Alright, Davis beats Smith in a close race (which I thought would be even closer). That's what Smith gets for selling his soul to Big Sugar (B.S.) and using dirty political ploys to try to fool voters into thinking Davis was anti-Semitic and racist. The victory sets up what I think is going to be a brawl for governor. And guess what? Crist isn't a brawler. Empty suits don't have much of a left hook. Davis, on the other hand, showed he could get down to the ground in the primary and slug it out. This is gonna be good.
Ted Deutch pulled it off on Irv Slosberg, who would have done better to just keep his money in the bank and his mouth shut. After Slosberg's ridiculous antics, it's good to see Deutch win. But the jury is still out on Deutch, of course. His only credential, really, is that he's a honcho at the South Palm Beach Jewish Federation and . U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler backed him, as did the congressman's boy Bruce Warshaw, the editor at the Jewish Journal (a newspaper oft-mentioned by Wexler's staffers in "The Hill" show, as in "Get these talking points into the Jewish Journal"). About all Warshaw could say about him in his endorsement of Deutch was that he's a lawyer and "an unassuming mensch." Deutch's position on the issues are about as blurry as that mug shot, so who knows what to expect? One thing that seems pretty clear: He's going to be an improvement on Slosberg.
Speaking of Wexler, it was a big night for the congressman. His other pet in the race was millionaire Jeremy Ring, who wiped the floor with
Ben Graber. Saw that one coming from a mile away. Two things killed Graber -- his ingracious exit from the county commission and being at the helm of Ernesto, which did him no good. The Sentinel's Anthony Man did a story about how political academics and consultants were saying the Ernesto air time was going to help Graber. We knew better.
Jim Waldman beat Amy Rose, which was no surprise. He's a long-time pol in the area while Rose, who has never served in office, was seen as something of a carpetbagger. [Perceptions about her personal life, which I'm not going to delve into, also played a role]. Rose didn't exactly set the world on fire in terms of campaigning, either. And her attacks on Waldman (including the possibly illicit distribution of a couple of my articles) wasn't enough to be her magic bullet. Still, she did pretty well, all things considered. Now Waldman is free to do the bidding of his rich and powerful friends, college chain owner Art Keiser first and foremost among them. The real problem is that once these guys get elected -- at both the state and national level -- the daily newspapers rarely keep an eye on what they actually do. In particular, the Sentinel's main Washington correspondent, William Gibson, uses local members of Congress for quotes to fill space -- but he doesn't hold them accountable for their actions. In other words, the Sun-Sentinel's D.C. corps is, fundamentally, an abject failure.
How's that for a non-sequitur ending?
