Colorful And Influential GOP Leader Slade Dies
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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - Tom Slade --- a hard-drinking, seafaring tactician who steered Republicans to political dominance in Florida --- died Monday in Orange Park at age 78 from complications associated with heart failure.
The colorful Slade, a mix of Southern charm and tough-talking, hard-nosed strategist, took over as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida in 1993, when Democrats controlled the Cabinet, the governor's mansion and the Florida House, and the state Senate was evenly divided.
By the end of his tenure after the 1998 elections, Republicans had taken over both the legislative and executive branches and secured a GOP-heavy congressional delegation as well.
"Tom Slade was one of the architects of the modern Republican party in Florida," said J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a GOP consultant who was among a handful of insiders who strategized with Slade over "brown whiskey and red meat" in Tallahassee in the 1990s.
"Tom Slade was one of the best of a class of old-school intuitive politicians, the mold for which has long since been broken. He was a Southern gentleman. He was a ruthless fighter. He was a charming victor. He did not take defeat kindly," Stipanovich said.
Slade's footprint on Florida politics can still be felt today, said former Republican Party of Florida executive director David Johnson, who worked for the former chairman.
"It's hard to put into words what he meant to people that are in this town now," Johnson, a Tallahassee GOP consultant, said. "It's been 15 years since he was chairman of the party, but there are so many people involved in governance, involved in campaigns, involved in running the state that owe a lot to him."
And all of those people have at least one Slade tale to tell, most of which are not suitable for publication, and many of which have become almost mythical in the telling.
There's the yarn about Slade getting off of his sailboat, "Forty More," at a dock in the Bahamas where he saw a man abusing a female companion.
Slade warned him twice to stop, but the man refused to obey.
"So he popped him and knocked him out. So of course the story ends with the lady changing allegiances and spending the rest of the evening with Slade. It's pure Slade," said Allison DeFoor, a former Monroe County sheriff and judge who was also former Gov. Bob Martinez's running mate in 1990, and was one of Slade's closest friends.
During the press skits, an annual event in Tallahassee, Slade once appeared in a video clip as General George Patton, geared with jodhpurs, a helmet and a crop, Standing in front of a giant American flag, Slade's chest was emblazoned with lapel pins of the winning candidates.
"I want you to remember that no candidate ever won an election by dying for his party. He won it by making the other dumb candidate die for his party. Floridians love a winner. And will not tolerate a loser. I wouldn't give two hoots in hell for a man who lost and laughed. … This stay-positive stuff is a bunch of crap," Slade said in the video, posted on YouTube.
Slade, in many ways, was old school personally and politically, especially compared to today's environment in which handlers wall off party leaders and candidates.
"The main thing I remember about Tom was, he could be the ultimate in political bosses when he needed to be but he had the kindest heart and was so nice and fun to deal with and fun to work for. There's people in politics that you work for and you respect but there are other people that are fun. Tom was always fun," Johnson said. "He stepped out of a novel of politics of an older time."
Slade's tenure leading the state GOP is probably best remembered for the 1998 victory of Gov. Jeb Bush. But the period also included finding little-known candidates such as Frank Brogan and Bob Milligan and winning statewide races against better-known Democrats. Brogan had been the Martin County schools superintendent before defeating Democrat Doug Jamerson for education commissioner in 1994. Similarly, Milligan was a retired U.S. Marines general when he unseated longtime Comptroller Gerald Lewis.
Susie Wiles, who managed Gov. Rick Scott's 2010 campaign and has long been an adviser to Republican political leaders in the Jacksonville area, said Slade had a knack for recruiting good candidates at the state and local level.
"He was rarely wrong,'' Wiles said. "Frank Brogan is a perfect example."
She said he also "believed in the Republicanism of a big tent, and that served the Republican Party of Florida well during his term."
For the past few years, the libertarian-leaning Slade, a fiscal conservative, repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the GOP's focus on social issues.
Slade was elected to the state House in 1962 from Duval County as a Democrat, which was common during an era when Republicans held little power in the South. But Slade later switched his party affiliation to Republican and was elected to the Senate in 1966. He ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 1970, a campaign that included being involved in a plane crash with C.W. Bill Young, who would go on to represent the Tampa Bay area in Congress for four decades before dying last year.
In an interview with the News Service last year, Slade recalled how he kicked out an emergency door, got his young wife out and then helped Young and the badly injured pilot out of the plane. He said Young had crashed into the windshield.
"It was like somebody cut his head open with an axe. I don't see how he lived through it. The pilot had 70-some fractures and broke both his legs backwards," Slade said.
Slade, the former chairman of Dozier & Gay Industrial Coating, was a longtime Republican leader in Northeast Florida and in the 1980s ran campaigns in the region for candidates such as Martinez. He later served on the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission before becoming state party chairman in 1993.
After growing up in rural Clay County and attending school in Starke, Slade never lost his folksy charm and sense of humor. Reporters from across the state would call him for quotes and perspective on political issues --- conversations that usually included a bunch of laughs.
"He could come up with a quick, pithy quotable comment for a reporter faster than anybody I've seen in 30 years,'' Wiles said.
But Slade's tongue could also get him into trouble sometimes, though Wiles said controversy never seemed to trouble him.
"I think he kind of enjoyed it,'' she said.
This report is by Dara Kam and Jim Saunders with the News Service of Florida.
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