Although Mayor Bill Foster and his two top challengers, Kathleen Ford and Rick Kriseman, have been campaigning for months, there was an electricity in the air last night at Suncoast Hospice in St. Petersburg last night as the first debate between the Big 3 candidates took place (two other candidates who qualified, Anthony Cates and Paul Congemi, did not participate).
There were plenty of interesting moments during the two-hour forum, but none more intense than the back-to-back bashing of Mayor Foster by former NAACP chair Ray Tampa and former police chief Goliath Davis, who both accused the incumbent of reaping the benefits of the work done before him by his predecessor, Rick Baker.
Kathleen Ford message revolved around a few main themes: strong neighborhoods, her work against voter suppression and of course her unflagging opposition to the Lens design. That opposition has put her right along Kriseman and Foster in the polls, and last night she even argued in support of maintaining the inverted pyramid structure, something that has never seriously been discussed as an option.
Kriseman laid out some of the themes that he has previously introduced in his campaign, and will undoubtedly be more pronounced over the next two months - that the city lacks strong leadership, and he is the man who can bring that back to City Hall. "I'm someone who's willing to take a position and lead," he said at one point.
Mayor Foster at times appeared as the Happy Warrior, boasting at one point that the city is "just blowing up with excitement." He pushed back strongly to any criticism on....well, an assorted amount of things.
If we have a chance, we'll put up a post later today on some of the best lines from last night's event. We'll have more on this debate and the early state of the mayoral campaign in our piece in next week's CL that will come out before the 4th of July.
Late during last night's debate Bill Foster mentioned how one measure of how the quality of the city had improved under his watch was that homelessness had yet to be mentioned. No, that's been the province of Tampa politicians. If you thought that wrenching debate in 2010 and 2011 was over, you were wrong.
Yesterday the City Council passed (on first reading) measures that would allow officers to detain aggressive panhandlers in certain parts of downtown and Ybor City, but supposedly only if there's a facility to send them to. But as Councilwoman Mary Mulhern asked, does the city even have such facilities available at this time?
The goal for the Gang of 8 in the U.S. Senate was to pass an immigration bill by the 4th of July, and they accomplished that with a week to spare. But will Marco Rubio survive the wrath he's incurred amongst his Tea Party base? The Florida Senator dug deep in a speech given shortly before the 69-29 vote.
And in our new issue celebrating Gay Pride weekend, please check out our profiles on Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner and St. Pete City Council candidate Amy Foster.