TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Nicolette's Prints Are On Taylor's Maneuver

ADVERTISEMENT

By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 26, 2008

Let us stipulate that what John Taylor (whoever he is) did was bad form. His filing - at nearly the last instant - as a write-in candidate in the race for Pasco's District 1 county commission seat, turned what otherwise would have been an early general election race into a traditional closed primary.

Yes, it was a low-down thing to do. It was like ordering a double steal in the bottom of the eighth with a seven-run lead. It was like sticking the first team defense back on the field in the last minute of a 40-point blowout to preserve the opponent's goose egg.

It was like pressuring a new-car buyer to spring for undercoating, or pushing a loan-seeker to take out a credit-life policy. It was like hogging the passing lane, stiffing a good waitress on a tip, slurping soup from a bowl, taking a cell phone call in the middle of Act I of "The Producers."

Breathtaking in its nakedness and appalling in its intent, the only redeeming quality of Taylor's late-breaking, utterly lame intrusion is its utter legality. This comprises small compensation.

Blessed By Both Major Parties

Exploiting a loophole festering from a 1998 state constitutional revision of dubious merit - when all candidates for an office come from the same party, the primary election shall be open to all voters - Taylor slammed the door on roughly 60 percent of the Pasco electorate. That he could do so while exercising absolutely minimal effort (fill out a couple of forms, claim residency in the district) establishes Taylor as a chutzpah master.

But the trail of blame leads to Tallahassee. That's where the idea of opening primaries originated. That's also where they cooked up the write-in rider.

The first dangles hope to outsiders that they will have a voice in intra-party contests, dissuading out-of-power parties from developing viable candidates of their own. The second frequently is used to restore pre-1998 order.

Proper fumigation would require either returning to the old rules - the preferred solution, plainly - or amending what prevails so only outlier candidates who qualify traditionally, through petition or fee, can close an otherwise open primary. The Legislature's failure to push for either remedy suggests both major parties are content with a future beset by John Taylors.

Who Done It?

Which leaves us to sort out the rascals. Well. Taylor's gambit bears the fingerprints of John Nicolette, the Pasco GOP operative challenging two-term incumbent Ted Schrader, whose lukewarm Republicanism rankles party activists.

Public records indicate a handful of links between Taylor and Nicolette; moreover, in the first few days after he filed papers with the elections office, Taylor's new "residence" - a taupe double-wide mobile home featuring a tire swing and multiple no-trespassing and beware-of-dog signs on the frontier between Wesley Chapel and San Antonio - bore a Nicolette campaign sign.

The sign has since been removed, but the aroma adheres.

Most likely, Nicolette's best shot at unseating Schrader lies in controlling the size and composition of the electorate. But Republicans don't like bad sports any more than the other 60 percent.

Come Aug. 27, primary election day plus one, John Nicolette will look back on June 19 - the day John Taylor pitched his shutout - as the day he lost the campaign.

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

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT