Sasso win: Fluke or voter shift?

By MARK LANE

It's dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a low-turnout special election, but that hardly stops anybody. And in the case of Tuesday's special election for Florida House District 32, it's just too tempting.

First, a little background: The district is just south of Volusia County, taking in the Cape Canaveral area and stretching west to pick up Republican voters in eastern Orange County. It was specially designed by the Legislature to be a safe district for any Republican. So safe that it attracted no fewer than four candidates to the Republican primary.

Yet now the district will be represented by Democrat Tony Sasso, who was elected in a special election Tuesday.

How did that happen?

Since 2000, the district was represented in Tallahassee by Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island. Allen cruised to re-election two times and was getting ready for a state Senate race when, in July, he was arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer in a restroom at Space View Park in Titusville.

Allen was convicted in November of solicitation for prostitution. His appeal is pending.

No matter. The district is 44 percent Republican and 35 percent Democrat. Despite the scandal, it should have been no problem to replace Allen with a Republican. No Democrat has gone to Tallahassee from Brevard County in a dozen years. Normally, the party wouldn't bother fielding a candidate.

But they did. And not a sacrificial candidate, but a popular two-term Cocoa Beach city commissioner with a long list of civic involvement who was also vice chairman of the Space Coast League of Cities. That's not to say Tony Sasso is a Boy Scout . . . oh wait, he is a Boy Scout, assistant scoutmaster for Troop 338.

The Republican candidate, Sean Campbell, ran a lackluster campaign and certainly didn't bore his audiences with a lot of specifics. Still, he outspent Sasso better than 2-to-1 and you've probably seen his negative ads on TV. That and the "R" next to his name should have done the job.

Except it didn't. And the reasons are interesting.

One reason Campbell didn't win is that the religious right is restless. Jerry Maynard, an independent running as a Christian conservative, received 6.5 percent of the vote. This allowed Sasso to win with less than a majority -- just under 48 percent.

If these voters were unhappy enough to vote for a protest candidate rather than a Republican in February, will they line up in November and vote Republican for president or for U.S. representative?

And speaking of the U.S. House, this legislative district overlaps with the U.S. House District 24, now represented by Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo.

Feeney, whose district includes Volusia County, will have his first competitive election this year. Democrat Suzanne Kosmas of New Smyrna Beach has already raised $360,000 for her campaign for the seat. His Democratic opponent of two years ago, Clint Curtis, also is running, as are Ron Bobay and Gaurav Bhola.

Congressional Quarterly rates the race as "Republican Favored," but Feeney has been hurt by having to defend his ties to superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, now in prison.

Will the same religious conservatives who voted for Maynard stay at home in Feeney's race? Combine that with unhappy independents who want to defeat incumbents and Democrats who feel energized and this race could be close.