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Black vote pivotal in mayoral race

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON

spthompson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 1, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG - In a window at Atwater's Cafeteria, a soul food restaurant on the city's predominantly black south side, there are campaign signs for both of the candidates competing in this week's mayoral race.

Eric "Cook 'E' Man" Atwater, the baker, likes Kathleen Ford. His brother, Michael Atwater, who owns the place and is the chef, prefers Bill Foster.

A house divided is not unusual when it comes to local politics. But in the Atwaters' case, it is also symbolic. For the past 16 years, no mayoral candidate has won the race without winning the vast majority of the black vote.

And now, two days before Tuesday's election, it's not clear whether either candidate has a lock on that demographic - or the city itself.

In the Sept. 1 primary, the only black candidate, Deveron Gibbons, who placed third and didn't quality for the runoff, won in 30 predominantly black precincts on the south side, netting 4,662 votes.

In those same precincts, Foster and Ford were neck and neck, with Ford winning 1,064 votes and Foster 921, according to the Web site for the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections.

"There was no great enthusiasm for either Ford or Foster in the black community and, since the primary, I don't think either one of these candidates has been terribly successful in building up enthusiasm in the black community for their candidacies," said Darryl Paulson, a retired University of South Florida politics professor who used to teach a course on St. Petersburg politics.

Similar, but different

On the surface, Foster, 46, and Ford, 52, seem indistinguishable. They are white former city council members who work as lawyers and live in nice houses in nice neighborhoods on the city's northeast side.

She's a partner in the Ford and Ford law firm with her husband. He's a partner in the Foster & Foster law firm with his father.

But the similarities end there.

Foster, a Baptist, thinks in the biblical account of creation, which he acknowledges discounts Darwinism, but doesn't think has anything to do with his ability to govern. During debates, Ford has poked at Foster for his religious beliefs, and stresses her enthusiasm for science, often by mentioning she once worked as a critical care nurse.

As for homosexuality, Ford, at a League of Women Voters debate last month, said, as mayor, she would attend the city's annual gay pride festival. Foster said he would not.

And then there are the issues.

Ford has taken a tough attitude when it comes to working with the Tampa Bay Rays toward a new baseball stadium, saying she would hold the owners to a contract that requires them to continue using Tropicana Field through 2027.

Foster's position is less confrontational.

"I think it's safe to say neither one of us wants a new baseball stadium," Foster said in an interview last week. "The difference is, I will treat the Rays as I will any other major economic driver and employment center to discuss their future. ... The difference is, I will sit down with them and discuss it and my opponent won't."

Foster says he is open to discussing ways of financing a new stadium, as long as the money is not coming from taxpayers. If it looks like that could be the case, he thinks the issue should be put before voters in a referendum.

But there's another difference between the two. At that same League of Women Voters debate, Ford said she didn't think the Rays would leave if they didn't get a new stadium by a certain deadline, while Foster said he thinks they would.

Plans for the reserves

The two also differ on the budget. Ford wants to dip into the city's substantial reserves and apply them to operating costs, at the same time reducing property taxes. Foster wants to stay away from those reserves, as they might be needed in the event of a disaster.

One of the ways Ford intends to balance the city's budget is by cutting staff at the upper echelons of the administration. Though she has mentioned no names, it is widely thought that one of the people who would go is Deputy Mayor Goliath Davis III, with whom Ford sparred when Davis was the city's first black police chief and Ford was a city council member.

Recently, Ford was referring to Davis - who is the highest-ranking black in the administration of outgoing Mayor Rick Baker - when she gave an interview to shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, and used the term, "HNIC." The acronym stands for 'head Negro in charge," although the 'n' can also refer to a racial epithet.

Cornel West, a prominent black scholar at Princeton University, "has a whole explanation about the H-N-I-C theory and I agree with that," Ford told Bubba during an hourlong interview. "We don't need one spokesperson for a group."

The remark prompted a protest by about 30 religious and civic leaders outside city hall, but an NAACP official backed Ford in an interview with WFLA, News Channel 8, saying her remarks were taken out of context. Still, Ford spent some time ducking reporters who were following the story, and her media availability has diminished considerably since the controversy.

Unlike Foster, she declined to be interviewed for this story, saying she was busy campaigning.

Foster, in his interview last week, vowed not to fire Davis, noting Davis' contributions to the city and his strong ties to the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus. Foster said, however, that Davis would not continue as a deputy mayor and that his new salary and position would be a matter of negotiation.

The "HNIC" remark hurt Ford's standing in the black community, according to Paulson, the retired professor. Foster was similarly wounded when he decided against being photographed with some black city employees for his campaign, Paulson said. Foster said he made that decision because he didn't want the employees to lose their jobs if he didn't win the race.

There is also a difference in the candidates' governing styles.

When she was on the city council, Ford was known as a tough, intelligent, but often brash inquisitor. On the campaign trail, she has counted among her successes her stance against what she describes as risky investments that eventually cost the city more than $15 million.

City Council member Wengay Newton, who is black, has endorsed Ford because, like her, he thinks there has been too much backroom wheeling and dealing under Baker's administration.

With Ford as mayor, "there would be more transparency and she would be more fiscally responsible with the taxpayers' money," said Newton.

But state Rep. Rick Kriseman, a St. Petersburg Democrat who once served on the city council with Ford, remembers that how she addressed issues often "left something to be desired."

"She had a tendency of being bombastic," Kriseman said. "Sometimes you need to have a bit of a filter."

Kriseman said Ford was bright and has her heart in the right place. But he said he hopes the way she goes about her job, if elected as mayor, is different "from a temperament standpoint" than the way she acted as a council member.

Foster doesn't highlight unpopular stances he took as council member that turned out to be correct.

Rather, he mentions spearheading an effort to preserve the historical attraction Sunken Gardens, finding money to buy electric stun guns for police officers and increasing the homestead exemption for men and women serving overseas in the armed forces.

Politically, Foster is seen as a continuance of the status quo, while Ford is seen as a force for change. Foster's endorsements include Baker, former Mayor David Fischer, and the majority of city council members who served with Ford.

"You're going to get more of an overhaul with a Ford mayoral position than you would with a Foster," Kriseman said.

As for who will win the crucial black vote, that remains to be seen.

Of the 32,263 registered black voters in St. Petersburg, 27,616, or 86 percent, are Democrats like Ford, and this is the first city election to take place since the country elected its first black president.

Eric Atwater, the baker at Atwater's Cafeteria, wanted Deveron Gibbons, the black mayoral candidate, to win. But, he said he had to make a choice. One reason he did was because Ford purchased a new product he fashioned after the national election: the Obama crunch cookie.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336.

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