112 | INFLUENCE SUMMER/FALL 2016 spring training camps, and site of a 1964 speech by Martin Luther King Jr., all in the way of the vision. As they fell, so did some of Dyer’s longtime Democratic supporters. On the other hand, Dyer hasn’t shied away from progressives’ social agenda, officiating Orlando’s first gay weddings, pushing solar and green initiatives, and decriminalizing marijuana. When it came to standing arm-and-arm with Orlando’s LGBT community after the Pulse massacre, Dyer was there naturally. “The grumbling from the left is real, but his legacy is very good on progressive issues,” said Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph, a former Orange County Democratic chair, former state representative and a leader in the party’s progressive wing. “He’s quietly pushed a lot of that.” The only other thing Buddy Dyer ever talks about as a dream ambition beyond being mayor of a Big City called Orlando, would be the presidency of the University of Central Florida, if longtime University of Central Florida President John Hitt ever retires. “The reason UCF would interest me is I think it is the biggest asset we have in our community,” Dyer said. “And Dr. Hitt has done an unbelievable job of making it a true metro research university that influences everything we’re doing… If we’re going to be great, the university has to be great. And I think it’s certainly on that trajectory. It would be an interesting challenge to me.” Otherwise, Dyer could be Orlando’s Mayor for Life. The vast majority of Democrats still like him. Republicans think they could do worse in a city that’s heavily Democratic. “I think he really bloomed where he was planted,” said longtime City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, who openly talks about running for mayor herself if Dyer leaves office, but says she’s content to play supporting actress. “He loves his job.” And Dyer’s and Jacobs’ nationally visible leadership in the days and weeks following the Pulse crisis made them the faces of Orlando, like few mayors anywhere ever become. Already, with 13 years, Dyer is by far the longest-tenured bigcity mayor in Florida. Before this year is out he also will become the longest-serving mayor in Orlando’s history. He still has three years left in this term. Sure, there are other temptations. There is always talk that some American president wants him in D.C. And every time Florida holds a race for governor or the U.S. Senate, someone gives Dyer a call: Please run. He turns them all down. “I love this job,” Dyer said. “I don’t think I really want to spend two years of my job pursuing that. I feel I’ve made a huge difference being mayor. And I get good affirmations when I’m in public.” It is not, he insists, out of fear of The Mug Shot. In the spring of 2005 the man whom Dyer had just defeated in that year’s election, Ken Mulvaney, filed criminal charges against him and his campaign manager, alleging they had illegally paid people to gather absentee ballots in poor, black neighborhoods. Dyer was indicted, arrested and booked. Gov. Jeb Bush suspended him from office pending the case outcome. His nightmare lasted 40 days before a judge ruled that it was, in fact, legal for campaigns to hire people to collect absentee ballots. Charges were dropped. Dyer and his campaign were exonerated. He returned to office. He went on to win three mayoral re-election landslides, crushing opponents. Yet mug shots live forever. Imagine his appearing in campaign TV commercials in Florida cities where people do not know Dyer, or what happened in 2005. “In a governor’s race where everybody knows everything about you by the end of it, or same thing in a Senate race, that wouldn’t be a fatal bullet,” he said. For now, the Big City Beautiful is still very much a work in progress. It had been the City Sad. It came out of crisis as the City Strong, and the City United. And for the foreseeable future, Orlando is Buddy Dyer’s city, big yet or not.
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