Election Day in Sarasota: How it played out

I woke up on Tuesday feeling like a kid on Christmas morning because it was Election Day.

As a citizen, I love elections because voting is the most powerful voice we the citizens have in terms of how our cities, states and nation are governed. As a member of the media, I love elections because they are a blast to cover and analyze.  

My big takeaway from Election Day 2012 was that while I may live in a Republican county, I also live in a Democratic nation --- a nation that re-elected the right man to serve as our leader and a country that is headed in a more tolerant direction regarding same sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana.   

In the days leading up to the election, I told a couple friends of mine that I expected the Republicans to dominate the local, state and federal races here in Sarasota County, but I was confident that Barack Obama would defeat Mitt Romney by a wide margin, even if he lost Florida, which I expected to be close.

And isn’t it funny (or not so funny at all) that as of Thursday afternoon, they were still counting absentee ballots in the Miami-Dade area, with Florida the only state in the nation unable to declare who carried Florida in the presidential race, delegating Florida voters to the “sidelines in abject ignominy” in terms of electing a President.  

In the War Room

Representing WSLR community radio, my role on Election Day 2012 was to be at the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office when the early voting results were posted shortly after 7 p.m.

With an assist from my friend Jeff Cantor, I would then call those results into WSLR’s live election coverage as soon as possible. When the local races were decided and my reporting there was done, I would head over the Hyatt hotel to conduct post-election interviews with local Republicans.

Election results are posted at Supervisor of Election’s website as they come in, but the computer monitors in the media and public viewing area provide the most immediate information, with the website at times being as much as an hour behind what is taking place in real time.

The other benefit of being at the Supervisor of Elections’ office is getting to interact with other media members, campaign workers and political junkies as the results are posted.

Former Sarasota GOP Chair Eric Robinson was there with his iPad and beef jerky watching the results come in for his wife, County Commissioner Christine Robinson. He was joined by an aide from the Vern Buchanan camp.  

Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta was on hand, calling in frequent updates to Sarasota City Commissioner Paul Caragiulo regarding the “strong city manager/weaker city clerk” charter amendment to be decided by voters living within the Sarasota city limits. Caragiulo was among those who opposed the amendment. 

Overhearing Barbetta’s comments to Caragiulo, I was surprised by the interest he had in a city issue, his willingness to serve as an election night aide to Caragiulo, and most of all by the bitterness he expressed toward City Commissioner Terry Turner, Vargus Foundation Executive Director Kerry Kirschner and former City Commissioner Dick Clapp --- three of the amendment’s strongest supporters.

Barbetta, a city resident, was pleased that city voters soundly defeated the measure by 55 percent to 45 percent. The phone interaction between him and Caragiulo made me wonder if Barbetta is encouraging Caragiulo to run for his County Commission seat when Barbetta term-limits out of office in 2014? Caragiulo has already indicated that he has no intention of running for re-election as a city commissioner.

Despite the shortened early voting period (thanks to our Republican-led state legislature), 45.7 percent of the 207,947 votes cast in Sarasota were cast ahead of time during early voting or by way of absentee ballots.

When the early voting results were released at 7 p.m., the information provided by 126,956 early and absentee voters provided a pretty good idea as to what was going to happen that night, with the only exception being the Vern Buchanan-Keith Fitzgerald race for the U.S. Congress

In Sarasota, early voting produced a slim lead for Fitzgerald. The Democratic challenger had 50.02 percent of the early vote, compared 49.98 percent for Buchanan, the Republican incumbent.

Those numbers changed as the Tuesday voting precincts began to report, with Sarasota County eventually favoring Buchanan by a 53 to 47 percent margin. The final count for the two-county Sarasota-Manatee race resulted in a 54 to 46 percent win for Buchanan.

Later that night, Buchanan told me he was eager to get back to Washington D.C. to get to work on the economy and job creation, expressing optimism that the two political parties would do better in terms of working together on key issues.   

The Adam Tebrugge-Jim Boyd race for the District 71 State Representative seat was very close in Sarasota County, where Tebrugge, a Democrat, is more well-known. Tebrugge held an early voting lead in Sarasota County and wound up losing Sarasota by only 168 votes, but the race was decided in Manatee County where Boyd took 57 percent of vote, resulting in a 56 to 44 percent overall victory for Boyd.   

And the Winners Are…

Voter turnout in Sarasota County was 74.97 percent, down slightly from the 2008 elections, but up substantially compared to non-presidential elections and off-year local elections.

Sarasota County voters favored Mitt Romney over Barack Obama by a 53 to 46 percent margin, compared to Obama’s overall 49.9 to 49.2 percent lead in Florida (with Miami-Dade votes still being counted as of Thursday afternoon). Obama carried the vote along the I-4 Corridor and in Florida’s three largest cities: Miami, Tampa and Orlando.

Running for another six-year term as one of Florida’s two U.S. Senators, incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson was the only Democrat to receive a majority of the vote in Sarasota County, getting 51 percent of the local vote, compared to 46 percent for Connie Mack IV, who was trying make the leap from U.S. Congressman to U.S. Senator. Statewide, Nelson carried 55 percent of the vote compared to Mack’s 42 percent.

Elected in 2010, Republican Marco Rubio is Florida’s junior U.S. Senator and we may see him running for higher office before his Senate term expires in 2016.  

State Legislator Ray Pilon retained his seat, defeating Democratic challenger Liz Alpert by a 54-46 percent margin. He said he plans to concentrate on education and job creation during his second term in office. 

The State Attorney’s race between Republican Ed Brodsky and Democrat John Torraco was close, with Torraco getting 46 percent of the vote in Sarasota County, but pulling in only 43 percent in Manatee and Desoto counties.

Republican Sarasota County Commissioner Christine Robinson defeated Democratic challenger Jennifer Cohen by a 55 to 45 percent margin. Robinson, who was appointed to the commission by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2010, will serve a four-year term before term-limiting out of office in 2016. Robinson said she was grateful for the support of Sarasota voters and glad that the campaign was over. 

Republican Charles Hines, the winner of the August county commission primary, will now take over the seat of outgoing Commissioner Jon Thaxton who term-limited out of office due to a recent state Supreme Court ruling.

Robinson and Hines were the only two Republicans I voted for this year. I tried to interview Cohen prior to election day, but she never had time to appear on my local radio show or to meet ahead of time to record an interview. I figured that if she’s too busy to run for office, she’s too busy to serve in office. Plus, I liked what I heard from Robinson when she appeared on my radio show.

With the results in, the mood Tuesday night at the Hyatt Hotel was that of a victory party. Local GOP Chair Joe Gruters was ecstatic with the results, crediting the local Republican stranglehold to “the best grassroots activists and volunteers in the country.”

Gruters said his only disappointment was that Connie Mack did not carry Sarasota  County. He was hoping for a Romney victory, but that race has not been called yet.

While the Republicans celebrated, the local band Kettle of Fish provided the live entertainment as many in the room awaited the results of the Presidential election.  

When my work was done, I went to the Shamrock Pub to relax with a cold beer. I was there when NBC declared Obama the winner at 11:12 p.m. I was touched by the reaction of a small group of young people in their early twenties who stood near the bar waiting for the results, particularly a young woman named Lissette Cortes who cried when she learned that her choice for President had been reelected.

The Big Picture

At the national level, the results of the 2012 elections give me hope that our country is becoming more tolerant, more open-minded, more in tune with the middle-class and more influenced by minorities, women, gays and lesbians and young people, as opposed to the rich, old, white Republicans that have typically served as America’s power brokers and king-makers.  

Democrats picked up two seats in the U.S. Senate and that will bode well moving forward. I was pleased to see “champion of the people” Elizabeth Warren win a Senate seat in Massachusetts and I was pleased to see that Tea Party loudmouth Allen West has apparently lost his U.S. Representative race in South Florida.

West is now crying about “disturbing irregularities” taking place in St. Lucie County, north of West Palm Beach. Although I have no sympathy for West, I do think it’s time for state election officials to put an end to the election fiascos that have plagued South Florida in recent years.  

Two items that really caught my eye at the nation level were the same-sex marriage amendments passed in Maine and Massachusetts and the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and the state of Washington.

These state decisions allowing same-sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana are going to have a huge impact on other states moving forward and likely to be repeated in additional states in future elections.  

When state officials across the country see how much tax revenues are generated by the sale of legal marijuana (taxed and regulated like cigarettes and alcohol), as well as the decrease in enforcement and incarceration costs, they are going to be falling over themselves to bring those additional tax dollars to their own states.

These two issues, along with the re-election of President Obama, the rejection of the Planned Parenthood amendment here in Florida, the ability to move forward with a national health care plan and the across-the-board-rejection of Tea Party radicalism make me feel good about the future of America. 

Now that the elections are over, the main cry being heard throughout the country is that we want our elected officials to work together to do what is best for the United States of America instead of what’s best for a particular political party.

With African-Americans, Latinos, women, the LGBT community and young people now making up a huge portion of the American voting block, the Republican Party has to become more moderate and accepting if they hope to be a relevant political party in the 2016 elections.

And who knows, maybe these winds of political change will trickle down to the state and local level in years to come, with Democrats performing better here in Sarasota County?

Like I said in the beginning, I may live in a Republican county, but I’m damn proud to live in a Democratic country that puts the good of the many above the good of the elite few.