Another endorsement has come out in this year’s headliner of a race for the 26th Congressional District: Auto mogul and political 
meddler extraordinaire Norman Braman has already picked his horse among the three Republican hopefuls lining up to unseat Democrat U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia.
Braman, left, is backing Cutler Bay Mayor Ed “Mac” MacDougall, right, who keeps coming in almost dead last in every poll — only slightly above that coffee name guy and the other nobody that I’m not even counting as contenders — but keeps knocking on doors in Monroe County anyway, like the good little underdog he is. God bless him.
I’m sorry. Did I say underdog? Because MacDougall might be ratcheting up the dogfight this week as he launches his first radio spot to brag about the Braman boost and vow that, if elected, he would work to repeal Obamacare (more on that later).
Well, actually, anyone’s first radio spot in the race. Who’d have thought MacDougall would be the first candidate with mass media? Ten months out?!?
“Hi, I’m Mayor Ed MacDougall, and I approved this message because I have some exciting news to share,” starts the 60-second spot. “One of South Florida’s most respected and influential civic leaders, fellow Republican Norman Braman, has endorsed my campaign for Congress.
“He and I successfully worked together to stop the $350 million corporate welfare scheme that the Miami Dolphins owner sought to renovate his stadium,” MacDougall says, referring to his nearly epic David and Goliath-like defeat of the scam orchestrated by Stephen Ross and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez to use public tourist and sales tax dollars to put a roof on SunLife and shiny it up some.
In fact, that’s how MacDougall met Braman — on a flight to Tallahassee to advocate against the stadium bill. They apparently became BFFs. Now, Mac calls him Norm.
“With Norm Braman’s support, I will continue this fight in Washington to curb the wasteful spending that is sinking our country into debt by the trillions,” MacDougall says in the radio ad.
It’s not really a big surprise, though. Some might even see Braman’s nod as an obligatory or quid pro quo move after MacDougall took the political risk (read: calculated campaign move) to go against the Dolphin stadium deal.
Braman signed the endorsement letter last week supporting his candidacy “because he believes in fiscal responsibility, tax fairness, and ending the corporate welfare state. He believes that the government works best when it serves the people, not those with influence.”
It’s apparently a mutual fan club.
“Norman Braman is a patriot. Norman Braman is a man of conscious. I consider him a friend above all and I’m honored to receive his endorsement as a patriot and as a friend,” the cop-turned-small-town-mayor told Ladra.
“And, naturally, we have a common interest in doing what is best for our country,” MacDougall added, as if the mere fact that the Vietnam vet just said the word patriot twice hadn’t already driven that point home.
I wondered, out loud to MacDougall and his people, how much pull the Key Biscayne resident and Midtown businessman — since back when it was simply called Biscayne Boulevard — has in the western edge of the county with an arguably decisive, high-performing Hispanic voting bloc. Especially since his last endorsement didn’t work out so well for former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Gongora, who barely lost his mayoral bid against newly-elected millionaire mayor Philip Levine. And that’s an area closer to home.
Ladra supposes that Braman will put some of his mucho money where his mouth is and that his involvement may help raise Mac’s profile and give him some candidate street cred outside his sheltered little city.
“I want to make sure the endorsements I get are not from big wheelers and dealers or special interests and he’s neither,” MacDougall said. Well, maybe Braman is sort of a big wheel. Pun entirely intended.
I’m sure there’s a little shock and awe strategy at play here, too. The big Braman endorsement news comes on the heels of the Associated Builders and Contractors (cough cough) endorsement of Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos Curbelo, who may be considered the frontrunner by some — he was the only Garcia challenger mentioned in a National Journal story about seats that could flip — and is reportedly being secretly aided by the national Republican Party people as their chosen one.
Reached early Friday morning, Curbelo said he had no comment on the endorsement or the radio spot. He seemed disinclined to get engaged in such matters this early in the game. But that’s been his tactic all along: ignoring other Republicans. He has been sending out his own press releases, almost on a weekly basis, which position him in the general election already, conveniently forgetting any opposition in the primary.
Former County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez might be a bigger threat to Curbelo, however, than the political operative and part-time lobbyist would have you think he thinks. Curbelo is only a perceived frontrunner because he’s a prolific fundraiser who has gotten people elected to Congress before and who has raised loads of cash, which he will report with horns and trumpets later this week — even though the Braman announcement also takes a little wind out of those sails. The Chairman admits he will have trouble raising half as much. But he says he doesn’t need that much in a district that already knows him (conveniently ignoring the fact that they rejected him just 18 months ago in the last go-around) and he is buoyed by his own internal poll, done by a reputable national GOP pollster out of D.C., that had him three points ahead among likely Republican voters.
And now that Mac has a sugar daddy, his money worries are pretty much a thing of the past. I mean, this is not a piddly county commission race. This is the Mac Daddy Congress, bro. Braman is not going to just put his name out there without backing it up with some of his green. He doesn’t want to keep becoming irrelevant by getting behind yet another losing candidate. So, he will take this one more seriously. So, MacDougall becomes a bigger threat in the race.
Look, he already has funds to pay for minute-long radio ads 10 months out, people. Who does that?
Martinez, pictured here at his official campaign launch in November, told Ladra he was not yet concerned with endorsements so, of course, he has none. “It’s too early.” Apparently, Commissioner, it is not.
You would think he had learned something about starting late from the last election in 2012, where he lost to Gimenez in the primary.
But The Chairman also seemed genuinely pleased as punch with what he seemed to consider good news — if only because it renews his faith in humanity, I guess. No, really. I kid you not. It may sound corny, but Martinez sounded sorta like a little kid who was told that, yes, Joseito, there is a Santa Clause.
“At least he’s being loyal,” he told me, sounding very earnest, about Braman’s nod. “Mayor MacDougall was the only one who was with Mr. Braman from the beginning, fighting the Miami Dolphins stadium. He really put himself out there.”
Note that The Chairman doesn’t call him Norm.
Martinez, who voted against the financing deal for the Miami Marlins stadium scam #1 — the issue that lit a political fire under Braman’s, um, Accord — may have lost favor with the millionaire car salesman when he voted in favor of the agreement once the plan had been approved despite his dissent. But he holds nothing against Braman.
“I respect Mr. Braman for sticking with his friend,” Martinez added, unprompted. “In our business, that doesn’t happen very often.”
Ouch.
Is he talking about Curbelo, who was reportedly his one-time friend who has been trash-talking for weeks? Or his successor, Miami-Dade Commissioner Juan Zapata, who everyone says helped Gimenez win the 2012 re-election behind his buddy Joe’s back, despite promises to the contrary?
Actually, it could be a whole parade of people, couldn’t it?
In this “business,” as it were.
Norman Braman backs Ed MacDougall for Congress added by Ladra on
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