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Frishe, 62, is a thoughtful, effective lawmaker, a reliable conservative willing to plunge into the difficult details necessary to wring savings out of government. His priorities include bolstering local business, curbing Medicaid fraud, halting food stamp abuse and reforming nursing home care.

He has consistently fought tax increases, but he also understands better than his opponent that tax dollars must be carefully monitored whether they go to a bureaucracy or private company.

He was wary of the half-baked plan last session to privatize South Florida prisons with little oversight.

Frishe, who also served in the Florida House from 1984 to 1990, is highly regarded by his colleagues and has been attentive to Hillsborough concerns. He is a good listener who cares more about solutions than political points.

Supporters include former Gov. Bob Martinez, Sheriff David Gee and Commissioner Mark Sharpe. He also is backed by Sen. Jack Latvala, who is seeking to become a future Senate president, which would benefit the region.

Brandes, 36, was elected in 2010 and doesn’t show Frishe’s command of the issues or his concern for the region. He talks of wanting to establish “inland ports” in rural counties, where imported goods could be transported for assembly. The goal to create manufacturing jobs is worthy, but the proposal ignores the need for such jobs in Hillsborough and Pinellas, where the plants would minimize transportation costs or the need for new roads.

This scheme likely would promote sprawl and waste. Brandes seems indifferent to the traffic problems, water shortages and other costly problems that result from ill-considered growth.

He is on firmer ground in supporting longer school days and school years. Part of the Cox’s Lumber Co. family and an Iraq veteran, Brandes, 35, is articulate and cocksure.

Frishe doesn’t think he has all the answers, but is guided by strong conservative principles and a genuine commitment to the area’s welfare. He is the candidate more likely to get useful things done.

In the Republican primary for Senate District 22, The Tribune endorses Jim Frishe.

The vast majority of Brandes’ contributions come from outside the district, which includes southern Pinellas and part of Tampa. What’s most striking, though, is how much money Brandes has already spent: $265,000. A big chunk of that appears to going to more than three dozen! paid staffers – presumably people walking neighborhoods. That total doesn’t include the more than $40,000 he spent promoting himself for re-election as a state representative before he jumped into the senate race.

For a candidate running against creatures of Tallahassee – Frishe – Brandes’ campaign sure is relying heavily on Tallahassee interests to fund campaign operatives, many of whom are also from outside the district.

Senate District 22 is a competitive district, which Alex Sink and Barack Obama won, but it will be decided in the Aug. 14 primary. Democrats did not field a candidate.

Frishe insists in the spot that he is the real Republican in the race, and just to make sure the point isn’t lost on anyone the candidate invokes Ronald Reagan’s name four times, in addition to including Reagan twice in a rolling scroll of his political accomplishments and featuring two photographs of Reagan in the background. All of this Reaganmania in just a 30-second spot.

If only Frishe had had more time, he could have shown up in the Gipper’s jodhpurs with a jauntily positioned Stetson.

In further accusing Brandes as a ne’er-do-well poseur with all the genuine conservative credentials of Stephen Colbert’s alter ego, Frishe suggests his babycakes opponent has “no idea what a real Reagan Republican is.”

Frishe might be on to something, but he certainly can’t deny that Jeff Brandes has learned a thing or two about hardball politics by pulling a quick switcheroo in dumping his campaign to be re-elected to the House and jumping into the Senate campaign before Frishe could finish watching Bedtime for Bonzo.

And since there is no Democrat in the District 22 race, whoever wins the Aug. 14 primary takes the Senate seat. Just how deft a politician is Jeff Brandes?

Why he is running around in a current commercial claiming he’s not a politician, even through he ran and won a House seat in 2010? And now he’s chasing after a Senate job, which involves hiring a consultant, a treasurer, begging people for money, handing out yard signs, showing up at events to slum for votes and plotting against Frishe.

Not a politician? That would be like Gen. George Patton denying that despite the uniform, the medals, the stars and all those dead Germans that he wasn’t a soldier.

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