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Hernando Today

Crist Barnstorms For Clerk

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Tony Marrero

Published: February 8, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - The John Deere tractor's headlights cut a path through the country dusk on Thursday with the state's most powerful politician aboard.

Gov. Charlie Crist got off the green and yellow machine and sat down on a folding chair behind a couple of hay bales in a tidy barn.

Red, white and blue bunting hung overhead.

And Hernando Circuit Court Clerk Karen Nicolai sat beside him, beaming.

Crist admitted to the crowd of some 200 that had packed into the barn that he'd flown in to the Hernando County as a favor to Brooksville attorneys Tom and Debbie Hogan, the owners of the barn and the 18 well-manicured acres off Croom Road on which it sits.

Hogan and Crist attended the Cumberland School of Law in Alabama. Tom Hogan Sr. is one of the most prominent members of the local Republican Party.

Debbie Hogan introduced Crist as "the one governor who knows where Hernando County is."

She joked that, during his first visit years ago, "I cooked for him, and he actually came back."

Crist was fresh off a jaunt around the country to campaign for Sen. John McCain, making stops in California, Arizona and New York.

"And you have no idea how happy I am to be back in Brooksville, Florida," Crist said, prompting more cheers.

But, Crist added, turning to Nicolai, "You're doing a good job, and you deserve a big win."

A five-term incumbent with a generally unsullied reputation and no opponents in all that time is usually hard enough to unseat.

But the Hogans are hoping to make Nicolai's bid for re-election a sure thing with the heavy-duty endorsement and a weighty war chest.

The couple had asked for a $100 donation to Nicolai's campaign. Others were more generous with gifts of $500, the maximum allowed by campaign finance laws.

Most had made their donations back in October, when the event had originally been scheduled. Crist was expected to attend but had to cancel because of the special session on property taxes.

Some made another donation Thursday, Debbie Hogan said.

Visitors pulled up to the sprawling ranch — so picturesque that it was once featured in a Eggo Waffle commercial — and were greeted by a battalion of valets ready to whisk away their cars and SUVs.

They donned name tags and noshed on homemade chili.

Before Crist arrived, Nicolai recalled her first run-in with Hogan in 1976. Nicolai was in charge of court facilities at the time, and Hogan was a young prosecutor with an apparently semi-opaque view of downtown Brooksville.

"He came to my office screaming that his windows needed washing," Nicolai recalled.

Hogan, who drove the John Deere Thursday, recalled he was much more civil than that.

He said that over the years he came to appreciate the frugal way Nicolai operated while still focusing on the technology the court system needed to run at its best.

She also stayed humble, Hogan added.

"Some people start to take it for granted," he said, "and she never has."

"I promise I will do as good of a job in the next four years as I have in the last 20," Nicolai told the crowd before Crist got up to speak.

As for all that cash, Nicolai said, "I'm hoping we can give it back because our competition will be so scared they'll go away."

Harlan "Derek" Saltsman, a Ridge Manor attorney and Nicolai's first opponent since she landed the job, chuckled Friday when a reporter relayed that.

"I don't think that will ever happen," said Saltsman, a Democrat. "I'm certainly prepared to go the distance. This is a marathon, not a sprint. She can raise as much as she wants, it's not going to chase me off."

Saltsman wasn't far behind Nicolai in fundraising as of Friday, according to the Hernando County Supervisor of Elections Office.

Nicolai had raised $4,600 to Saltsman's $3,200, though those figures don't include whatever Nicolai raked in Thursday.

"I've never seen a dollar that can go into the voting booth and pull the lever or, in the case of our county, fill in the little circle," Saltsman said. "I'm concentrating on meeting people and feeling the pulse of the voters."

Back at the Hogan barn, Crist finished speaking and then helped Nicolai cut a cake shaped like Florida.

Crist's chief of staff, glancing at his watch and balancing a bowl of chili to go, eventually won the polite battle with photo seekers to steer Crist to the car.

A Hernando Today reporter asked Crist about his hopes for further property insurance reform. He said he was encouraged by state Senate hearings that showed Tallahassee pols are intent on holding insurance companies' "feet to the fire."

And what about the rumors that McCain, who is now virtually assured the Republican presidential nomination, might ask him to serve as vice president?

"I'm flattered to even be mentioned, but my focus is on Florida," he said.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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