One of the many reasons Mayor Bill Foster is trailing in the polls to Kathleen Ford is that he’s taking advice from my ol’ boss Jack Hebert. Hebert indeed is very creative, but has never fully grasped St. Petersburg politics.
Hebert’s ignorance of what goes on South of Ulmerton Boulevard is on full display in today’s Tampa Tribune, which had an article examining whether the black vote is the deciding factor in mayoral elections.
Hebert doesn’t believe that it is. “That has been an urban myth for any number of years,” Hebert said. “With over 20 percent of registered voters in the city in that area, it’s important; but I don’t subscribe to the fact that how that part of the city goes, so the election goes.”
Actually, how the black vote has gone is exactly how every election has gone since the city transitioned nearly twenty years ago to a strong-mayor form of government.
But is the relationship between the black vote and the outcome of mayoral elections correlative or causal?
In the article, it’s clear Hebert believes “the key to Foster’s victory was the trouncing he gave Ford in the northeast parts of the city, his old District 3 stomping ground from his time on the City Council. In precincts there, Foster beat Ford by a total of more than 1,500 votes, more than half of his overall winning margin of 2,530 votes.”
There’s no denying that Foster “trounced” Ford in the voter precincts of northeast St. Pete, but he also beat Ford in Midtown precincts by 1,578 votes, also more than half of his overall winning margin of 2,530 votes. And Midtown is nowhere near as populated as northeast St. Pete, nor as expensive to campaign in, so it’s fair to conclude that Foster received a bigger bang for his buck from whatever he spent in Midtown versus what he spent in the Old Northeast, Snell Isle, etc.
Fast-forward to 2013 and take those 1,578 votes away from Foster and put most of them in Ford’s column. At least that’s what ALL of the polling and anecdotal evidence predicts will happen. Suddenly, Foster’s 2,530 margin of victory is a 500-plus deficit. This means Foster has to beat Ford in northeast St. Pete by approximately 33% more than he did in 2009.
Does anyone think that’s going to happen? Does anyone believe Foster is more popular now than he was in 2009? Does anyone believe Ford is in worse political shape than she was in 2009?
Apparently, Jack Hebert does.
