Democrats are doomed with Reno, consultant says
Published January 5, 2002
sun-sentinel.com
Joe Garcia is a Democratic consultant who specializes in grass-roots work, building support in the neighborhoods and among constituencies like unions.
Now he has a new campaign: ensuring the defeat of Janet Reno.
"She can't beat Jeb Bush," says Garcia, of Miami-Dade County. He fears her nomination as the Democratic candidate for governor would drag down other Democrats on the ticket, so Garcia has been distributing an article published in The Washington Post last month. The story is potentially devastating to Reno's candidacy.
The Post says the former U.S. attorney general was the only member of President Clinton's inner circle to oppose striking back at Osama bin Laden in 1998.
Bin Laden had just been tied to the bombing of two U.S. embassies. Clinton did order missile attacks, which failed to kill the terrorist.
But Reno's reported opposition to the retaliatory strikes "will be portrayed that she is soft on terrorism. How do you counter that?" says Garcia.
Reno has an answer.
"Janet Reno was at the time and still is dedicated to bringing any perpetrators of terrorist attacks to justice within the evidence and law. Beyond that, she can't comment on the events of 1998 because they remain classified," says Mo Elleithee, her campaign manager.
Legal trouble
Terry Russell is the president of the Florida Bar. He is also a partner in Ruden, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell, Broward's biggest law firm, which now has been sanctioned by two federal judges.
The firm is accused by judges and others of allowing lawyer Barry Mandelkorn to file baseless discrimination suits against major companies like BellSouth.
Unfortunately, filing frivolous discrimination lawsuits undermines the public perception of all civil rights litigation. The Bar president's firm may have done a disservice to all those who really need civil rights protection.
And what does it mean to the state's 70,000 lawyers when their Bar president's firm is under fire?
"It has nothing to do with my work for the Bar or the state of the legal profession," Russell says. "It is an isolated circumstance with one attorney in a large firm [of 185 lawyers]."
Although Russell is one of five name partners, he says he didn't know what Mandelkorn was doing and is fighting a possible deposition about the lawyer's action.
"The only reason they are trying to depose me is to embarrass me because I'm the Bar president," he says.
Russell says he is taking "no role" in Bar investigations involving his firm.
Lobbyist fight
Lobbyist Ron Book has been called a lot of things, but never ineffective. In Tallahassee, he is known as a virtuoso.
Book is a master of legislative subtleties. He can pinpoint the place in a proposed law where inserting a comma will make millions of dollars for his client.
He is always looking for the middle ground, a place where both sides in a political scrap can be satisfied. If all else fails, Book is not above trading campaign support for votes on a bill.
He is devastatingly effective. That's why it is strange that members of the Tamarac commission are considering reversing an earlier vote giving Book a lobbying contract. Strange, that is, unless you know Tamarac.
Word around city hall is that the $25,000-plus annual contract was supposed to be steered to former U.S. Rep. Larry Smith of Hollywood, an old friend of some commissioners. But when the votes were totaled after a meeting in December, Book had the contract.
Some commissioners were upset. They want the vote reversed and Smith hired, according to several in city hall.
Is that a good move for Tamarac? Smith, a Democrat, was a leader of Al Gore's campaign, which could work against Tamarac in very partisan Republican Tallahassee. Book has numerous GOP contacts.
Its smells like politics over prudence, nothing new in Tamarac. |
