By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – When St. Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain offered James Hartman a job as public information officer in 1996, he never could have guessed that almost 20 years later Hartman would play a key role in ending Strain’s 20-year stint as sheriff.
Adding to that ironic twist of fate for Strain is that Hartman helped guide a formerly unknown St. Tammany patrol deputy to a rapid rise in prominence in only six short years, culminating with Randy Smith winning the job from his former boss.
Smith had never stepped into the public eye throughout his professional life in law enforcement, working as a patrol deputy for 24 years with the Sheriff’s Office that led him to become a lieutenant and shift commander for road deputies.
Smith said he always had lofty goals, including the idea of becoming sheriff one day. That shift into public life began in 2010 when he defeated former Slidell Chief of Police Ben Morris for that job, then two weeks ago, Smith defeated Strain in a runoff election to become the new sheriff of St. Tammany Parish.
Standing in the shadows of Smith’s rise to fame is Hartman, the former P.I.O. for Strain who left the Sheriff’s Office after nine years and later founded Hartman & Associates, a marketing and consulting firm that leans heavily toward guiding the fortunes of political candidates.
Hartman has used several key campaign victories to turn the spotlight in his direction, starting with one of his first candidates in 2007 when he represented Kevin Pearson in a state representative race against Ray Canada.
“That was Canada’s race to lose,” Hartman recalls.
And that’s just what happened as Hartman took on the underdog Pearson against a well-known Canada entry who had strong name recognition after serving on the Slidell City Council. In the primary Canada led the four-candidate field with 47 percent of the vote, with Pearson getting only 27 percent. But by the time the final runoff numbers came in, Pearson won the state seat by 50 votes.
“The phones started ringing off the hooks after that,” Hartman said. And it would also connect Hartman with Smith.
“It was a couple of months later when Randy was considering a run for chief of police in Slidell and saw Pearson at the Kevin Davis inauguration,” Hartman explained. “Randy asked Kevin who helped him win that election since he wanted someone to help him run for chief. That’s what led to Randy calling me.”
Smith’s run for chief followed a similar pattern to the Pearson-Canada election. Smith was virtually unknown, a huge underdog and a candidate that few people saw as a likely winner against Morris—the former Slidell chief of police who had just finished eight years as Slidell mayor.
But once again Hartman’s candidate shocked most of the political world in St. Tammany Parish as he knocked off Morris, and did so by a three-to-two margin in the runoff.
While those two “upset” wins for Hartman were considered very big, nothing would rank as big in early 2015 as the idea of Smith beating the still-popular Strain, the 20-year incumbent as sheriff.
Hartman said he knew Smith always had his eyes on becoming sheriff, but also had heard Smith talk about running when Strain retired. However, a few negative news stories about Strain in the past two years made Smith decide the time to strike was now.
“When I met with Randy and he said he wanted to run against Strain now I just took a deep sigh and began to consider the pros and cons of what it would take to win,” Hartman said, clearly not intimidated by the challenge.
With Smith announcing in January, 2015 for the October, 2015 primary, it gave him little more than eight months to tackle what Hartman said was the biggest obstacle to coming out with a win: fundraising.
“I knew that money was going to be the big question for us to make this happen,” Hartman said. “I told him we needed to raise about $250,000, but Randy just went out and did it.
“He is a prolific fundraiser and the reason he is successful is that he likes doing it, and people really like him,” Hartman said. “Randy was helped by the fact he has always been a guy who is out and about. He is seen by a lot by the public so continuing that was not a problem for him.”
Hartman said Smith met their fundraising goals at every point by holding back-to-back events in the first two months that raised approximately $30,000 each, and totaling over $200,000 by the time qualifying rolled around in September.
“In the end he raised over $300,000, but it didn’t come from a lot of big money people. We had so many people give smaller amounts and that showed there was a lot of support for a change as sheriff,” Hartman added.
With the money coming in to support the strategic plan, Hartman said they remained quiet for several months after the January announcement before the campaign went public.
“Not only did we have to raise a lot of money, but I also informed Randy that he would have to be willing to go negative against Strain if he wanted to win. It’s not a steady negative campaign—you have to have positive and negative messages—but there were things we had to throw out to make the public think about the differences,” he added.
In the final weeks, Hartman used campaign messages that “inferred” Strain was connected to former Coroner Dr. Peter Galvan and former D.A. Walter Reed, both who were forced out of office in the past two years due to financial questions of misuse with public money—something Strain has never been charged with. Galvan was convicted and is now in jail, while Reed has been charged and is awaiting trial.
“We only inferred there was a connection, we never said Strain did anything like what those two were charged with,” Hartman said. “In the end I am proud of the campaign we ran. And I’m proud of Randy, who was a workhorse in his campaigns.”
Hartman said the two key reasons Strain was vulnerable for Smith to beat was “due to the anti-incumbency atmosphere in St. Tammany Parish, and also due to news stories in the past couple of years that made people question things he had done.
“David Vitter made one of those points to me when he said there is an anti-incumbency mood in the country, but in St. Tammany it is 10-times what the country is,” he added.
Hartman said that when he initially did a poll before the first Smith election in 2010, checking name recognition for Randy Smith, it showed there was only a 10 percent name recognition for the man who will soon become the new sheriff.
“But when he started to campaign I had one person say that if you look at Ben and Randy on paper you would vote for Ben, but if you meet them, you would vote for Randy. That’s the big thing that helped Randy win this election—he is so likeable.”
Hartman, operating an agency with three other full-time staff members, has grown to have approximately 35 clients, with the majority in the political world. His agency also handles corporate and commercial clients, as well as non-profit agencies.
“I’ve got a great staff helping make this happen,” he said. “One thing about our agency is that we’re honestly not all about the money. We won’t take on any client. We really do want to make a difference, not just make a lot of money. In the end I am a Christian and follow what I think God would want for us.”
Hartman grew up in Washington, D.C. with a father and grandmother who were politically active. After moving to South Carolina and finishing high school there, he went to Tulane on a full academic scholarship and planned to be an English teacher.
But somewhere through college, whether working on the Tulane newspaper or due to local politics, he said “I was bit by the journalism bug.” Graduating with a double degree in English and Sociology he worked for the St. Tammany News Banner as a reporter for two years before being hired by Strain for nine years. After leaving the Sheriff’s Office he spent time on the campaigns for U.S. Senate candidate Walter Buosso, then Louisiana governor candidate John Georges.
Hartman had initially turned down the P.I.O. job offered by Strain to work on another Senate campaign in South Carolina, and Strain held the job until that six month stint was over, finally hiring Hartman in 1996.
“He said he would rather have me answering questions for him instead of asking him questions,” Hartman said with a smile.
Ironically, it would be nearly 20 years later when Hartman would be a key individual who played a big part in Strain losing his 20-year job as sheriff.