In Monroe County, Change Is A Dirty Word

[Note from the editor:  In case you missed Dr. Murray’s article last week [which was inadvertently posted late last Friday – my bad] … here it is again… No one pays attention to School District affairs like Dr. Murray…]

Change is a dirty word in Monroe County.  In last week’s election, every incumbent save one was returned to office.  And the incumbent turned out was a judge in the midst of a tawdry personal scandal who still managed to appeal to nearly 4,000 voters or 23% of the electorate.  The only new face to win was in the District 1 School Board race where Bobby “King Conch” Highsmith bested outspoken reformer Stu Kessler and incipient change agent Warren Leamard in a battle for an open seat.

As I made my way into the auditorium at Harvey Government Center election night, two things immediately struck me.  First was the small size of the crowd, a fraction of two years ago.  Second, there was a decided tension in the air as hardly anyone was speaking to anyone else, even on their cell phones.

On a positive note, there, in the front of the room, sat Bill Becker, the personification of election night in Monroe County.  At his side was Ron Saunders, perhaps the best known, most successful Keys politician statewide in the last quarter century.  Promptly at 7:00 they began their jovial banter for the radio and cable TV audience.

That, however, did not change the visage of the four candidates stationed about the room, including two from what Peter Anderson used to call the Northern Territories.  They all had a pall about them as if they expected to lose.  This was particularly interesting in the District 5 School Board race as neither Ron Martin, the incumbent, nor Dennis Caltagirone, the well-funded challenger, projected body language that said “I‘m a winner!”  Jack Bridges and Bonnie Helms sat placidly as well, apparently fearful that the incumbent judge they were challenging might yet pull off a victory despite his personal failings.

Interestingly, none of the locals were in the room, either for the mayor or the School Board contests.  Eventually, Highsmith and Kessler made their appearances, but Leamard was a no-show.  He had come out of nowhere to run and he returned as quickly to anonymity.  The chef said that he ran because he had a child in school.  What he did not tell voters was that his child attended a charter school.  Perhaps he stayed away for fear that the secret would come out in the post-mortems.

The tension grew as the time passed and no returns were posted.  Becker invited candidates and elected officials to come to the mic, but they declined.  Todd German of Hometown! PAC finally obliged and helped to fill the dead air.  No one could figure out why the results were so slow in coming, with Saunders and others saying that the absentee ballots were counted first and should be immediately available.   Was there some sort of crisis at Election Central that we did not know about?

Finally, around 7:30, after an exasperating half hour, the results began to pour in.

There were several televisions hanging from the ceiling and one larger screen on a wall.  None were easy to read as the print was not particularly bold and faded into the ambient light of the room.  To add more confusion, the images on the screen jumped and otherwise moved about.

There was chaos as no one was entirely certain as to what they were looking at.  Were the returns complete or partial?  If partial, what precincts did they include?  We already knew that a precinct on Summerland Key had problems calling in as the phone lines had been cut by sewer workers.  If these were partial returns, were we looking at mainly Key West, especially when you considered the big lead that Highsmith had over his two opponents?  The precincts up the Keys must not have reported yet or so the thinking went.

It soon became evident that we were viewing final results for all of the Keys.  The School Board results were the most interesting.  Ron Martin, who only minutes before looked like he was going to break out into a cold sweat, had beat back two challengers with over 56% of the vote.  Dennis Caltagirone, who spent of his own money the most of any School Board candidate, to unseat Martin, not only lost to Martin, he lost by 161 votes to Richard Bradley who did not campaign south of Tavernier Creek.

At the other end of the Keys, political newcomer Bobby Highsmith proved that being a Conch or a Bubba was no hindrance to public office.  Highsmith is someone whose involvement with the School District prior to announcing his candidacy was writing a letter of recommendation to help defrocked Monroe County School District Superintendent Randy Acevedo get a job with FKAA.  According to Larry Kahn in the Keynoter, “Highsmith hails from the same Key West Conch-camp that kept Randy Acevedo in power….”  Like Ron Martin, he pulled 57% of the vote against two challengers.  I think that both the Martin and Highsmith victories surprised everyone– including the candidates.  With three running in each district, the expectation among the pundits was that both races would go on to November runoffs.  When that did not happen, the crowd, growing ever larger, sighed “Wow!”

How could Stuart Kessler have lost so badly after putting on one of the most physical campaigns in recent memory?  How could Dennis Caltagirone with his war chest come in a distant third?  Unfortunately, there is no ready or obvious answer.

If the victories of Martin and Highsmith were surprising, the near defeat of John Dick in District 4 was shocking.  Catherine “Everybody’s Grandmother” Bosworth ran virtually no campaign, had little advertising and yet came within a hair of upsetting two term incumbent, Dick.

Bosworth, the teachers’ candidate, took the $ 249 provided by the UTM, dutifully attended all of the forums and came within 300 votes of sliding Dick into retirement.  One wonders what would have happened had she shown a real interest in the job and put on a serious campaign.  Dick must have suspected something as he campaigned hard in a race that naive observers like me expected he would win in a landslide.

So, what happened in the election, especially the School Board races?  If you believe the Keynoter, the teachers, specifically their union, the United Teachers of Monroe (UTM), were the victors.  Martin and Highsmith “won by virtue of strong bloc voting steered by the teachers union.”  The UTM was “clearly out to reestablish its power with the election” and it “accomplished just that.”

I believe that in its post-mortem, the Keynoter is on to something when it credits the UTM for leading the charge to victory in the School Board races.  But, I think that it gives the UTM far too much credit and not enough credit to the teachers themselves, independently and collectively outside of the UTM.  My take is a little bit different.

As I review the election results for School Board, and, to a lesser extent, other officials this year and in past years, what I see is a hardcore group of voters, somewhere in the 5,000 to 7,000 range who fear change.  The teachers are a large part of that group, but only a part.  Their fear of change is shared by others.  Why fear change?  One word:  Jobs.

This voting bloc, largely in Key West, but with pockets up the Keys, looks to government for high paying, high benefit jobs.  Those jobs are in the School District, county and city governments, utilities like Keys Energy Services and FKAA along with independent agencies like Mosquito Control and fire and sewer districts.  The last thing these voters want is anything that jeopardizes their jobs and change does just that.  These voters want politicians who will write letters and otherwise help them get and keep one of these great jobs.  Similarly, campaign contributors look for candidates who will keep buying their goods and services.   The operative word is “keep”.

When Stu Kessler announced that he was a reformer, he sealed his fate.  When Dennis Caltagirone and Warren Leamard talked about the need for change, they joined Kessler on the road to electoral perdition.  I believe that John Dick sensed this as he squirmed and writhed during the last Hometown! PAC forum at the suggestion that he was a reformer.  You could tell that the fiber of his being wanted him to go back eight years and say “Yes, I am a reformer!”  But, by 2014, the political landscape had changed considerably and the road to victory was to follow Calvin Coolidge and “Stand Pat!”  Ed Davidson had all but condemned Dick to defeat by including him in the “Gang of Three” that Highsmith so effectively dissed and dismissed.

As you look at the election results, something stands out, the numbers.  While 27% of the electorate turned out county-wide, 32% of the voters in Key West came to the polls.  Put differently, somewhat over 5,000 voted in Key West whereas, in the rest of the county, only 7,000 plus turned out.  Approximately 40% of the votes cast were from Key West.  Had Key West voted at the same rate as the county, the overall percentage of voting would have dropped from 27% to 23%.  Clearly, this election was more important to the Conchs.  Why?  I repeat my earlier thesis – Jobs.  Vote for those candidates who will do their best to keep you employed.  It was old fashioned machine politics honed for the 21st century.   Nowhere was that more clear than in the victory of Bobby Highsmith on the heels of his endorsement of Randy Acevedo at FKAA.

The message for potential candidates is a simple one—do not talk about change, do not threaten jobs.  No matter how many times Margaret Romero or, for that matter, Sloan Bashinksy run for mayor, they will lose so long as they articulate a campaign based around change.  This is especially true for the myriad of candidates, from judges to commission seats, who run for office for the salary and benefits that they pay.   Jobs are important to voters, but they are often just as important to candidates.  Phrased differently, if a candidate wants a good job with a high salary and benefits, he needs to assure the voters that he will guarantee the same for them.

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