"Next year in Jerusalem" is right now for FL-17 Rep. Frederica Wilson, courtesy of AIPAC. But that's bad news for Americans, esp. her constituents

"Next year in Jerusalem" is right now for FL-17 Rep. Frederica Wilson, courtesy of AIPAC. But that's bad news for Americans, esp. her constituents.

The very constituents that she ought to be meeting with in-person right now during the summer recess. In places like ocean-side Hallandale Beach, for instance.

A city in the FL-17 CD that she never had a public event at before last August's primary.

Some of you out there in the South Florida part of the blogosphere may've seen this telling little bombshell in the Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog earlier in the week:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson in Israel

By Anthony Man August 8, 2011 01:25 PM

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/08/congresswoman_frederica_wilson_3.html

Notice what it doesn't say?

Correct, who's paying for Wilson's trip.

Only THE most obvious and important question one could ask.

Somehow, and for whatever reason, THAT answer didn't seem important enough for Anthony Man to include in the small post, that over 72 hours later, still has not drawn a single reader comment.

Assuming he didn't first find out about it from a press release from her office, which is entirely likely given how rarely Rep. Wilson's name ever appears in the Broward Politics blog, this is par for the course here in South Florida as far as the press digging for information goes, and Man in particular.

Actually, her own press release about the trip neglects to mention AIPAC also:

http://wilson.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=49&sectiontree=6,49&itemid=155

Somehow I have a strong feeling that the source of the trip's funding would've come up in the blog post if it had something to do with an oil company PAC for instance, or one representing almost any other corporate interest.

(For the record, I disregard almost everything Anthony Man writes, in large part because over the years I've found so much of what he has written or said on public policy TV shows to be factually incorrect, lacking crucial context, completely unpersuasive, or, as if that wasn't enough, when it comes to the dreaded Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, he's seemed like her trained pet poodle.

Her Boswell.

What Man has written about this FL-20 House member -who has never run in a non-gerrymandered CD and never faced a competitive opponent in a general election, a most-charmed situation!- seems so over-the-top that it was embarrassing to read.

Not unlike Alex Leary's recent story in the St. Pete Times that I commented on recently.)

I first learned about the departure of nearly one-fifth of the U.S. Congress for Israel in The Washington Post on Tuesday and wondered how in the world that could possibly be a good idea for either American public policy, esp. foreign policy, or, their own constituents suffering the slings and arrows of Obama's economic malaise.

Does Rep. Wilson really think going to Israel for the first time is more important than meeting with her constituents?

"Asked and answered, your honor."

Washington Post

House members travel to Israel, courtesy of AIPAC lobby, not taxpayers

By Al Kamen

Published: August 9, 2011

A record 81 House members, about a fifth of the chamber, are spending a week in Israel this month, courtesy of a foundation set up by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby.

Read the rest of the article at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-members-travel-to-israel-courtesy-of-aipac-lobby-not-taxpayers/2011/08/09/gIQA8xOU5I_story.html

I hadn't had time to read the Broward Politics blog on Monday due to being so busy, but even if I had, which article tells you more?

The Post didn't neglect to discover the source of the funding, they put it right there in the headline so nobody could miss it.

As I have here, too.

The next day, my daily Morning Brief email from Foreign Policy magazine arrived and one of the posts there made all the points I made in my head and planned on sharing here -better than me.

Foreign Policy

How the World Is Really Run blog

The congress is in session, it turns out … in Israel

Posted By David Rothkopf

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 11:44 AM

This week's reports that 20 percent of the U.S. Congress will be visiting Israel this month are stunning. Eighty-one members of Congress -- two thirds of them Republicans, 47 of them freshmen -- apparently think it is more important to be visiting Israel than it is to be at home dealing with the worst economic crisis in modern memory. America's economy is in flames and these guys are taking lobbyist-funded trips to what, watch Israelis take to the streets to protest the high-cost of living in that country?

Read the rest of the post at:

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/10/the_congress_is_in_session_

it_turns_out_in_israel

I acknowledge that it sounds petty but I'd love for someone with a TV camera rolling to ask Rep. Wilson what she thinks of the success or failure so far of Operation New Dawn.

No, it's true, I don't think very highly of Rep. Wilson, and I don't think this cipher in Congress that represents the people in my part of Hallandale Beach would know what that operation is, that is, without prompting.

But it hardly matters.

Frederica Wilson will fight tooth-and-nail over the next year to make sure that she can keep this cushy, no heavy-lifting (or thinking) job of hers that pays $174k a year, and will do anything she can to make sure that the FL-17 congressional district remains nice and gerrymandered so that she NEVER has to run against a competitive candidate in a general election and can stay in office as long as SHE wants.

More soon on what's happening with congressional redistricting and whom I'd love to see run against Wilson next year in a new, more logically-drawn CD that more accurately represents the interests of this area of south Broward and northeast Miami-Dade counties.

And while I'm at it, let me just state that it sure would be nice if a single legitimate reporter or columnist in South Florida reported on what group former City of Miami City Manager Tony Crapp, Jr. is working for now in the redistricting battle on behalf of his new bosses at

GrayRobinson, P.A.

Why is nobody asking or reporting on this?

I feel like I'm pulling teeth sometimes.

-----

See also:

Foreign Policy magazine: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

The Crespo-Gram Report: http://www.crespogram.com/

Give the devil her due: nobody in Florida demagogues & obfuscates like the dreaded DWS; Politico: "Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship..."

Give the devil her due, nobody in Florida demagogues & obfuscates like the dreaded Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) -Politico: "Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship..."

POLITICO

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship … spark panic'

By Mike Allen

July 27, 2011 5:52 PM EDT

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose “dictatorship” through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations. She said the GOP rhetoric could “spark panic and chaos,” which she called “potentially devastating” to the economy.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/60080.html

Meanwhile, north of here in the Panhandle part of Florida I've never ventured into, Tallahassee Democrat Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell weighs in on the recent contretemps between DWS and Allen West that I wisely avoided writing about since it was everywhere you looked, and you could only NOT know about it if you lived in... well, no, you'd know about it there, too.

Tallahassee Democrat

The art of the political insult

Today's lack elegance, but they get the job done

By Bill Cotterell

6:33 PM, Jul. 27, 2011

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20110728/COLUMNIST03/107280310/Bill-Cotterell-art-political-insult?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

The above piece by the very insightful Bill Cotterell, is an exception to what I've often written here of the hagiography that goes on in the Florida press corps with regard to DWS, esp. at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and local Miami TV stations.

The female reporters in South Florida are especially reluctant to ask DWS questions that are either hard or original, just the same softballs, year-after-year.

It's monotonous with a capital "M."

But then that's why so many female reporters here are simply not taken seriously by well-informed people regardless of gender.

Simply put, too many of the reporters are personally shallow AND happily uninformed and really ought to be in much smaller media markets.

But like DWS -and most of the female sideline reporters at ESPN- they are gerrymandered into their current positions.

In some cases by virtue of this area's low-pay and need to have a certain demographic group represented on TV, regardless of how unappealing they are -dopey women who really do think stories on plastic surgery ARE imp0rtant, and ought to be on within the first ten minutes of a newscast- but nothing short of video of them shooting someone will get them off the air or off the newspaper beat.

The joke is on us, the readers and viewers who have to tolerate the towering mediocrity.

Here's a recent example of the sort of hagiography I meant, which actually compelled me to write in and comment because it sounded so much like a puff piece from her own paid govt. flack.

St. Petersburg Times

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz uses her resolve to fight cancer, lead DNC.

By Alex Leary, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Sunday, July 17, 2011

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article1180722.ece

Back on the 16th I wrote:

Is there no end in sight to the number of articles that can be written about this woman and cancer? Are there so few compelling political or government stories in the fourth-largest state in the country that this sort of filler must continue to be churned out, over-and-over? Simply put, there is nothing here that hasn't been written a dozen times before -and better.
And I surmise THAT is something that both liberals and conservatives can agree on.

For instance, how about writing about the number of State House and Senate members that DON'T live at the addresses they claim they do, both before and after the election, and how the legislature just looks the other way, despite the fact that it's illegal?
There are three of them in just South Florida alone!
Just saying...

Alex, what happened to you? You used to show such promise.
Is this how it ends, with a banal whimper?

New TV ad from FairDistrictsFlorida.org; FL-17 and Corrine Brown's FL-3 are embarrassing embodiment of what unchecked gerrymandering gets you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjqZDGQGu4I

-----

If passed, legislative districts would have to be contiguous and compact wherever possible, following pre-existing city and county boundaries.

This very simple TV ad is a nice rebuke to the pro-incumbent nonsense that has animated many of the newspaper articles and columns I've read the past few months, where reporters and columnists seem to foolishly imagine that they can explain the situation better with words, rather than a simple map -they can't.

They will NEVER be able to beat an accurate map for conveying the sheer preposterous nature of the way legislative districts are currently drawn by insiders.

But for some unfathomable reason, perhaps the epidemic of terrible news editing raging across the state's newspapers -with particular damage in South Florida- the simple act of displaying accurate representations of the districts is almost always missing from these stories and columns, even links to such on their newspaper websites and political blogs, despite how easy it is to show.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/2010/06/corrine-brown-and-mr-gerry-mandering.html

That's why I have taken it upon myself to actually provide links to these maps when I have chosen to comment on various news sites on this subject so that others can see them for themselves, absent the newspaper doing this basic thing.

A simple map of the districts is like cold water being tossed into the faces of folks like Rep, Corrine Brown, the erratic woman whose equally erratic and bizarre northeast Florida nine-county congressional district stretches from Jacksonville to north of Orlando, often only about the length of a few blocks for quite a distance.

Why was that done?
Simple -to keep her in Congress.

As I've written here many times before, it's the very same reason that FL-17, where I live and currently have Kendrick Meek as a rep in Washington for a few more days, was drawn up the way it was.
The CD snakes its way from Liberty City in Miami then goes northwest to Opa-Locka and then jumps across the Broward County line, including the part of Hallandale Beach that's west of U.S.-1.

Or, counter-intuitively, why the other part of Hallandale Beach, which includes the towering condos on the beach along State Road A1A, which are actually FARTHER AWAY from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's FL-20 congressional base of support out in Pembroke Pines
than I am, STILL end up being represented by her instead of Meek.

The current FL-17 was drawn specifically to ensure that there were enough African-American voters in a Miami-based district so that Carrie Meek could win a Congressional seat -and stay in office indefinitely.
And in a tragic case of unintended consequences, give it to her son Kendrick as an inheritance.

This sort of chicanery and mutuality of interests among Democrats also ensured that liberal Jewish Democratic voters in SE Broward would largely be able to vote for someone else,
Someone NOT named Meek.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=17, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=20

How gerrymandering sustains political dynasties
http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1999:how-gerrymandering-sustains-political-dynasties&catid=34:our-pulse-florida&Itemid=53

Logically, FL-17 should include only Miami-Dade voters and should've always had a MUCH higher representation of Hispanic voters than it has, since they are the majority of citizens and voters in Miami-Dade County.
And yet it didn't, did it?

Perhaps once these common sense Amendments are passed, local and congressional legislative districts will FINALLY and accurately reflect the common sense realities of the mutuality of interests of citizens in compact districts, not merely be odd-shaped stains on a map to allow incumbents to get enough supporters to stay in office indefinitely.

This will surely be the last time that FL-17 looks the way it does now.
Adios and good riddance!

For more on combative Rep. Corrine Brown, please see:

Corrine Brown: Because This Senate Race Needs Some Crazy http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2009/06/corrine_brown_because_this_sen.php

Local radio host, Rep. Corrine Brown have an on-air shouting match
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/david-hunt/2010-06-10/girl-fight-or-we-saw-gerrymandering-hit-soft-spot


Opponent disputes Corrine Brown's district.
Documentary says boundaries formed by gerrymandering.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-06-01/story/opponent-disputes-browns-district-gerrymandered

Scott Fortune - A Horribly Gerrymandered Congressional District



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2l4WUZ_lcE


Scott Fortune - Gerrymandering in Mt. Dora, Fla.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpxdmU7s54

See Scott Fortune's other eye-opening videos on gerrymandering in Florida at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ScottFortune4U

Here's another mention of Brown from an excerpt of a recent email I received from the FairDistrictsFlorida.org folks, since I'm on their mailing list by choice.

--------Forwarded Message----------
From: Kelly Penton, Kelly.Penton@fairdistrictsflorida.org
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:45:45 -0400 (EDT)
To: Jackie Lee, Jackie.Lee@fairdistrictsflorida.org
Subject: Say NO to self-interested politicians!


Have you seen FairDistricts’ television ad? Have you read that every major Florida newspaper is supporting Amendments 5 & 6? Have you heard about the latest polls that show we are on track to finally put an end to unfair redistricting?

Well, our opponents must have. The politicians, clinging to the luxury of picking their own voters, are burning up the airwaves trying to confuse voters and convince them that Amendments 5 & 6 are not in Floridians’ best interest.

State Senator Mike Haridopolos has been pumping defamatory op-eds into Florida papers, Congresswoman Corrine Brown has been all over YouTube spreading her message of opposition, and Congressman Diaz-Balart even showed up at our press conference trying to negate our message.

It’s not a coincidence that those who object to Amendments 5 & 6 are the very politicians who will face greater competition in their elections when 5 & 6 are in the Florida Constitution. When Amendments 5 & 6 pass, voters in Florida will regain the power to hold legislators accountable. Right now, redistricting guarantees victory for incumbents – No wonder politicians object!

I have learned to never underestimate the power of self-interested politicians.

Thanks,
Kelly Penton

Communications Director
FairDistrictsFlorida.org
VOTE YES on AMENDMENTS 5 & 6

--------

http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/home.php

A Clean Sweep for Amendments 5 & 6!

FairDistrictsFlorida Press Release
Friday Oct 22, 2010

Every Major Florida Newspaper Endorses the FairDistricts Amendments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 22, 2010
Contact: Kelly Penton, 786-258-2649 Kelly@FairDistrictsFlorida.org

Miami, FL— Today, the Florida Times-Union recommended that “voters should support the reasonable Amendments 5 and 6,” making it a clean sweep of endorsements from major newspapers across the state. A total of 22 newspapers have urged Floridians to vote YES on FairDistricts Amendments 5 and 6.

“This could very well be the one issue this election season with unanimous support from all major newspapers across the state,” said FairDistrictsFlorida.org Campaign Chair Ellen Freidin. “Each newspaper agrees-- politicians have been using redistricting as a way to protect their own seats, making backroom deals and handpicking the voters that will most likely support them to be in their districts. Amendments 5 and 6 will stop this selfish practice, once and for all.”

The FairDistricts Amendments have even received national attention, with an editorial today in USA Today supporting efforts in Florida, California and Oklahoma, and stating “All these plans would benefit voters and the public interest.”

Since September, endorsements have been rolling in one-by-one from:
Bradenton Herald
Bradenton Times
Florida Today
Ft. Myers News-Press
Gainesville Sun
Highlands Today
Naples Daily News
Northwest Florida Daily News
Ocala Star Banner
Orlando Sentinel
Palm Beach Post
Panama City News Herald
Pensacola News Journal
Sarasota Herald Tribune
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
St. Petersburg Times
Suwannee Democrat
Tallahassee Democrat
Tampa Tribune
The Florida Times-Union
TCPalm
The Miami Herald

They all say that by voting yes on Amendments 5 and 6, Floridians will create rules for politicians when they redraw district lines, to make sure they protect voters’ best interests, not their own. With voter approval, the amendments will: prohibit politicians from drawing districts to benefit themselves or their parties, while requiring them to make districts compact, contiguous, and follow city/county lines, where feasible. In addition, the amendments will inscribe into the State Constitution strong protections for minority voting rights, for the first time ever.

To read each endorsement, or for more information on Amendments 5 and 6, please visit www.fairdistrictsflorida.org

-----

See veteran CBS News reporter Bill Plante interviews director Jeff Reichert, the writer and director of Gerrymandering at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RtKwhd60Q8
Sorry, that's not available for me to show here, but you can click the link above to go to CBSNewsOnline and view it.

But I do have the trailer for Reichert's documentary.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kurAB5ridko

See also:
http://www.opencongress.org

http://www.govtrack.us/

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd

http://www.sarasotaspeaks.com/node/71394

http://www.youtube.com/user/ScottFortune4U

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/may/31/florida-redistricting-attracts-amendments-lawsuits/news-breaking/

The Chicken and the Egg Conundrum 2.0: Ugly Politicians & Ugly Meter iPhone Apps

Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld -Fox News Channel



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui01ZaXRVzE

Now one of my favorite TV shows, Red Eye airs on the Fox New Channel at 3 a.m. Mon. -Fri.

Meanwhile, in FL-22, which includes part of Hallandale Beach...

BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Halloween Contest Shows Ugly Side of Politics
By Bob Norman,
Wed., Oct. 20 2010 @ 8:35AM

Talk about scary politics.

Republicans are throwing a Halloween party in Pembroke Pines next Friday night.

As part of the festivities, they will be holding a U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz look-alike contest that the invitation says "could scare the devil himself." The winner gets $100.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/10/halloween_contest.php


Meanwhile, this summer, the beautiful and beguiling Courtney Friel of Fox News Channel frequently appeared on Red Eye to gamely read aloud Glenn Beck's novel, The Overton Window.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaqkMr-FuyY

See also:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/broward_politics/

www.dailygut.com

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/red-eye/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/RedEyeRecap

http://jedediahbila.com/

Miami Herald rediscovers FL-17 race it's largely ignored; FL-17 candidate forum at FIU's Biscayne Bay campus Thurday at 5 p.m.

Not that they bear ALL the responsibility for this, per se, but why is the Miami Herald once again doing something that's so counter-intuitive by posting this story about a congressional race that they have largely ignored the past year, FL-17, that includes info about a Thursday afternoon candidate's forum, at 11:22 p.m. Wednesday night, instead of showing some sense and doing so Tuesday night for Wednesday's print edition, so more readers and voters would have a chance to attend?

Isn't the candidate forum information time-sensitive?
Seems like it to me!

The Herald's longstanding and almost spiteful refusal over the years to run items like that early when they can actually be of practical use to readers, the final consumers of their product, is really something that gives frequent critics of the newspaper like me, even more ammunition than we need.

Frankly, it makes the reporters and editors seem EVEN MORE distant and removed from the concerns of readers.

In most major newspapers, that particular info would've run in the paper on Sunday, so that concerned readers could make plans to attend.

Yet curiously, events that the Herald or owner McClatchy or previously, Knight-Ridder, was sponsors or co-sponsors of, no matter how parochial or picayune, were/are always given lots of play in advance. We all know that to be true, so why the disparity?

By the way, I'm NOT a big fan of FIU Prof. Dario Moreno, who is quoted below in the story, as I've almost always found his appearances on local TV newscasts or public policy shows -usually Michael Putney's excellent This Week in South Florida (TWISF)- to be the worst kind of sycophantic conventional wisdom, with him offering no original take on anything.

Almost as if he was at pains to criticize anyone, which, perhaps he is.
When I see Prof. Moreno on the tube, I tune-out and change the channel.

There are a number of holes in this story but it's so damn blah, why shoot a fish in a barrel?
Well, because I can.

U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd./Federal Highway is the dividing line between Kendrick Meek's current 17th CD and the dreaded Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's 20th CD. (DWS)

It might interest the reporters -and those of you living far from here- to know that contrary to what they wrote, ALL of Aventura is in DWS territory.

Is it really too much trouble to expect news reporters to actually know what is and is NOT in the 17th CD when they write about it?
I mean there are maps of it after all, right?

Yes, I even posted one here for you to examine, and there's one anchored on the blog.
Here's the link:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL

The east side of West Dixie Highway is the dividing line for the City of Aventura, so the people who live in Miami-Dade County north of North Miami Beach -where I grew-up- and west of Aventura, are, technically in unincorporated M-D County, NOT Aventura, despite what the businesses there may call themselves or what they put on their signs or business cards.
Just ask the Post Office or any Aventura cop -they know.

See this handy map: http://skyhighhomes.com/picture/northeastdademac.pdf

And as discussed here previously, it's why the well-regarded Aventura Waterways Charter K-8 school, which I'd love to see replicated in Hallandale Beach, is NOT really in Aventura proper.

Not that the residents living on the other side of Dixie Highway don't want to be in it, but the City of Aventura powers-that-be don't want 'em because in their minds, pure and simple, the area isn't affluent enough.

I know all about this border not just from living so close to it, but because every time I see my barber in the M-D neighborhood of Ojus, which is in that no-man's land, we discuss it, just like we did yesterday for the umpteenth time.

See the Skylake-Highland Lakes Homeowners Assocation website for backstory at
http://skyhighhomes.com/outside_home.asp, in particular, here:
http://skyhighhomes.com/item_list.asp?subcat=44&subtitle=Annexation%2FIncorporation

As has been previously mentioned here in previous discussions of Meek, DWS and the South Florida CDs, the grand bargain the FL legislature made many years in carving-out the CDs, knowing that Carrie Meek was going to run, was to put as many African-Americans as possible in 17 and as many Jewish voters as possible in the 20th.

That's why the 20th CD has the strange shape it does and why Hallandale Beach, where I live, and not listed in the story, a city that's only 4.2 square miles, is actually divided in two, when its small size ought to make it even more important for the it to entirely be in the same district.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=17
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=20

The Broward County Commission districts also divide the city, albeit on a much smaller scale, since a sliver of NW HB is in District 8, formerly repped by the indicted Diana Wasserman-Rubin, and currently unrepresented at the Commission until November, while 95% of the city is currently repped by Sue Gunzburger in District 6.

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist8.pdf

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist6.pdf

And you thought that electoral districts were actually supposed to be "compact" for the benefit of residents like the law says?
Nope!

As for the dopey comments of self-serving Broward Democratic Party poobah Mitch Ceasar about possible low-turnout in the Broward part of the district, well, they're typical.

Explain how on the one hand that you'd imagine that people will turn out to vote in the Sue Gunzburger vs. Steve Geller fight for Broward County Commission District 6, but counter-intuitively, not cast a ballot in a primary for Congress?

If anything, it's very likely that the Broward part of FL-17 will have a higher voting-rate than the part located in Miami-Dade County.

I believe I wrote that many months ago in a few posts criticizing the FL-17 candidates who were refusing to come to Broward and campaign in cities like, yes, home sweet Hallandale Beach.
Now THERE'S your real story!

------

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/11/1772338/1-open-seat-10-candidates-an-unpredictable.html

Florida International University and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce will host

a candidate forum for Congressional District 17 at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Wolfe University

Center Theater, FIU Biscayne Bay Campus, 3000 NE 151st St. in North Miami.

The forum, co-sponsored by The Miami Herald and Univisión/Channel 23, will be moderated

by WPLG-ABC 10 political reporter Michael Putney.

Marleine Bastien, Phillip Brutus, Scott Galvin, Shirley Gibson, Rudy Moise, André Williams

and Frederica Wilson have confirmed their attendance.

1 open seat + 10 candidates = an unpredictable election

By Patricia Mazzei and Carrie Wells

August 12, 2010

For nearly two decades, nobody has had to figure out how to win Florida's 17th Congressional District.

Neither U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek nor his mother, Carrie -- the first person elected to the seat when it was redrawn in 1992 -- faced more than token opposition, if any.

But now Meek is running for U.S. Senate, and the nine other Democrats vying for his seat are working without a road map to model their races. Forced to devise their own strategies, the campaigns have not focused on capturing votes in the entire district, a safe Democratic seat that stretches from Overtown to Pembroke Pines.

Instead, they are carving out niches, trying to muster just enough votes to eke out a victory in the Aug. 24 primary. The winner will face attorney Roderick Vereen, running without party affiliation, in November.

With so many candidates splintering the vote, one candidate would win the primary with as little as 15 percent of the ballots cast, said Kevin A. Hill, an associate professor of political science at Florida International University.

"Anything could happen in that election,'' he said. "It's a total crapshoot.''

The race is also unpredictable because the district's more than 600,000 residents are as diverse as they come. A majority of voters are black -- mostly African American, though the district has the largest concentration of Haitian Americans in the country -- and there are pockets of whites and Hispanics.

"This election may answer whether it's an African-American seat, a Haitian seat or probably a bit of everything,'' said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Broward Democratic Party.

With Meek opting not to endorse anyone in the primary, the candidates have worked to shore up their natural bases as they crunch numbers to determine which is the district's biggest voting bloc.

Frederica Wilson has relied on an existing network in her Florida Senate district, which overlaps with much of the congressional district. The same is true for state Reps. James Bush III and Yolly Roberson and former state Rep. Phillip Brutus. To complicate allegiances further: Brutus and Roberson used to be married to each other.

None of those districts encompass all of Miami Gardens, home to two other candidates: Mayor Shirley Gibson and Councilman André Williams. As the third-largest city in Miami-Dade and the state's largest predominantly African-American city, a well-known official could amass enough votes to win with little need of support from elsewhere.

The same is not true for smaller cities like North Miami, where candidate Scott Galvin is a councilman. As the only white candidate in the race, he could collect votes in Miami Shores, North Miami Beach and Aventura.

Haitian Americans -- who depending on varying estimates make up between an eighth and a quarter of the vote in the district -- could swing the election.

Yet it is unlikely for Haitian Americans to vote as a unified bloc, with four Haitian-born candidates in the running: Brutus, Roberson, activist Marleine Bastien and entrepreneur Rudolph "Rudy'' Moise.

Looking elsewhere for support, Bastien, founder of Haitian Women of Miami, has tried to rally like-minded activists and the female vote. Moise, running with deep pockets after putting more than $1 million of his own money into the race, has gone on TV and sent campaign mailers to become better known.

His media campaign could reach some voters in Miramar, Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, which together comprise about a third of the district. Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober recently endorsed Moise, citing his "real-world experience.''

"The key for the candidates is to somehow make sure Broward does not believe itself to be a stepchild of the district,'' Ceasar said. "If that occurs, then the risk becomes greater that the turnout in the Broward portion is exceedingly low.''

Turnout is expected to be low everywhere. In 2006, the last time Meek drew a primary opponent, about 36,000 people -- or 16 percent -- of the district's 220,000 registered Democrats voted.

This time around the seat is more competitive, but some campaigns and political observers say a candidate could still win with as few as 10,000 votes.

That makes relying on one group for support particularly risky.

And, of course, whoever is elected will have to represent everyone in the diverse district. That tall order could mean a streak of competitive elections among Democrats battling for the seat in the future.

"It is difficult,'' said Dario Moreno, an associate professor of political science at FIU. "That's why the Meeks were so successful.''