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Given All Facts, Voters Make Right Call

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 8, 2008

When it comes to elections, lyrics by songwriter Mark Knopfler might best describe the day-after feelings of those who believed passionately in their candidates or issues.

Sometimes you're the windshield

Sometimes you're the bug

Sometimes, in the offices of the Tribune's Editorial Board, we wonder if voters are paying attention.

Indeed, many in our community believed this election - at least, locally - was a referendum on the newspapers.

After all, the travails of Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough's problem-plagued supervisor of elections, had made the headlines with unflagging frequency.

He lost votes. He couldn't get his vote-counting machines to work properly. He lost ballot petitions. He didn't tell people when their precinct changed. He paid hush money to a former employee. He didn't pay his property taxes. He had a revolving door of employees.

He didn't pay his mortgage. He put cows on his land to lower his property taxes. He couldn't answer questions about how his office worked. He couldn't be found for 18 days. He was last in the state to buy a new voting system. He gave excessive raises. He failed to anticipate heavy voter turnout.

He used taxpayer money to promote himself. He had more complaints about his office than any supervisor in the state.

Yet as the newspaper went to press in the early morning hours after Election Day, Johnson held a seemingly insurmountable lead over his challenger, Phyllis Busansky, who had received our enthusiastic endorsement.

Sometimes you're the Louisville Slugger

Sometimes you're the ball

Sometimes, when we interview people who are running for office, we are excited by what we see, hear and learn. But sometimes we have to hold our noses during deliberations, disappointed by the caliber of some who put themselves out there.

Some people question why we make endorsements at all. They argue that the newspaper shouldn't take a stand, that we should simply deliver the news and leave it up to voters to decide.

But throughout our history, newspapers have had a voice, one that seeks to make sense of things and speak up for citizens in its community. Most newspapers maintain their opinion side as a separate division, deliberately so, to ensure its politics don't seep into its news coverage.

On the opinion side, we consider it a public service to tell you what we know and think about the candidates, a gauge by which you might test your own thinking. We put a lot of work into our endorsements, interviewing all the candidates and checking them out.

Our picks for president create the most buzz, but our opinions on down-ballot races - the judges, the referendums, the race for Soil and Water Conservation Board - have the most impact.

Or so it was this year. Our pick for president didn't win. But Richard Van Epps and Betty Jo Tompkins are headed back to the water conservation board.

But in a race that really raised our hackles, Johnson was winning at the end of the day. His Web site said that early votes and absentee ballots had been counted. As it turns out, they hadn't.

When the canvassing board made the final tally, citizens showed they had been paying attention to what the newspapers were reporting.

They kicked Buddy out.

Sometimes it all comes together

Sometimes you're gonna lose it all.

Politics is a full-contact sport. Defeat is hard to take. But democracy depends on an informed citizenry.

In Hillsborough's most talked-about race, democracy worked.

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