by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
For several months candidates have been jockeying for next year’s City Council and mayoral elections. While those races, especially the mayor’s, will garner a majority of the headlines, the residents of Jacksonville will also go to the polls next year and elect the city’s constitutional officers.
One of those offices is currently held by Supervisor of Elections John Stafford, who will run as an incumbent for the first time. In 1999, Stafford beat Warren Jones in a run-off. Prior to that, he edged former Council member John Crescimbeni and former Jacksonville Economic Development Commission staffer Al Kinard.
“I opened my account last week,” said Stafford, who is in the process of assembling his campaign team, which includes some familiar names. “I am putting together my finance committee, which will be headed by Mike Hightower and Bill Gay Jr.”
Hightower is vice president of government affairs at Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Gay is the son of W.W. Gay Sr., owner of W.W. Gay Mechanical Contractors, Inc.
Unlike 1999 when Stafford was both a newcomer to the political scene and a relative unknown, he will enter the 2003 election — the primaries are in 364 days — a seasoned, battle-tested politician. The 2000 presidential election may not have aged Stafford 10 years or cost him his job, but it certainly made him a household name not only in Jacksonville but across the state. Rather than cower from the criticism that accompanied the 2000 recounts, Stafford used the public forum as an opportunity to remind people that he tried to eliminate the antiquated punch card system that caused hanging and pregnant chads and left the entire country in presidential limbo for about a month.
This fall, when the new optical scanning machines will be used for the gubernatorial election it will mark the first time the system has been used countywide in Jacksonville. While Stafford has been allowing high schools to use the optical scanners for months now, he said the system could have been in place years ago.
“I brought one in for a demonstration in 1999,” he said, adding that he pushed to have the system approved for the 2000 election, but failed.
Now that the system is in place and the controversy has abated, Stafford can spend the next year concentrating on running a personal campaign and a smooth county election. Facilitating both of those endeavors is the fact that Stafford has a competent office staff and the confidence that comes with most incumbencies.
“I feel pretty good about things,” said Stafford. “I think I will be a lot more confident. Last time, I hadn’t run for office before. It was difficult to raise money, but that should be better now because I know more people. We continue to do things that will turn the office around and we are moving forward with a lot of positive changes.”
At this point, no one else has filed to run for supervisor of elections. Recent talk centered on mayoral candidate Alberta Hipps dropping out of the mayor’s race and opposing Stafford. Hipps says that’s not the case.
“I am not interested in any job other than being the mayor of the City of Jacksonville,” said Hipps. “Numerous people have approached me to talk to me about other positions in the city. Unless a Mack truck runs over me, the voters can expect me to run for mayor.”
Hipps says the rumors don’t surprise her. Despite the fact that with $81,587 in reported campaign contributions — far below John Peyton’s $494,191 — Hipps trails several other mayoral candidates, she is guaranteed to get a lot of votes. The rumors surrounding her candidacy, she contends, are started in an effort to get her to drop out of the race.
“You’ll be hearing it [that she’s dropping out] because they are putting it out,” said Hipps. “They are trying to put the buzz out and I love it. The situation is that I’m a determined person and they have evidently underestimated my determination.”
Hipps said polls and campaign coffers played little to no role in her getting elected to City Council in 1995 and won’t affect her as the mayoral campaign progresses.
“There was no poll that ever showed I was going to win that race,” said Hipps of winning the District 13 seat in 1995. “I did not have much cash then, either.
“Time goes by very quickly. The [primary] election is 12 months from today and that is not very long. I have no intention of letting up. I was out at the beach over the weekend and it went fine. I have a lot of friends in Arlington, Southside and the beaches. I am beginning to enlarge my spheres of friendships and relationships. Campaigning is really enjoyable and you get to meet a lot of great people.”