Conservative 'Friends' group targets abrasive Bunting

Column

There is much about the tale of Sheila Mann that cannot, or at least will not, be told, the authorities on the matter being unwilling to air family laundry on the public clothesline.

But without Mann, a spritely 77, there would be no Pasco Conservative Friends group, and without "the Friends"— as they call themselves — it's not likely Steve Simon would have challenged Bill Bunting as the county's elected Republican state committeeman.

All of which makes even the portion of the tale that's known worth telling.

Suffice it to say that for a while after she came to Sea Forest in New Port Richey from the Hamilton County office of U.S. Sen. Robert Taft, R-Ohio, Mann was among the most active of volunteers for the Pasco County Republican Party. And then all of a sudden she wasn't.

It happened over the Christmas holidays in 2009. "They just put me out of the office," Mann says. She volunteered at the headquarters shop in Hudson on Mondays and Fridays, doing whatever volunteers do. "I came home on a Friday, and Randy (Pasco GOP Chairman Maggard) called. He said they were closing the office and were going to get some things straightened out."

That suited Mann, who fretted over the fractious nature of GOP politics in Pasco. For reasons still unspecified, the office volunteers were not immune, dividing into a pair of bristling rivals. Was that what would be "straightened out?" Mann could only hope.

"We were strong where I came from," she says, "a real powerhouse. Looking back, there was so much more I could have done here, but my hands were tied."

Six weeks passed. "I go to (a Republican Executive Committee) meeting and Randy taps me on the shoulder. 'I need to talk to you.'"

Long story short, "They'd closed the office, changed the locks and" — after the New Year — "reopened. Randy said, 'Some people are no longer with us.' So I said, OK, what days do you want me there?

"Randy said, 'You'll have to discuss that with Bill.' Well, I wasn't about to. I didn't, and I haven't spoken to him (Bunting) since. I still don't know what happened, or why."

For their part, Maggard and Bunting say only that prudence dictated starting from scratch. None of the office staff before Christmas 2009 was invited back.

Despite appearances, the Pasco Conservative Friends bunch, with Mann as fraternity house mother, was not Newton's Third Law personified. In fact, it began as a spur-of-the-moment breakfast for a chum recovering from a long illness. Planned as a one-off, the event came off so splendidly, it spawned monthly gatherings. Since last spring, they've done dinners, lunches and a performance at the Richey-Suncoast Theatre.

Fun times being infectious, word spread. At a GOP event in Hernando County some months back, "People kept coming up to me," Mann says. "What's this Pasco Friends thing about? Can I join? I kept telling them: There's nothing to join. We're not a club."

All you have to do is show up. And show up they have, including, about six months ago, a pivotal moment: Richard Albrecht arrived with members of the East Pasco Conservative Club — a former Republican affiliate that sacrificed its state charter to conflicts with the Pasco REC — swelling the Friends' ranks and providing their middle name.

"We seemed to be a bunch of people who had been put out by someone," Mann says, hinting with Hogwarts darkness at he-who-must-not-be-named. "So many people have been crushed by this man, it just breaks my heart. But the 2012 election is very important to us, and Steve is our candidate."

Thursday, about four dozen Friends gathered in the clubhouse at the spacious, newly reopened and exquisitely appointed Quail Hollow Golf Course for grilled salmon steak salads, chicken sandwiches and meatloaf.

Then they bent to the main event, as Simon, in a tie and green tweed jacket, pitched his candidacy. Never mind that Simon, the former two-term county commissioner, sounded like he's running for Congress or the state Legislature, citing expertise in center-right policymaking, particularly regarding monetary policy, public debt and land-use laws.

Said Simon accusingly, "You think the other guy knows this stuff?"

Maybe not, but the other guy — Billdamort — does know about effective fundraising, organizing voter-registration drives, get-out-the-vote strategies and how to identify strong candidates.

Coincidentally, the things Bunting is good at — despite a prickly bedside manor — are the duties set forth for county committee-folks in the state party's charter. Not that such details matter to the Pasco Conservative Friends, the cheerfully disaffected who are united and strengthened through shared animus.

They're growing, and they have their candidate.

Ain't politics grand?