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Iorio's Challenge Is To Go To The Next Level

Tribune file photo by JAY CONNER

Pam Iorio would be "the dominant political figure in the race in the Interstate 4 corridor area," said Bob Buckhorn, a veteran Democratic activist and former Tampa City Council member.

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By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 28, 2009

Updated: 01/28/2009 04:40 pm

TAMPA - Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who says she's considering running for the U.S. Senate, is contemplating a tough political transition: Building from a local political base to a statewide campaign in one of the nation's largest states.

Iorio can count on some advantages in that task, including a reputation for nonpartisan executive experience.

But some of her advantages will also be disadvantages.

A nonpartisan, apolitical reputation could help her in a general election, for example. But it also means she has little history with influential party activists.

Her base in the Tampa Bay area, the state's largest media market and political fulcrum, could help in a general election – but maybe not in a Democratic primary, where most of the money and votes would come from South Florida.

The option may have become even more attractive to Iorio today when two of the best-known potential candidates, Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum and Democratic U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd of Monticello both announced they won't run.

McCollum was the only person considered a likely candidate on either side who has already run and won a statewide race; Boyd would have competed for votes of moderate and non-South Florida Democrats.

"I think she has a pretty even shot with the rest of the candidates," said University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus. "There will be a lot of candidates in the race, and as a woman she'll do well in a Democratic primary."

The key issue for Iorio, MacManus said, "is whether she can raise the money" in a state where a statewide campaign can cost $30 million.

"That's a key for all of them, because they're regional candidates."

By comparison, Iorio spent about $475,000 on her 2003 mayor's race.

Despite the difficulty of making the move, the circumstances make this race ideal for the Tampa mayor:

• The 2010 Senate election will occur just months before Iorio would leave office anyway, in spring 2011. Recent changes in the state's resign-to-run law mean she wouldn't have to leave office for the campaign unless, and until, she chose to – possibly after the primary, for example.

• The best-known potential candidates in both parties – Democrat Alex Sink and Republican Jeb Bush – have said they won't run, and Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is considered unlikely to jump to the Senate. That means Iorio won't be a David challenging a political Goliath.

• An open Senate seat – one with no incumbent running for re-election – is a rare political plum that comes along no more than once every 20 years or so in any state. An open seat with no statewide officeholder running in her own party is even more rare.

• Two prominent Miami-area Democrats who have already announced in the race – U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and state Sen. Dan Gelber – may split up the huge Southeast Florida Democratic voting bloc with its large black and Jewish contingents – a bloc that often makes it tough for a non-South Florida Democrat to win a primary.

Iorio, a former Hillsborough County commissioner and elections supervisor, has never run for office outside Hillsborough County. She received some statewide attention as county elections chief during the 2000 presidential election recount and as Tampa mayor.

Neither Meek, nor Gelber has run statewide either – all are best known in their home turf, like Iorio.

Iorio would also be "the dominant political figure in the race in the Interstate 4 corridor area," said Bob Buckhorn, a veteran Democratic activist and former Tampa City Council member who ran against Iorio in the 2003 mayor's race.

"She also has a record of having run something" – city hall and the elections office. "That makes her a top-tier candidate out of the box," he said.

Buckhorn said Iorio's "apolitical" reputation will appeal to moderates and independents in a general election. The mayor's office is nonpartisan, and as elections supervisor, she had to work with all parties equally.

But, he added, "Without a statewide fundraising machine and contacts, you start out behind the candidates who have been toiling in the party vineyards for years."

Meek, for example, ran the 2002 statewide campaign for a constitutional amendment limiting school class sizes and headed John Kerry's Florida presidential campaign in 2004.

Gelber, a veteran state legislator and articulate spokesman for the Democratic take on state issues, was heavily involved in the controversy over the 2008 Florida Democratic presidential primary.

That made both well known to party activists.

Iorio, meanwhile, has avoided intense involvement in party politics. She endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary, for example, but wasn't heavily involved in his campaign or others.

"The best posture in a nonpartisan office is to operate in as nonpartisan a way as possible," she said in 2004 when asked why she wasn't involved in the Kerry campaign.

Gelber disputed the idea that two South Florida candidates would make the path easier for a Tampa Bay area candidate.

"People overestimate geography in these races," he said. "There will be people who vote for the person they know, but most of us aren't known that well and don't have a statewide identity like a Gov. Crist or Sen. [Bob] Graham.

"Pretty much everybody's at the same starting line," he said.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

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