Two 2010 Campaigns Kickoff Next Week
BY BUDDY NEVINS
It might be summer, but there are no vacations from raising political cash.
Two candidates have campaign kickoffs this week School Board member Ann Murray and Weston City Commission candidate Toby Feuer.
Both are running in fall 2010 elections.
Long-time Weston activist Feuer’s campaign is being run by David Brown. It would be a surprise if he wasn’t her campaign manager.
Brown has a lock on campaign work in Weston.
This time around even before the first campaign event, Brown helped Feuer win endorsements. They include backing from every city commissioner; Mayor Eric Hersh; state Sen. Nan Rich of Weston; state Rep. Franklin Sands of West; County Commissioner Lois Wexler, who represents parts of Weston; Property Appraiser Lori Parrish, who lives just outside of Weston and School Board member Robin Bartleman.
The seat Feuer is running for is the one based in Bonaventure and now held by Commissioner Murray Chermak, who is term limited out next year.
Chermak beat the late-Commissioner Ed Jacobson to win the seat. Both Chermak and Ruth Jacobson, the commisioner’s widow, have endorsed Feuer.
An interesting aside: Brown has managed to become the go-to person for Weston elections despite his running a campaign against the city in 1997. Brown managed Sunrise’s annexation battle when that city was competing with Weston for the Bonaventure area.
“I was the devil to Weston back then, Brown recalls.
But the devil lost his mojo in that campaign. Brown suffered a rare 2-to-1 loss when Bonaventure voted to become part of tony Weston rather than wacky, tacky Sunrise.
In less than a decade, Brown went from that rare Weston loss to rarely losing in Weston. He handled the campaigns of Mayor Hersh and every other current Weston city commission member.
Feuer’s kickoff in Wednesday, June 24, 5:30 7:30 p.m.. For information call 954-651-8892 or e-mail tobyforweston@bellsouth.net.
Drive south from Feuer’s kickoff– same day, same time — and you’ll find Murray’s campaign kickoff at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Community Center.
Murray has an impressive list of over 100 hosts for her event.
They including most of Southeast Broward’s political establishment and others like Democratic Chair Mitch Ceasar, Broward Democratic State Committeewoman Diane Glasser, schools activist Charlotte Greenbarg, lobbyists Tom Pennavaria, Judy Stern and Neil Schiller, Clerk of the Courts Howard Forman and several of her School Board colleagues.
I have written about Murray in the past, who I believe does a good job. One previous post on her is here.
For information on the event call George or Theresa at 954-921-0000 or write annmhollywood@aol.com.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
You are shameless. You are a puppet of Brown and write anything he orders. He is the biggest blow hard in politics. Ask him about all the judicial races he lost.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:03 am
And let’s not forget Shak Dhanji (have they found him yet?) who is currently on the lamb following his failed Sheriff’s race that was choreographed by Brown. David is a great guy. It’s difficult to dislike him personally. But his picks for clients, well, they’re very often second rate.
That’s not intended as a knock on Feuer by the way. From all acounts Feuer is very good and will do a great job in Weston. Simply that David has had some winners but mostly his candidates lose.
Managing campaigns is not his strongest suit.
He would have been much better, exceptional in fact, as supervisor of elections and we (Broward) made a big mistake not electing him to that job. Had he been elected SOE Al Gore would now be a retired, two term president. Instead we got Miriam Oliphant and George Bush because of her bungled 2000 election mess.
Nice trade.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:37 am
Let’s Not Forget forgets. Brown’s special interest connectionsand his friends in politics would have made every election questionable. Can a guy who was a campaign manager be trusted to hold impartial fair elections? Doubtful.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:45 am
Ann is doing a darn fine job. She truly cares about what goes on in the schools and the administration because she was on the inside looking out. As for her backers, isn’t it interesting not one of them backed her in her last campaign….she is like The Little Red Hen. She did all the work before and now they are all coming in to roost in her glory and to get credit. What a difference a win makes!!!! I don’t think anybody would be fool enough to jump in and run against her this time around. Let’s see if she gets a check from the Sterling brigade. hahaha
June 21st, 2009 at 8:57 am
Brown may indeed have made a good Supervisor of Elections but we’ll never know.
Oliphant could not possibly have screwed up the 2000 election since that was the year she and Brown were running for the job.
Brown just did not have the intestinal fortitude to make the campaign effective. I know. I was heavily involved in his campaign.
First mistake… He managed his own campaign, and through that, guaranteed the loss by being too emotionally involved.
Mistake number two: He didn’t stop Oliphant from passing devastating rumors. “Brown’s a RICH (Jewish) businessman. What does he need this for?” “Mirriam needs this. Her husband is a SkyCap at the Ft. Lauderdale airport.”
Two things wrong with the “Mirram” rumor. #1, Mirrian’s husband is a musician. #2, good SkyCaps were earning better than $100k according to a magazine article several years later.
Brown should have known how to fight that. He didn’t. Brown made the first primary but was devastated in the second.
Mistake number three: He had a great deal of information on her that he never used.
It was raining all day on second primary day (October.) Brown was nowhere to be found while Olipant’s troops were busing everybody to the polls.
Analysis after the second primary showed that Brown won the condos hands down but the rain suppressed the vote to the point of maybe 50 – 80 votes per precinct. Even a 2 to 1 margin means little or nothing while the opponent is busing voters by the truckload to the polls.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 am
Somebody please explain this to me because I still don’t get it. What is the point of electing a Supervisor of Elections?
Wouldn’t we be better off finding the most qualified person in that field and hiring them? Someone that actually knows how to run an elections office, instead of electing whoever seems the nicest?
Take Miriam Oliphant and Brenda Snipes — neither had experience running an elections office before getting elected. Zero experience. In the meantime we could have hired the best and the brightest in that field. We would all have been better off.
And the fact that the SOE runs partisan really gives me the creeps entirely. How do you perform objectively as a Supervisor of Elections while being “a good” Republican or Democrat?
There’s a bunch of quirky, old time, good ol’ boy stuff in Broward that really needs updating because we just ain’t that small town we used to be anymore.
Grow up Broward