Attacks only made Villalobos stronger in Senate

Article Courtesy of The St. Petersburg Times

By STEVE BOUSQUET, TIMES CAPITAL BUREAU CHIEF

Published September 9, 2006

The Florida Senate will never be the same.

Some of this state's most powerful political forces threw all they had at Miami Republican Alex Villalobos. But he still won.

Gov. Jeb Bush said Villalobos "abandoned our party's principles and lost his way" for opposing vouchers and supporting the class size amendment. Bush did radio ads in two languages for Villalobos' primary opponent, Frank Bolanos.

Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, incoming Senate president, stayed neutral, an act that contradicted a decades-long tradition that parties protect their incumbents.

Now he has to live with the fellow Republican senator he snubbed when that person needed help the most.

Interest groups spent millions in an effort to destroy Villalobos' career - a soft money assault never before seen in a Florida legislative election.

And still Villalobos won.

The final result was 10,637 votes for Villalobos and 10,059 for Bolanos - a margin of 578 votes.

This was a rare thing in Florida politics, and ought to be part of every civics class - if schools still taught civics.

Villalobos' grip on the 2008 Senate presidency began loosening in February when a band of Republicans joined forces to hand it to Sen. Jeff Atwater instead.

Then Villalobos lost his majority leader's post for siding with Democrats and opposing key parts of the Republican agenda.

His votes - acts of conscience to Villalobos and his allies, rank political opportunism to his opponents - antagonized powerful interests.

They decided to go after him and take him out, to teach him a lesson.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce. Retailers. The phosphate industry. Insurance companies. All aligned with a small bloc of senators working to derail Villalobos' Senate presidency.

The anti-Villalobos faction included Sens. JD Alexander of Lake Wales, Mike Bennett of Bradenton, Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, Mike Haridopolos of Melbourne and Alex Diaz de la Portilla of Miami.

Under the names of groups like the Committee for Florida Justice Reform, they smothered a swath of Miami-Dade County with ads and mailers attacking Villalobos.

Villalobos had special interest help, too, from teacher unions, trial lawyers and others.

The attacks didn't succeed. They wounded the bear, but couldn't kill him, and now they all have to live with each other in the Senate. Villalobos is coming back stronger and more defiant of the status quo than ever.

"The rich snobs that live in million-dollar mansions aren't the ones that live in my district," Villalobos said Thursday on Jim DeFede's radio program on WINZ in Miami. "My district wants smaller class sizes."

The results speak for themselves. Villalobos is the David who triumphed over the Goliath of special interest money. He is a force to be reckoned with.

Yet you could hear in Villalobos' voice the sound of a sore winner - and that won't get him very far in the next legislative session.

When talk show host DeFede asked whether Villalobos might consider graciously making peace with the people who went after him, the senator wasn't buying it.

"That's called hypocrisy, and I'm not a hypocrite," he said.

Villalobos wants the Senate presidency more than ever, and it's fair to assume his close-knit group of six or seven loyalists is stronger than ever.

That includes Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, who said the race was "a fight between good and evil."

"I feel fantastic," Argenziano said. "I feel like good has prevailed. ... I think Jeb Bush needed a dose of reality, and that's what he got."

Pruitt, who controls all of the Senate committee assignments, would not say what he has in store for Villalobos. But he promised to fully utilize every senator, and he seemed to get the message from Miami.

"When you've served your constituents for 14 years, there's a lot of goodwill that's built up," Pruitt said. "It's a testament to what Alex has done in the community."

One intriguing subtext to the Villalobos-Bolanos battle is that some of Bolanos' strongest supporters are key members of the inner circle of Rep. Marco Rubio, the incoming speaker of the House.

They include Rep. Ralph Arza, R-Hialeah, who said Villalobos owes his victory largely to the 55-and-over Cuban-American voters who especially despise personal attacks in political campaigns.

"To his credit and his team's credit, he fought hard, he didn't quit and he didn't buckle," Arza said.

And the Florida Senate will never be the same.

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