Tater Salad in Every Bowl!

Over the years we've had our share of intellectually challenged candidates (Sarah Palin, e.g.), morally challenged (John Edwards, e.g.), and space cadets (our own Kathleen Ford).

On August 27, St Petersburg voters will choose from among five candidates which will be the next mayor or, if necessary, in a run-off.  Two of the five are inconsequential.  Two others, one of whom is the incumbent, have a legitimate shot.  The other, Kathleen, is providing the comic relief.

Kathleen is a lawyer by profession.  She graduated cum so-so from an obscure law school and went on to achieve low five-figure earnings for an even more obscure law firm.  No rainmaker, she.

This is Kathleen's third try for mayor.  Perhaps if she were running for, say, commissioner in Hillsborough County, she might win in a landslide.  Folks on that side of the Bay are prone to electing candidates who amuse rather than actually legislate.  But, alas, this is Pinellas County, the collective electoral IQ of which, at least, is in the three digits, and she is running for mayor rather than a council or commission, where, as one of several members, she could indulge her buffoonery without doing much harm.

Her campaign has already pretty much self-destructed.  There have been four candidate debates; she stiffed the first three.  She claimed scheduling conflicts; I believe she was afraid of coming across as the shallow, ill-informed flake that she is.  As her performance in head-to-head confrontations demonstrates, she was right to be concerned.

The following is representative of her comments made during a fourth debate.  I could have made some others up, but there's no way I could have topped hers.

By way of background, there is a section of St Pete called Midtown.  Don't ask me why.  It is not mid-St Pete; it is an area south and slightly west of downtown.  It is a mostly black area, less economically viable and more crime-riddled than the rest of the city.  Candidates, all three of whom are white, were asked what they have done to help this deprived area.

The mayor touted new businesses developed there during his watch.  His chief opponent talked about his efforts as a state legislator to expand voting rights.  Kathleen--I stress again that I'm not making this up--bragged about how she once made potato salad at a Midtown park.  That was not part of her answer; that was her answer.  Nothing was taken out of context.

At a "Tampa Bay Times" editorial board meeting, the candidates were asked to question one another.  Kathleen skipped over issues of import to the community and went straight for the kill.  Why, she asked one of her opponents, did he pass along to her other opponent a "politically incorrect" Krispy Kreme donut calendar when, some years ago, they were both on city council.  The issue, she pointed out, went to his character, which she compared to that of San Diego's mayor and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, both of whom are facing charges of sexual harassment.  Asked if she knew of any such accusations against her opponent, she replied, well, no.

When the topic of crime and security in Midtown came up, she pointed out that a fence had been erected around a Walgreens drugstore--in 1997.

I've already made up my mind for whom I will vote.  But I have to tell you, for a while I was torn.  There would be many more yuks with Kathleen in office than either of her opponents, but there is a difference between comedy and farce.  The potential for devastation with a Mayor Airhead far outweighs the guarantee of a few attendant laughs.

But I look forward to her fourth, fifth and maybe even sixth campaign.  After all, there's a lot to be said for comedy relief.