by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
The story of Tidewater Consulting is the story of Tom Slade and the cascading success of the Florida Republican party.
When Slade took over the Republican party in 1993, Democrats controlled every branch of state government and the mayor’s office in Jacksonville. When he left in 1998, the opposite was true. That, according to Slade, is what a savvy political mind might call “a good time to get out.”
There must be a certain confidence that comes with knowing that you helped elect most of the people who control Florida. And with a contact list to rival that of the politicians, Slade assembled a team of legal and political heavyweights that have the attention of the people who write, pass and implement Florida’s laws.
“My intention in the beginning was to help some of the party loyals start a business and then let go,” said Slade at the Republican party headquarters on Philips Highway. “What I ended up with was a company.”
Tidewater Consulting is a full service lobbying firm with offices in Jacksonville and Tallahassee. What clients are buying, in essence, is relationships with the leadership of the Florida Senate and House, the Cabinet, the governor’s office and agency heads. More specifically, Tidewater specializes in policy advocacy, campaign management, regulatory and administrative assistance, and political strategy.
Slade said Tidewater also guides client donation decisions and watches legislation to see if they can catch “bad” laws in the early stages.
“If we can catch a bill in its infancy then we can avoid a lot of problems before it becomes a full grown adult,” he said. And Slade said that many times his clients call when they’re in the middle of a dog fight. “We’ve got talented political campaign operatives that know how to win in tough situations.”
Tidewater’s client list includes BellSouth, IMG Capital Management, Peoples Gas System, the United Space Alliance and the City of Jacksonville.
Ninety percent of Tidewater’s revenue comes in the form of corporate money used to gain political influence. The other 10 percent is campaign management, or when Slade’s friends need help winning an election. And many times the relationships are relatively short-term, like when the people who make voting machines heard the news that every precinct in the state was going to buy their product. They didn’t need Tidewater any more.
Slade has assembled a group that ranges from Allison DeFoor, the academic from the Florida Keys who has served as a judge and sheriff of Monroe County and Gov. Bush’s Everglades Policy coordinator, to Shelley Green, the former Ms. Tallahassee who has worked as an events coordinator for the Republicans on the state and national level. Two of Tidewater’s team of 10 are lawyers. All are committed Republicans.
One partner, Richard Coates, who Slade called the “best floor lobbyist in Tallahassee,” is responsible for the seemingly impossible legislation that landed funding for Florida high-speed rail system, which voters approved. And a representative from Associated Industries of Florida, another client, called Tidewater’s John Wehrung “the smartest political mind in the state of Florida.”
Slade was elected to the Florida House at age 25 as a Democrat and went on to serve in the Florida Senate. He ran several private propane gas companies before eventually being elected chairman of the Republican National Committee’s 13-state Southern Region until 1999, the year he was a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee. In the mid-1980s, Slade ran the campaigns in Northeast Florida for Bob Martinez, George Bush and Connie Mack. He was chairman for the Florida Republicans and is currently Republican party chair for Duval County.
Slade said that a history of honorable campaign practices and a overall lack of mud-slinging means that Tidewater actually wields some influence with Democrats as well. In fact, the African-American House Caucus, a traditionally Democratic organization of state representatives, is having Slade deliver the keynote speech soon at their monthly dinner. He called the longtime former leader of the Florida Democrats, Charlie Whitehead, a “good friend.”
“At the end of the day, we all lay down our guns,” he said.
When asked about campaign finance reform and trends in lobbying in general, Slade said the Shays-Meehan bill now being debated in Congress may actually help local political parties by curtailing large checks to national ones. Of course, money, Slade said, was the nastiest part of the business, referring to the fact that lots of good programs in the legislature don’t get funded.
But money is still the name of the game.
“If you run into anybody that’s got more money than he knows what to do with, send him our way.”