There's a lot of talk about Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter going to work in Washington for the Barack Obama administration. I know this is simple politics, a payback, and I have a plea for the president-elect:
Take her. Please.
Let's face it, Ritter can't do nearly as much damage in Washington, where's she'll be a tiny little fish, as she can here in Broward. She has, after all, been an absolute disaster as a county commissioner. Ritter has steered county dollars to former and current clients of her lobbyist-husband Russ Klenet, prompting criminal corruption investigations that were squashed by State Attorney Michael Satz. But it's not just that. Ritter is an intemperate princess with an outsized ego and an undersized record of accomplishments. I remember being up in Tallahassee during the Bush-Gore recount in 2000. It was exciting times and dedicated reps, like Dan Gelber and (yes, I'll say it) Lois Frankel, were working their tails off. And Ritter? Walking around with a smirk on her face, complaining about trivial matters, acting like a spoiled brat. She's a fit-thrower. I once saw videotape where she made a fool of herself in a black church.
A lot of that attitude may have to do with her her father, longtime Tamarac politico Ed Portner, a substanceless public servant whose deepest loyalty has always seemed to lie with developers.
Ritter is in many ways the antithesis of what the Obama revolution is all about. But gossip is intensifying that she's on her way to D.C. And that's good news for Broward.
