Category Archives: Miami

Monday: nothing, nada, ziltch.

A relief, really.

This morning a lady from the Quesada GOTV effort called to ask if he “could count on my support.” I said I was undecided.

Otherwise, a quiet Sunday.

No phone calls, no door-knockers on Saturday. Just three mailers: a four-pager from Tom Korge, and giant cards from Frank Quesada and from the “Accountability Project” (Police unions et al.) for Gonzalo Sanabria (but it’s a positive mailer for a change).

Let’s get to the scans:
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The Miami Herald editorial board — not the world’s most utterly reliable source, but one worth considering — endorses Tom Korge for Mayor saying his “experience on key city boards coupled with his vision for change offer a winning mix.”  This is slightly surprising since the don’t-rock-the-boat Herald usually has a strong pro-incumbent bias. Bodes well for Korge.

In Group 5 they endorse Kerdyk, no surprise, see above on incumbents.

In Group 4, they say this:

In the packed field to replace 20-year veteran Commissioner Wayne “Chip’’ Withers, three of the seven candidates stand out: insurance salesman Rene Alvarez, lawyer Frank Quesada and clothing businessman Brad Rosenblatt. Each offers energy and imaginative ideas, but Mr. Alvarez is our pick.

I was starting to  thinking I’d end up Quesada, but maybe it’s time to take a more careful look at Alvarez too.  It’s interesting too that they don’t put Sanabria in their front rank.

This morning I got another robocall.  I picked up the phone, said “hello” and there was silence. “Hello? Hello!” As a result of all the helloing, I missed the first few words of the call in which the speaker on the scratchy tape identified himself as Somebody Something former Mayor of Something. But whoever he was, his recorded voice asked me to vote for Sanabria because he understands budgets and good public policy. It closed appropriately, identifying itself as a call paid and approved by the campaign for Gonzalo Sanabria.

[Late evening update: I came home to find a message on the answering machine left around 7:30pm from “Victoria,” a real live human who was calling to encourage me to vote for Sanabria.  I don’t know what it is about his phone lines or his volunteers, but what she was saying was really hard to make out on the tape (sounded cheerful, though).  I’d start to worry it was my phone, or maybe my hearing, except the other messages were fine.]

This afternoon’s mail brought three mailers:
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Below I offer an account of the debate among the three candidates for Mayor in Coral Gables held on Tuesday at the Cosford Cinema. Yesterday I posted Coral Gables Candidate Debate: Part 1 – Commission Group 4 and Group 5 (Updated). Since then there has been writing about the debate elsewhere, notably George Volsky’s dyspeptic but not unfair critique of the format in the Coral Gables Gazette, Chamber’s Election ‘Forum’ A Bust. Candidates were limited to tiny short answers about complex subjects, were not actually allowed to engage each other (thus, it’s not really a ‘debate’ at all), and the questions were somewhat limited in range.

Before the debate I had not been paying as much attention to the Mayor’s race as to the Commission Group 4. One reason was that, as I have written before, I think the incumbent, Don Slesnick, has done an OK job. (I know many others disagree, but that’s how I feel.) So I went in willing to be persuaded someone else was better, but not feeling that I had to have a change. I was willing to listen to challengers James Cason and Thomas Korge, but I was feeling skeptical. For all its faults, which were numerous, I thought the debate told me something useful about each of the three candidates. I left leaning fairly strongly towards one of them.
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