Bob Buckhorn says he voted for Charlie Crist in 2014 gubernatorial campaign

During last year’s gubernatorial election in Florida, Bob Buckhorn was famously non-committal.

The Tampa Democratic Mayor told observers that he would remain neutral in the contest between Republican Rick Scott and former Republican/turned Democrat Charlie Crist “because it’s in the best interests of my city to do that,” acknowledging that he had to work with Scott and GOP legislators on issues that affected Tampa. Nevertheless, that stance rankled some Democrats, who knew Crist needed all the help he could get against the independently wealthy incumbent.

There was also the fact that Buckhorn had already acknowledged his interest in potentially running for governor in 2018, an opportunity that would diminish significantly if Crist won in 2014 and presumably ran as the Democratic incumbent four years from.

But on a Miami radio show this morning, Buckhorn acknowledged that he did vote for Crist in the race.

“I made a decision early on in the best interest in my city that it would be wise if I would not get involved,” Buckhorn told the hosts of “The Gray Zone,” a one-hour daily talk-show on Miami radio station WZAB 880 AM. “I didn’t help Gov. Scott. I didn’t help Gov. Crist. I voted for Charlie, but I wasn’t involved in the campaign.” He added that while he has worked effectively with Gov. Scott on a number of issues with the city the past four years, “I’m a Democrat. I’m proud to be a Democrat. But in my job as mayor, I have to work with whomever is in office.”

Buckhorn also once again played political analyst (a position he once held on Bay News 9) in critiquing what it will take for a Democrat to finally win the governors mansion in 2018. His ideal candidate sounded strikingly like himself.

“I think that goes right to the heart of what it would take for a Democrat to win in four years,” he said to co-host Henry Crespo. “And that is to literally produce a compelling reason why conservative voters, mainstream voters, pro-business voters, should support a Democrat. And you can’t run to the extreme left and win in areas North of Orlando, you can’t take your base voters, you can’t take your African-American voters for granted, and just assume that just because you are a Democratic candidate than their going to vote for you, you’ve got to offer a reason for them to be excited, and for them to want to be motivated to move to the polls.”

Buckhorn also addressed Crespo’s concerns that the Democratic Party “has a white problem.”

“The flight of white males away from the Democratic Party…has been going on since Richard Nixon,” Buckhorn noted.” Only Bill Clinton was able to sort of reverse that trend, and I think that’s because he gave a compelling alternative to the traditional left leaning approach of certainly the national Democratic Party,” said the mayor, who was a member of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council that Clinton chaired before running for president in the early 1990’s. “You’ve got to be a candidate that is pro-business, that is about creating jobs. It’s about reducing regulations and empowering people and improving their lives. And I think that if you can do that, there’s a majority that’s available for the taking.”