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'Mr. Republican' Led Party's Line

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By GARY R. MORMINO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 25, 2008

TAMPA - Before the 1940s, Republicans in Florida were as rare as cold fronts in August.

Bitterness over the Union victory in the Civil War and the federal yoke imposed during Reconstruction guaranteed nearly a century of white Democratic Party domination in Florida. In case citizens had any doubt, voters were instructed to "vote as you shot."

These die-hards proudly called themselves Yellow Dog Democrats - so defiantly Democratic that they would sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.

In 1942, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans statewide by a margin of 17 to 1. In Hillsborough County, it was 90 to 1. When asked the chances of future Republican success in Florida, a Baptist preacher intoned, "Florida will turn Republican when Hell goes Democrat!"

And, in those days, if a Tampa city election were too close, some loyal Democratic residents of the city's cemeteries might be counted on to vote. Roland Manteiga, the late editor of La Gaceta, often joked that he wanted to be buried in Tampa so he could remain active in the Democratic Party.

But World War II transformed America, and with it the destinies of the Sunshine State and its politics. Two million Americans trained for the war in Florida, and many vowed to return someday, and would - as tourists, transplants and retirees.

Young veterans and senior citizens poured into Pinellas County, its population climbing from 90,000 in 1940 to 160,000 a decade later. More than a few newcomers brought their Republican Party loyalties with them.

Their candidate soon stepped up. In November 1954, Tampa Bay area voters sent William Cato Cramer to Congress. He became the first Florida Republican since 1882 to hold such office and the person most responsible for the birth of the modern Republican Party in Florida.

Cramer, born in Denver in 1922, came to Pinellas County as a boy. He graduated from St. Petersburg High School and St. Petersburg Junior College and served in the Navy during World War II, using the GI Bill to put himself through the University of North Carolina and Harvard Law School.

The Republican revolution had already begun when Cramer returned to St. Petersburg following law school. Pinellas Republicans swept the county elections in 1948, a sign of future successes.

In 1950, voters elected Cramer to the Florida Legislature. So few of his party members were in the Legislature that Democrats joked that the Republican caucus was held in a phone booth.

In 1952, Cramer audaciously challenged incumbent Democrat Courtney W. Campbell for the Bay area's congressional seat and lost. But in 1954, he won. The handsome and energetic Cramer was a whirling dervish, speaking to every imaginable group and constituency.

Congressman Bob "He-Coon" Sikes realized early that this traditionally safe Democratic seat in the Tampa Bay area was in jeopardy. Sikes traveled from Crestview in the Florida Panhandle to the Bay area in an effort to bolster the campaign of Campbell, the namesake of the roadway over Tampa Bay.

The "He-Coon" realized Campbell was no match for the charming challenger. He later wrote, "Courtney couldn't cope with the articulate Cramer on the platform. His speeches were wooden and uninteresting. I attempted to help him and even wrote out some short messages. ... I was dismayed when I heard him delivering them. He sounded like a third-grader struggling through a reading assignment."

A bitter Campbell, who died in 1971, blamed the newfangled medium of television for his defeat. "You've got to have a television personality to win in politics these days." He complained female voters liked Cramer's "face and manner."

Twelve years later, Floridians elected Republican Claude Kirk governor, an emphatic statement that Florida was becoming a two-party state.

In 1967, the Tampa Tribune spoofed Cramer's role in party politics. "In the beginning there was the party, and the party was with Bill Cramer, and the party was Bill Cramer."

By the time of his death in October 2003, Florida Republicans had conferred the title "Mr. Republican" upon Cramer.

Today, the governor, all but one cabinet member and both legislative bodies belong to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. In Florida politics, however, nothing is forever.

Gary R. Mormino is the director of the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He holds the Frank E. Duckwall professorship in Florida Studies.

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