How Steve Geller Doctored A Lukewarm Endorsement
BY BUDDY NEVINS
When does spin become a downright lie?
Read on and you decide.
While I was on vacation, candidate Steve Geller got the endorsement of the Sun-Sentinel from a reluctant editorial board.
Geller, who is challenging Sue Gunzburger for re-election to the south Broward county commission seat, immediately put the endorsement on his website.
That’s when the spin started.
The county commission candidate cut and pasted the endorsement to take out all the negatives the Sun-Sentinel wrote about him.
Now the endorsement is spinning so fast, I get dizzy reading it.
Is it right to misrepresent the intent of the Sun-Sentinel, which stated it was reluctant to endorse either candidate?
When does spinning become a downright lie?
As a public service, I have reproduce the endorsement as printed on Geller’s website.
The ellipses (three dots) are Geller’s punctuation signifying he removed some language. Boy, did he! I put the language back in blue type.
The original headline was not used on the Geller website. Here it is along with the rest of the material Geller removed from the endorsement:
“A RELUCTANT SUGGESTION FOR DISTRICT 6: STEVE GELLER”
“The voters deserve better than the bare-knuckle brawl they’ve had to endure. As such, the Editorial Board…strongly considered breaking with tradition and making no recommendation in this race. Rather than doing so, the board reluctantlysuggests voters choose Geller.
Geller, 51, is an attorney who served in both houses of the Florida Legislature. He’s smart…but too often comes across as bombastic. To succeed in the commission setting, he will need to tone it down and work with his colleagues to develop new strategies in addressing the many challenges facing the commission.
If elected, he vows to seek new jobs in clean energy and in the county’s maritime industry. He’d also support ethics reform and evaluate the county’s budget for individual program cuts. His long career in the Florida Legislature could help the county in Tallahassee, and his support from police unions,…coupled with his warm relations with Sheriff Al Lamberti gives Geller the chance to serve as a mediator in the commission’s constant budgetary battles with BSO.
Geller did show a glimpse of statesmanship in the spring with an overture to keep the race from becoming the spectacle it has become.
Gunzberger, 71,… has been a steady supporter of the environment, children’s and social services issues during her long tenure on the commission, whichmakes her decision to run such a negative race against her opponent all the more perplexing. She has a solid record to be re-elected on, but you wouldn’t know it given her campaign’s focus. She’s run a campaign that stands out more for its name-calling than highlighting her achievements in office. And yet, when she was asked by the Editorial Board whether she’d take the high road going forward, she flatly rejected it. Voters had a right to expect more from someone of her stature, her experience and her longevity on the commission.
You can’t blame the electorate for being at loss in this race. But they have to make a choice, and so do we…Reluctant as we are… we suggest voters choose Geller.”
August 13th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I think the Sun-Sentinel set themselves up for this by trying to have it both ways and endorse one candidate while trying to qualify that endorsement.
I was surprised by their endorsement, given all of the negativity in it. I still can’t fathom how they made endorsement, given the way they feel about both candidates.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I couldn’t understand the endorsement either. They basically seem to agree with Gunzburger down the line, and don’t seem to like Geller personally, and seem to say Geller really did plot with Lamberti to frame Gunzburger, but then they go ahead and picked Geller because they didn’t like Sue’s campaign messages. They didn’t say her ads were false, just that they were negative. Maybe I’m missing something but her attack ads and Geller’s attack ads seemed of a similar tone, and in no way worse than the attack ads run by all the statewide candidates. I don’t see what was do bad about either of their ads.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
A Sun-Sentinel endorsement isn’t what it used to be.
August 13th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
This blog is actually becoming embarrassing. The anti-Geller bias is DRIPPING from every entry.
Geller’s campaign does the same spin that’s been happening in politics and movie ads for fifty years, yet now all of a sudden he’s a bad guy? That’s nonsense.
Why not blog about all the lies the Gunzburger campaign is retching up with every piece I get in my mailbox? Why not blog about the name-calling, sleaze, and distortions GONESburger has dug out of the mudpits and slung Geller’s way?
Worst of all, several days ago, Sue was absolutely EVISCERATED by her fellow commissioners for all the lies she’s been telling about them. She’s so deceitful that State Rep. Chris Smith DROVE OVER TO THE MEETING so that he could join in exposing her lies and hypocrisy. It was one of the most defining moments of this campaign because Sue was splayed open and revealed as being rotten and self-serving to the core.
Yet, there’s not one single word about it this blog. Anywhere. After DAYS, there’s still no report on it.
This blog might as well have a “Paid For and Approved by the Sue Gunzburger Campaign” at the bottom of it.
Buddy, your bio says you used to write for supermarket tabloids.
It shows.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Oh, by the way, before someone claims that the Gunzburger incident was reported two blog entries ago, NO IT WASN’T. That column was written to attack Jacobs and Rodstrom. It doesn’t make any reference to all the OTHER officials that ripped her to shreds for her lies and deceitful innuendos. (Also, I DID screw up and called Chris Smith a Rep instead of Senator…must have been having a flashback.)
For those that actually want to learn the REAL story of that meeting, check out these links:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/08/gunzburgers_public_spanking_th.html
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/08/lieberman_demands_proof_of_con.html
Here’s the actual video:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/08/the_fight_video_in_case_you_mi.html
Follow these links and it will fill in the REAL information that you won’t find here.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Tommy, I look forward to your posts and love reading them….. u r SOOOOO on the money.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
The attack ads by Gunzburger against Geller reak of her son Rons handywork or that of Roger stone. Queen of ethics is your campaign being run on the taxpayers dime.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Tommy, have you already started coming up with your excuse/explanation/spin you’re going to start ranting when Gunzburger blows Geller away by a landslide margin? They’re both Democrats, so you won’t be able to use that lame-o “ACORN stole the election” line others have used. Give it your best shot. Be really creative!
August 14th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Personally I will exercising my right to vote by going with the third option.
None of the above.
Chaz Stevens, Commissioner
MyActsOfSedition.com
August 15th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Your BLOG on this reminds me of Casablanca when the Vichy gendarme declares “Rick, I’m Shocked, shocked to discover gambling taking place in your establishment.”, moments before the dealer brings his winnings.
We have both been involved in Broward’s brand of politics for years. Candidates ALWAYS publish excerpts from newspaper endorsements that are positive and ALWAYS edit the negative. Please.
FROM BUDDY:
Agree, Dan.
This has been a practice since long before the Grand Jury investigated cutting-and-pasting of one of my stories about a Tamarac election in the 1970s. Other common campaigning techniques include push polls, the use of anonymous committees to smear opponents, phony resumes, false claims, accepting money from shady contributors and downright lies, among others.
I believe these tactics should be exposed. If I see them, I will write about them. Regardless if the practice has been done forever, I believe the public deserves to know the whole story.
August 16th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Fair enough. Thanks for the BLOG