VOTERS don't often pay close attention to races for countywide offices other than the top job, county executive.

Assemblyman Spano chose not to run for re-election last fall, but he is frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for countywide office.

They redrew the city and county voting districts so that the first freely chosen black man attained countywide office in more than a hundred years.

Among Republican county legislators, the minority leader, Peter Schmitt, is by far the best known, but he has not expressed any inclinations for countywide office.

However, most countywide offices are still held by Republicans, and Republicans still have a majority on the county commission.

The Chicago Tribune named him the winner, making him the first Republican to win a countywide office in several decades.

By 1982, he fixed on a new strategy: running for countywide office - county clerk - to capture the votes of the party base in the south.

A Nashville native, Gentry was elected three times to countywide public office.

A black candidate had never run for a countywide political office in Pinellas at the time.

"You can still get elected to countywide office without the Cuban vote, but it's awfully difficult."