Harris pulls it off
The presidential race may have had the nation on pins and needles Tuesday night, but Manatee and Sarasota counties enjoyed their own thriller in the race for the 13th District congressional seat. For much of the evening challenger Jan Schneider led incumbent Katherine Harris, but late returns in Sarasota after securing Manatee County put the congresswoman ahead to stay - coincidentally by roughly the same margin as two years ago.
No one thought the high-visibility star of the 2000 election fiasco vulnerable, especially with her added name recognition as a first-term incumbent. Indeed, the ambitious Harris has already started to plan for a U.S. Senate race against Democrat Bill Nelson in two years, using the local congressional seat as a stepping stone to higher office.
Schneider, the feisty Sarasota lawyer with ties to the Clintons, ran a good race against Harris. But she could not match the popular incumbent's fund-raising ability or party support.
In other local races, Donna Hayes is the new county commissioner for District 5, coasting to easy victory over Julie Aranibar. Despite ample knowledge of her often-hostile partisan style, East Manatee voters picked the controversial local Republican leader as their representative on the county commission.
We wish Hayes well and look forward to her upholding the smart-growth promises she made during the campaign. As we noted in our endorsement of Aranibar, we did not have a great deal of trouble with Hayes' position on most issues. It is her divisive style that caused us concern. We remind Hayes that the commission represents all voters, not just Republicans, and it is not the place to inject her customary dose of partisanship.
It would have been a bigger upset for Manatee Countians if either Sheriff Charlie Wells or County Clerk Richard B. "Chips" Shore had lost. They did not.
Manatee County's two longest-serving elected officials easily won re-election Tuesday, as expected. Both trounced their opponents to earn new terms - the sixth for Wells and the eighth for Shore. Wells' challenger, Kevin Murphy, failed to make much of a case for unseating the popular sheriff. And Shore's opponent, Dan O'Connell, was an even less-credible candidate. Voters should feel good about re-electing officials of their professional caliber.
In the City of Anna Maria, a similar vote of confidence secured Mayor SueLynn her second term at the helm.
For the West Manatee Fire District, the third straight defeat of its proposed property tax rate by 50 cents per $1,000 of valuation must be considered a final verdict by voters. This has to be a bitter defeat for firefighters, the heroes of America just three years ago in the wake of 9/11. But, perhaps because the district asked for authority to raise rates by more than it needed to comply with new state manpower rules the first time around in March, voters narrowly defeated the tax hike. The same thing happened in the Aug. 31 primary, even though the proposed rate hike had been shrunk to $1 per $1,000 of valuation.
Now West Manatee fire commissioners - and residents of the district - will have to find a way to live with the outcome. The options will not be in residents' best interests. Commissioners can maintain the status quo, which means the first crew on the scene of a fire must wait until a second crew arrives before entering the building. Or, they can choose to close a station and spread those crews out among the remaining ones, which means longer response times for the area left without service.
Voters who vote against their own self-interest must live with the consequences. In this case, unfortunately, it could be the difference between life and death.
