THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

ELECTION UPDATE .....

Last week we began our nine week series covering the contested races for judge in Miami-Dade County. As we reported on May 2, 2008 on this blog, there are nine contested races here in Miami-Dade County; eight in the Circuit Court and one in the County Court. In last week's post, we analyzed the County Court contest of Lindsay vs. Lesperance. Today, we move into the Circuit Court arena.

Our goal will be to attempt to provide you with a weekly contest overview and then let you have at it and give us your opinions on why we should or should not vote for a certain candidate.

Today we look at the candidates in Group 11 of the Circuit Court. The candidates vying for this seat are Jorge Cueto and Josie Perez Velis. This seat is presently occupied by retiring Judge Eugene Fierro.

JORGE CUETO .....

Attorney Jorge Cueto has already experienced two careers during his lifetime and he now seeks to experience a third one. For 16 years, he was a police officer with the Miami-Dade Police Department. For the past 15 years, he has been a member of The Florida Bar. He has been working at the State Attorney’s Office and was last assigned to the Public Corruption Unit.

The question Cueto will need to answer is, how much money can he raise or what amount of money is he willing to lend the campaign to beat an opponent who will not shy away from spending lots of money to try and get elected; (see below). As of the last reporting period, Cueto had raised only $4,450 from 10 contributors and loaned his campaign an additional $500.

An interesting note about Cueto; he can converse in six different languages. Cueto has been married for 30 years and he has three daughters.

You can read all about Jorge Cueto on his web site at jorgecuetoforjudge.com.

JOSIE PEREZ VELIS.....

Josie Perez Velis, (or should I say Josefa) has been a member of The Florida Bar for 19 years. She is in private practice with her husband and she handles real property, probate and trust cases.

Josie clearly wants very badly to become a judge. You have to give her credit for not being a quitter.

In 2004, she ran for Circuit Court in Group 40 against three other candidates. In that election, she came in third to the eventual winner Judge William Thomas. In the September primary, the voters gave Thomas 30%, Catherine Parks 30%, Velis got 23% of the vote and Don Cohn garnered 17%. In that election, Josie raised only $3,270 from contributors. She loaned her campaign an additional $55,000 and she spent it all.

In 2006, she again ran for the Circuit Court. This time she filed in Group 25 against incumbent Judge Dennis Murphy. In an effort to win over the voters this time, Velis raised $14,570 from private contributors; and, she added an additional $330,000 of her own money. Despite that obscene amount, she lost to Murphy. The voters gave Murphy 79,810 votes (56%) and she received 62,275 votes (44%).

I have not located a web site for Velis’ campaign.

Please do your homework on the two candidates. Help out our readers by giving us your comments, pro and con, on each of the candidates.

The election takes place on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

CAPTAIN OUT .........

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

ELECTION UPDATE .....

With election season in full gear, we can accurately report that we have been flooded with emails and snail mail items all inviting us to campaign fundraisers all over town. As reported on May 2, 2008 on this blog, there are nine contested races here in Miami-Dade County; eight in the Circuit Court and one in the County Court.

Beginning today and continuing each and every Wednesday, we will attempt to provide you with a weekly contest overview and then let you have at it and give us your opinions on why we should or should not vote for a certain candidate.

Let's begin with the lone County Court contest, in Group 42. The candidates vying for the seat are Incumbent Norma Lindsey and Challenger Lisa Lesperance.

NORMA LINDSEY .....

Judge Lindsey presently resides at the Gerstein Justice Building. In 2005, she was nominated by the JNC and Governor Bush appointed her to the bench in November of that year. She did not have to run in 2006, so this is her first time with her name on the ballot.

Lindsey graduated from Marshall in 1987 and went to law school at the University of Miami. She received her JD in 1993. For the first six years of her legal career, she was in private practice handling commercial litigation. In 2002, she became Associate General Counsel to the Boys & Girls Club of Miami Dade County. She was also a member of the 3rd DCA JNC.

An interesting note about Judge Lindsey; she earned a track and field scholarship, (she excelled in the high jump) to Marshall.

You can read all about Judge Lindsey on her web site at retainjudgenormalindsey.com.

LISA LESPERANCE.....

Ms. Lesperance graduated from the University of Florida in 1987 and went on to obtain her JD from St. Thomas in 1993. She has maintained a private practice for more than 14 years. She handles all types of cases, but concentrates on family law and criminal defense. If you are a frequent visitor to the Gerstein Justice Building, you probably have run into her brother Robert or her father Lou. With the passing of Sy, Lou probably holds the banner right now as the "oldtimer" in the building.

This is the first run for office for Lesperance. You can read all about Lisa on her web site at voteforlisa.net.

Please do your homework on the two candidates. Help out our readers by giving us your comments, pro and con, on your experiences appearing before Judge Lindsey and with anything you know about Ms. Lesperance.

The election takes place on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

CAPTAIN OUT .........

CLINTON'S NUMBERS

Before we get to the topic today, once again those wild and crazy lawyers North Of The Border intrude upon our thoughts. Just when you were sure things could not get any crazier in "fun city" comes this little gem: Criminal Defense attorney Gary Ostrow flew to Tallahassee on May 2 to file papers to challenge incumbant Public Defender Howard Finklestein. But before he could get out of town, Ostrow managed to get himself ARRESTED FOR POSSESSION OF COCAINE. That's right- The Clerk's office before noon, and the County Jail by midnight. What a wild campaign ride indeed. The Sun Sentinel has all the wacky details
HERE.

Now on with the show.


Hillary Clinton will not drop out of the race for the democratic nomination, and Rumpole is going to tell you why certain numbers tell the story.

76 and 80. If John McCain wins the presidency, he will be 76 when he runs for reelection and we would have to elect a president who will serve when he is 80 years old. That makes his reelection an unlikely scenario.

1992. When was the last time a party ran after holding the White House for 12 years? 1992. And despite winning a war, President Bush could not get reelected. You have to go back to Roosevelt/Truman to find a successor President from the same party (Truman) winning reelection (over Dewey, and by the way "Truman Beats Dewey" is just up in the Herald's Breaking News section right now.)

So if McCain getting reelected is unlikely, what is in Clinton's best interest if she cannot get nominated now? We propose that she intends to attack Obama until she has separated him from every last independent voter, older democratic female, and working class disaffected (read "white) male, thus handing the election to McCain and giving her the best chance to win in 2012.

2016. What does her getting the nomination as Vice President do for her? Not much. She would have to wait until 2016 to run again for President. Who were the last two sitting Vice Presidents to win the Presidency? George Herbert Walker Bush in 1988 and Martin Van Buren in 1837. And both of them served only one term.

The last Vice President to be elected to two terms was Richard Milhous Nixon and he was not a sitting Vice President when elected. The elections of Nixon and Ronald Regan also give hope to Clinton. They were elected and re-elected after having run for the Presidency and lost. Nixon lost the general election in 1960 and Regan lost his challenge to Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976. Nixon waited eight years before trying again and finally winning. The last person to get his party's nomination twice in a row after losing the first time was Adlai Stevenson who lost in 1952 and 1956. Stevenson ended up heroically staring down and cross examining Valerian Zorin for Kennedy at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The prospects of Obama getting the nomination twice in a row are dim. "He couldn't beat McCain in 2008" would be the analysis, "so lets give Clinton a shot now".

So if you are Hillary Clinton and have come so close to your dream of being elected President, and if you are willing to spend your personal fortune and make all the other sacrifices necessary to achieve your dream, what is the play here? Take second place on the ticket and watch it all slip away, or give the election to McCain so you can run and win in four years?

We think Clinton will not give up. We think she will fight right to the convention this summer, attacking Obama at every chance she gets. This is the only way we see her getting her chance to be President for eight years, even if it means starting four years from now.

See you in court, where not even a lowly county court candidate would give our political analytical skills the time of day.