Although Kendrick Meek supporters decry his lack of media attention as the world focuses on the daily give and take of the Charlie Crist/Marco Rubio rumble, part of the problem for the Miami Democrat is that he is substantially running against himself for the Democratic nomination.
That's not meant to belittle either former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns (who we saw last week at the Democrats LGBT Caucus winter meeting in St. Petersburg) or former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, who CL featured in an article last month.
But in the case of Ferre, sometimes he appears to be own worst enemy.
As part of the St.Pete Times expanding its Pulitzer Prize winning fact checking series Politifact into Florida, the Times partner, the Miami Herald, wanted to do a little fact-checking on Ferre's boast to the Web site Newsmax that he left the city with "$43 million in the bank," when he left office back in 1985.
We urge you to read reporter Amy Sherman's piece in full, but check out this one graph as Ferre tries to explain some discrepancies on his $43 million quote :
`I obviously made a mistake, didn't I? It was not the fund balance, I am trying to figure out and get the exact figure for you. . . . How do you expect me to remember numbers 30 years later? I have someone down at City Hall trying to figure out those numbers. I accept I probably made a mistake when I said $43 million, I think I meant $34 million. The issue is not whether it was 34, 43, or 23, the issue is I left the city of Miami solvent.''
But all was not bad for Ferre. Politifact labels his "$43 million" quote as Barely True.
Ferre has also been calling on Kendrick Meek to return $5,000 in campaign contributions he has received from New York Democrat Charles Rangel, who announced yesterday that due to ethics charges he is stepping down from his post as House Ways & Means Chair.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.
