Full write-up tomorrow, but meanwhile I can say that the Coral Gables Mayoral Debate this evening generated more heat than light. A lot of heat. I thought both candidates behaved pretty badly at times.
As we went into the meeting there was a group of very nice people handing out leaflets outside protesting the Coral Gables garage deal that puts the garage in the Grove, but doesn’t offer the neighborhood any service.
None of the protestors came inside to write out a question for the candidates, or if they did the moderator didn’t choose to ask it, but in any event the issue was never put to the candidates, which I thought was a real shame, especially since the Grove residents are suing, and seem to have a case.
After the event the Cason campaign was handing out 8.5 x 11 color printouts demonstrating the source of the Cason-with-a-liquor-bottle image that figured in the Cason attack ad that I blogged about last week.
Incidentally one of those mailers turned up here yesterday in an English-language version. Here’s the image in question:
Mayor Cason said the Coral Gables liquor bottle was not Photoshopped, as I had imagined, but rather was artfully cropped: the original image shows Cason accepting the bottle from the Mayor of Cognac, to whom Cason had just given the keys to the city.
Cabrera said the mailers were not sent by his campaign, but didn’t deny that he knew about them.
But like I said above, there was bad behavior on both sides, and I’ll get to work writing it up. I’m still not sure who I should vote for on this one.
Previous Coral Gables election coverage.
I don’t understand the liquor bottle issue, if i can call it that. why is cason so sensitive about this? makes me wonder. i didn’t think twice when i saw it in the mail piece. now i’m wondering maybe it hit a nerve.
drink up everyone. drinks are on cason!
I saw it and immediately thought it was designed to suggest, covertly or overtly, that Cason is either living it up on the taxpayer dime or that he drinks too much. It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t even need to register consciously to be effective. And while it may be effective, it certainly isn’t nice.
That the picture is real makes it less evil than if it were a photoshop job, but even so. Given it is a real photo I don’t think I’d go so far as to call it dirty politics, but like I said, not nice.
Then again, as Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley once said, “politics ain’t beanbag.”
so you know what the motives were behind the choice of photo?
there are dozens of silly photos of cason on the web, public domain. this one looks pretty benign. i doubt there are any “nice” photos of him, given that he looks constipated most of the time. his own campaign photos look awful.
what are cason’s political opponents supposed to do?
again, i ask: what on earth is this all about? even elliott rodriguez poked fun at cason over this issue at the pone biz owners’ forum.
Know? Of course not, no one told me and I don’t read minds. But I worked in a number of political campaigns in my 20s and I think I have pretty good guess.