven to distraction by images of conspiracy among America's Big Oil companies, likely topped the list of available Democrats Gus would have chosen as his general election opponent.

Now comes, from the extreme, far, remote, distant moonbat left, de Palma's nod, which is like handing a banjo to a tarpon. His gracious acceptance was yet another windfall for Bilirakis: "I look forward to working with Anita on policy issues."

Would that include de Palma's radical and wacky call to secure the future of Social Security by hammering employers (doubling their "contributions") and investors (doubling taxes on dividends and capital gains) while turning it into a welfare entitlement by removing the limits on wages subject to payroll taxes?

Or does he embrace de Palma's ideas about making the federal government the managing partner in America's energy future, dumping market-driven solutions in favor of, among other things, extra-constitutional coercion? Hydrogen and/or ethanol pumps at every corporate-owned and -operated fueling station by 2018?

Mitchell's own responses to the concerns of Americans in general and Florida's District 9 residents in particular lack the clarifying specificity detailed on de Palma's Web site, but the gist of his remarks online and for publication suggest he occupies common ground.

"Universal" health care. Federal price-setting for pharmaceuticals. No new areas opened to drilling for domestic deposits of oil and natural gas, allowing ecological alarmism to trump national economic well-being and safety. No "price gouging" by oil companies. (Never mind that every congressional investigation - and they have been numerous - has concluded that no such conspiracy to gouge exists.) Ending "excess" corporate profits. Well. Can't wait to see what Congress comes up with as the legal definition of "excess," but you can bet it won't be good for the bottom line of your 401(k). Luckily, Mitchell opposes allowing you to oversee the investment of your payroll taxes.

In short, Mitchell's vagueness is inadequate camouflage for an agenda that is classically collectivist while being hostile to employers, economic growth and national security. Even the tepid Bilirakis beats that platform in his sleep.

And to think national Democrats were once tantalized by the notion of stealing this long-held Republican seat. But that was when they envisioned John Dicks, the former Plant City mayor running as a moderate/conservative Blue Dog Democrat, as Bilirakis' opponent.

In June, identifying the District 9 race as an emerging battleground, Washington Democrats waxed admiringly about Dicks as one of those candidates who "have generated excitement in their districts for their campaigns of change."

Instead, Bilirakis gets Mitchell, whom those same national leaders asked to step aside two years ago to give Phyllis Busansky - a veteran politician regarded as the stronger rival - a clear shot. Bringing policy positions mirroring Mitchell's to the campaign, Busansky was summarily drubbed, losing by 12 points at the same time GOP losses were being measured in the dozens.

Bilirakis has since seen the light on domestic energy exploration and exploitation, even visiting the off-limits Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. He has solidified his position, much as his predecessor/father did as a friend of military veterans, and is a co-sponsor of the FairTax, a proposed national sales tax that would end all taxes on income. If anything, in a district that stretches like a serpent from Aripeka to FishHawk Ranch, Bilirakis has become more formidable in the face of a traditional liberal challenge.

Dicks (full disclosure: my fraternity big brother at the University of Florida chapter of Sigma Chi) is anything but a traditional liberal. Yes, some of his thoughts are plain populist hoo-hah (oil speculators: bad; no deep-water drilling in the Gulf; subsidies for uneconomical energy alternatives). But his thoughts on health care (market-driven reforms), tax policy (credits for middle-income earners, lower rates on capital gains and dividends) and immigration (border security, fines for illegals hoping to become documented) could have found bipartisan support.

But, no. Despite carrying the Hillsborough and Pinellas portions of No. 9, Dicks ran a dispiriting, astonishing third in Pasco, and Mitchell - the choice of just more than one in every three district Democrats - prevailed, days after dropping the Mother of All Negative bombs on the campaign: a merit-challenged 20-year-old claim of financial misfeasance.

In truth, Dicks could have - should have - inoculated himself about this tale resurfacing by re-introducing it himself months ago, instead of chasing it on the fly on the weekend before election day. But he didn't, and now Mitchell goes into the general election campaign wearing the bib of defendant in a libel suit. Ah, politics.

The good news for This Space is it doesn't have to ask its Big Brother why a vote for him isn't a vote for the icky, nonsensical Nancy Pelosi. The good news for Gus Bilirakis was evident in the sound of popping corks echoing across the Tarpon Springs sponge docks late Tuesday night.

How 'bout that? Turns out the primary's biggest winner wasn't even on the ballot.

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

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