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He Won't Fix What Isn't Broken

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: December 21, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - That abrupt, cool breeze that gently caressed Pasco County recently, wafting west to east and improbably back again, is the relief in some politically charged quarters that official Republican Party business will no longer reside on Bill Bunting's daily to-do list.

After all, say Bunting's critics, who have been laid down over the years like so much geologic strata designating various ages of revulsion, the outgoing chief of the Pasco Republican Executive Committee was abrasive, quick to take offense, abrasive, slender in his scope of interests, stubborn and, well, did we mention abrasive?

Much (but certainly not all) of this yelping came from members of, or those sympathetic to, Pasco Democrats. Or, as they were known in the period BB - before Bunting - Pasco's majority party. Bunting frequently was vilified in coffeehouses and editorial pages for his fun-'n'-gun advocacy of Reaganesque Republicanism: sunny and unapologetic conservatism that trumpets individual rights and responsibilities, small government and minimal taxation.

So Bunting of Beacon Woods warred against the Penny for Pasco sales tax increase. Because government is a famously inefficient spender, the increase's merit was genuinely arguable. And the core supporters will live in infamy for shabbily moving the referendum from the 2004 general election, where all tax referendums should stand, to the Democratic presidential preference primary.

So he subsequently recruited a candidate to oppose P4P's citizen spokesman in a nonparty school board race. So? As former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O'Neill famously said, "Politics ain't beanbag."

Where's Your Square?

Occasionally, Bunting's sandpapery exuberance in the cause of conservatism shocked even those on his side of the aisle. After all, Bill's World is a patchwork of tile squares, like a kitchen floor, and you were either on the square, or you were not on the square. Straddling was unacceptable.

Bunting's relentless precision prompted many among the local GOP to recoil. The chief regarded them as Republicans Content to Return to Minority Status.

Listen, once upon a 1960s dynasty, it wasn't just the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys who considered Vince Lombardi harsh and abrasive. So did the Green Bay Packers, the very players he coached. "He treats us all the same," said one future hall-of-fame lineman, "like dogs."

Then Lombardi left, and it was 29 years before the Packers made it back to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the game's winners took home a trophy named for that selfsame singular motivator. (And only the devout Packer fan recalls the name of Lombardi's successor in Green Bay, which, for the record, was Phil Bengtson.)

Eyes On Change

So, change - that word again - is coming, borne on the shoulders of east Pasco businessman Randy Maggard, the youth-league-coaching, payroll-meeting, church-attending personification of small-government Republicanism.

Maggard, Bunting's junior by a generation, is more rounded in form and accent, but his gentle drawl and absence from the gym shouldn't be misunderstood for softness. Maggard adheres to a philosophy of the five Fs: family, faith, freedom, fiscal discipline and firearms. It's Bunting's (and Reagan's) agenda wrapped in homespun cotton.

Like cotton, his toughness may be underestimated. It shouldn't be. If Maggard is looked on as part conciliator, he's also part Terminator: A titanium plate, affixed with 29 screws, holds the right side of his face together, a souvenir from a batting practice injury that serves as a lesson about baseball, politics and life.

Prepping the Dade City Senior League (15- and 16-year-olds) team he managed and on which his son Lee played for the league championship, Maggard had delivered a pitch and was reaching for another ball when a comebacker line drive shattered his cheekbone.

"Burkes Park, May 4, 2001, about 9:30 p.m. Some things you never forget," Maggard says. He struggled to his feet, plopped back down and uttered these immortal words: "I don't feel so good."

Hard-won lessons are the ones that stick, however, and what Maggard learned that night applies across multiple platforms: Never take your eye off the ball. As he assumes the leadership post made infamously (and enviably) successful by Bunting, Maggard scarcely needs reminding.

But when he does, all Maggard needs to do is tap that bionic foundation, a convenient prompt for the consequences of an unfocused gaze. To repeat, those ain't beanbags. And ducking is not an option.

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

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