Sasquatch wins: Simon Cruz gets tossed through the windshield of Miami Beach politics

Mattie Herrera Bower is the new mayor of Miami Beach. Lord help us all. Expect resistance to change and the stonewalling of the BayLink project. With her Svengali, ex- obstructionist knee-jerk reactionary mayor David Dermer standing beside her, the status quo should pretty much remain the same for the next four years. Cruz screwed up royally when he brought out the "ethnic card" pitting the Jewish vote against everyone else. The TV spots portraying Bower as a dumbkoff didn't help either. Maybe real ideas instead of the tried-and-true safe topics of clean streets and fighting crime might have helped his campaign. But that would have gone against the prevailing stinking winds of local political campaigns: don't promise anything that might not appeal to everyone.

The only good thing that happened was seeing Deede Weithorn get elected as a city commissioner by a measly 65 votes. Talk about a close election.

Random Thoughts from MVB

• The race for mayor of Miami Beach has always been disappointing with its lack of ideas, but now it has also grown uglier. It appears our candidate of choice Simon Cruz has pulled off the kid gloves and is going bare knuckle against his opponent, the grandmotherly but dangerous Mattie Herrera Bower. Her side began the scuffle with a lie and now Cruz is responding with half-truths implying she's not for the Jews (her husband's Jewish) and TV ads that present Ms. Bower as someone who isn't qualified to shoulder the responsibility of the mayor's office. The TV ads show Ms. Bower over and over again admitting she doesn't have a clue when it comes to what is being presented to her at the commission meetings which is true but these spots make it look like grandma's being picked on by a much younger man. This could come back like a sucker punch in the back of the head at the polls this Tuesday. It reminds us of the beef jerky commercials. You don't mess with grandma Bower just like you don't mess with Sasquatch:
  

• We can only hope Cruz isn't hurled by the voters out of City Hall like Sasquatch hurls those idiots that are picking on him. Why? Because he's the most qualified and open minded of the two. He's open to revisiting BayLink which is probably the most important issue facing Miami Beach (but which no one running for office talks about). Unless a mass transit system is championed between the Beach and the Mainland, the quality of life will continue to be less than it could be. Only Cruz has been willing to face the inevitable-- unlike Bower who seems to fear and mistrust outright any idea that will get traffic off the streets it if means accommodating those living on the mainland. So, despite Mr. Cruz's willingness to mix it up with grandma Bower, please consider the alternative and vote Tuesday for Simon "Messin' with the SoBe Sasquatch" Cruz.
• Vote for Deede Weithorn, too, for Miami Beach commissioner. She's in a very close run off and shouldn't be. She is so qualified. Voters should have been stumbling over themselves to get her elected the first time.
• According to the Miami Herald, "More than 71,000 residential property owners in Miami-Dade and Broward failed to pay property taxes for 2006 and delinquencies are growing as costs climb and the slump deepens." The total unpaid amount: $365 million. In Miami-Dade, that's 41,544 residential property owners (one in 16 households). You don't have to be a financial guru to predict that this crisis will be as devastating as a direct hit by an Andrew-class hurricane if something isn't done to bail people out. Too bad most of these homeowners drive to and from work. What with the rising cost of gasoline, it is going to become even more difficult to pay taxes and make their mortgage payments. Now, if this region had a working commuter rail running north and south and a monorail running east and west, they could scrap their cars in favor of keeping a roof over their heads. Unfortunately, that option isn't there.
• Miami-Dade County wants to add "Miami-Dade" to Carnival Center. We're against this idea because of two things. One is aesthetics. Less is always more. The other is ethics. "Miami-Dade" is synonymous with slime, bribes, incompetence, waste, political correctness, and back-room politics. Don't make us think about that every time we look at the buildings.
• What's with all the weathermen and women retiring and skipping town? Do they know something we don't know? First it was Elita Loresca. Now, after a blatantly orchestrated and prolonged exit for retiring weatherman Don Noe that's built around getting local "celebrities" to pronounce how sad they are and how much they're going to miss him through staged video spots every night for the past two weeks, it began to dawn on us that quite possibly these weather professionals might really know something we don't. Should we be worried? Sir Manny Mojito and the Knights of the Mesa Redonda think we should. After a short break following their valiant and body breaking effort to keep hurricane Noel away from our shores, the boys in chainmail have started a 24-hour "worship-a-thon" in front of the Goddess of the Storm altar. UpDate (11/24): Now it appears that some of the people who know better when it comes to hurricanes are taking it a step further. Instead of skipping town or retiring, one of them has actually had the temerity to die on us. Herbert Saffir, who came up with the hurricane classification system known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, died today at the age of 90. What? He couldn't hold out until the end of hurricane season?
  

UpDate (1/10/08): This is the last post that mentioned Carnival Center. As of today, the name will change to Arsht Center for the Performing Arts because Adrinne Arsht agreed to donate $30 million and Carnival didn't have a problem with it. Ms. Arsht sold her Total Bank last year for $300 million so it's not like she's going to miss it. Now, if they can only come up with a way to get people to buy enough tickets to make it profitable.

Shaq knows best: Vote for Cruz

Shaquille O'Neal, a famous Miami Beach policeman, has endorsed Simon Cruz for mayor of Miami Beach. You should too. Get out and vote November 20th or vote early on the 17th or 19th between 9am and 7pm at Miami Beach City Hall or the North Shore Branch Library. Stop provincialism in its tracks, embrace responsible change and vote an open minded gentleman into office.

After the Vote

There is a Blog God after all. For all of those who forum on the Net through personal observations about politics and the arts (like us), it looks like we won't be short of inspiration thanks to yesterday's elections. Of the candidates we championed, it was refreshing to see that the City of Hialeah is as horney as it wants to be with the election of Jose "Pepe" Caragol whose campaigning slogan "If you love oral sex, vote for Jose 'Pepe' Caragol," seems to have worked.

In Miami Beach, there will be a runoff between Simon (no nickname) Cruz and the grandmotherly but dangerous Matti Herrera Bower. Cruz is a gentleman and has been conducting a non-smear campaign which is saying a lot for this community. He has to battle misleading information, some of which comes from the Miami Herald-- which has yet to make a correction. Mr. Cruz is open to BayLink unlike his runoff opponent who is at best a David Dermer obstructionist who basically wants to keep Miami Beach the way it was before it became popular. We hope you will consider going back to the polls in two weeks to ensure Miami Beach will get a better chance at facing the inevitable-- change-- by electing Simon (this guy needs a nickname) Cruz.

Finally, Deede Weithorn is also in another Miami Beach runoff. With an engineering degree from MIT and a practicing CPA, she probably is by far the smartest person ever to run for office in that city. She's also open to revisiting BayLink as the mass transit solution to getting large amounts of people from one side of the bay to the other-- which, for no other reason, is why you should vote her into office. At the forum where the Miami Herald misquoted Cruz, the candidates were asked about BayLink. Ms. Weithorn's opponent (whom we will not mention) didn't respond. Not a good sign. Ms. Weithorn, on the other hand, not only made a compelling reply, she made an effort following the forum to seek us out to talk further. We liked that and were thoroughly impressed with her up-close-and-personal one-on-one. Go ahead and give her your vote.

Simon Cruz for mayor of Miami Beach

In our 10/23 posting, we admitted-- as does the Sun Post-- we couldn't recommend any of the mayoral candidates running for office in Miami Beach. Our reasons were based on the fact that, as hard as we tried, we couldn't see any vision. Until now. In today's Miami Herald Neighbors, it mentions that Cruz is for BayLink as opposed to Mattie Bower, his main opponent. That's enough for us.

Vote for Simon Cruz for mayor of Miami Beach.

UpDate (11/3): Opposition TV ads quote Cruz as saying the following: ''If you can't take their money, drink their liquor, mess with their women and vote against them, you should not be in politics.'' That quote was picked up from a 10/26 Miami Herald article but it shouldn't be attributed to Cruz. I was at that public forum and Cruz prefaced the quote by telling everyone it was by Huey Long although Wikipedia attributes it to Jesse M. Unruh (which we tend to believe because our own research couldn't find Huey Long attached to anything as outrageous as that quote). In any event, Cruz was misquoted in the Miami Herald and now it appears he may end up paying for it. By the way, Cruz used the quote to deflate his opponent Mattie Bower Herrera's grandstanding sneak attack on his accepting money for his campaign from special interests. She wanted him to give the money back. He explained that money has never influenced his votes and used the quote for emphasis. The audience reaction he got that night was applause and laughter-- something that also failed to find its way into the Miami Herald.