Comm Candidates Digging Dirt On Opponents
BY BUDDY NEVINS
If you live in much of North Broward, get ready for the attack ads!
Condo lawyer Mark Bogen paid an opposition research specialist $5,000 on May 16 to dig up dirt on his opponents in the county commission District 2 race.
One day later on May 17, his leading opponent Coconut Creek Commissioner Lisa Aronson paid Milman Research $2,000 for her own investigation into the background of her opponents.
In Bogen’s case, former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman was paid $5,000. Wagman left his newspaper job two years ago and formed an opposition research company.
Wagman’s role in this campaign indicates the research will largely be done through the Internet. His corporate address is in Indiana.
Aronson’s “researcher” is Erik Milman, who brags on his website that he discovered a frontrunner in a West Palm Beach mayor’s race “had been charged with stock fraud and was barred for life from being a stock broker despite the fact that the criminal records had been sealed.”
Milman is based in Virginia, so this is largely an Internet search, too.
We can see which way this race is going. The campaigns are sure to degenerate into attacks and more attacks. The leading candidates have plenty of money to flood voters’ mailboxes and TV screens, especially since less than 10,000 could vote in the Democratic primary.
Bogen has put $190,000 of his own money in the campaign as of May 31 and raised more than any other candidate — $59,210.
And he is spending that money, funnelling dollars into the district. For instance, he paid Pompano Beach activist Walter Hunter $1,500 for campaign work in May. He has spent $48,024 through the end of May.
His leading rival in the Democratic primary appears to be Coconut Creek Commissioner Lisa Aronson. She has $56,525 in donations and put $1,000 in her own campaign.
Former Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom has raised $21,900, but only $500 in May. She also loaned her campaign $20,700.
Activist Carmen Jones raised $15,490 through May 31. Terry Williams-Edden raised $840 in cash and $1500 in in-kind contributions.
If money translates into votes, Bogen has won this already. But money isn’t automatically the path to victory, especially when there are five candidates in a winner-take-all Democratic primary.
June 17th, 2014 at 6:38 pm
Maybe Carmen can use that money to pay off her charged off credit card debt.
June 17th, 2014 at 8:18 pm
Bogen has plenty of Dirt of his own. Just tell me where to forward the docs.
Ah Lawyers.
FROM BUDDY:
Forward anything to Browardbeat@hotmail.com
June 17th, 2014 at 10:16 pm
According to Brittany Wallman the lone Republican in the race is withdrawing. As of this evening he is not qualified in the race. Assuming he will not qualify means it is an open race, no longer a Democratic only primary. This now makes it a race with just over 14000 voters.
FROM BUDDY:
That is accurate, but we’ll have to wait until Friday at noon to see. Consultants have been known to close the primaries with a write-in and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened.
June 17th, 2014 at 11:10 pm
Carmen Jones is a nasty dirty liar with no chance of winning this position. She is not liked and has no real money. That’s what happens when you shit on people for many years and then you try to do the usual fake being nice job and people call you out!!# Goodbye Carmen it will be nice to see you go WITH DALE!
June 17th, 2014 at 11:26 pm
For $2,000 Erik Milman will tell Lisa Aronson that Mark Bogen is a lawyer and his office is in Boca, and that Charlotte lives in Fort Lauderdale. For double that, they might find a column he wrote in the sun-sentinel for 20 years, but I wouldn’t count on it.
June 17th, 2014 at 11:34 pm
Aronsons payment of 2500 to milman and associates was for opp research on bogen
June 17th, 2014 at 11:46 pm
Pardon my innocence, but how much money is being spent on economic research to improve the lives of residents or improving the quality of life of residents?
June 18th, 2014 at 7:11 am
My personal choice is for the only viable candidate that went to the MPO. meeting and testified in oposition to the 10th street over pass. He also has not taken money from lobbyists for his campaign. That is important to me and all those who live. in this area. He has my personal support as a citizen. where were the other candidate ?. soliciting lobbyists ?
June 18th, 2014 at 7:29 am
Bogen is the Rick Scott of Broward politics trying to buy an election with his own money, cause he has tenuous roots to the area he seeks to represent.
June 18th, 2014 at 10:40 am
Barbra Miller will put a write in candidate in the race to close the primary. Judy Stern did the same thing with Tim Ryan. Just like Tim Ryan, if Bogan wins, he will hold fundraisers while “battling his write in opponent” so he can raise money to pay himself back the money he loaned in the campaign.
June 18th, 2014 at 3:47 pm
EVERY candidate for nearly every office imaginable who can afford to pay for opposition research DOES pay for it. And voters don’t care. In fact, they respond the attack messages (even while publicly saying they don’t like attacks).
EVERY candidate who has the money polls on messages. And the voters don’t mind at all. Part of the game.
EVERY viable candidate raises money from “the special interests.” This elicits at best a mild yawn from voters, as they are jaded and used to it.
EVERY wealthy candidate at least partially self-finances. And most voters actually think this is a good (positive) thing, as they are rich enough not to be owned by special interests.
You may not like the above, but all of these are well established realities.
June 18th, 2014 at 4:27 pm
Again, Charlotte Rodstrom has more political experience than all of them put together. To the voters in this neck of the woods take note…She is your candidate…
June 19th, 2014 at 9:59 am
Tell Rodstrom to pound sand….enough…go away…..
September 4th, 2014 at 6:33 am
IN POMPANO THE BLACK VOTE STILL CAN BE BOUHGT./// MARK BOGEN (HAS) BLACK POMPANONIANS KISSING HIS….ASSWESPEAK.