Misdirection?
Political Mailer Has Group 2 Candidates Crying Foul

By Lee Molloy

There is nothing new about negative campaign advertising in Miami Beach politics.

Supporters of Group 3 candidates Michael Gongora and Alex Fernandez have been trading blows for sometime now via mailers and television ads, but over in Group 2 the campaigns had been gentle in nature. However, a new attack ad dropped into residents’ mailboxes this week has changed that.

At first glance, the mailer appears to have been sent by supporters of Sherry Roberts, because it paints Roberts in a rather positive light and touts her experience as a condo board president, while conversely casting Group 2 opponent Maria Mayer in a far more sinister way. The mailer highlights Mayer’s husband’s highly-paid position at City Hall, and the fact that she is backed by former commission candidate and millionaire developer Fred Karlton. The ad also goes so far as to list Mayer’s home phone number and suggests that residents call her at her house.  

On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the mailer was not distributed by Robert’s campaign but rather by a political organization named Tell the Public the Facts, Inc., an organization incorporated by Robert Nova which, according to it’s mission statement, has a laundry list of populist goals. These include to “communicate the record of individuals” in order to “strengthen the economy,” reduce taxes, ensure better education and healthcare, increase public safety and “improve the quality of life of all Floridians.”

“I am just very offended by this,” Roberts told The Lead. “I want people to know that one, I had nothing to do with it. Two, I find it appalling. And three, I think Mr. Exposito needs to explain himself as to why he would let this go out.”

Jorge Exposito is the other candidate running for the Group 3 seat.

After seeing the ad, Roberts said that she immediately called Mayer to explain that she had nothing to do with it. She then sent an open letter to Miami Beach voters stating, “Jorge Exposito and his cohorts are trying to make it appear as though I am somehow responsible for the attack.”

Additionally, in a campaign e-mail to supporters, Roberts wrote: “Even more upsetting to me, as a woman who has fought long and hard for women’s rights and who has mentored women in business and community service for years, is the chauvinistic implication by our opponent that the two women in this race are in some type of ‘cat fight.’”

At a candidate forum at the Bass Museum on Wednesday, Oct. 29, Exposito, in an obvious reference to this same e-mail, declared that the worst lie that had been told about him during the campaign was that he was accused of “being a chauvinist.”

This is “borderline slanderous,” Exposito told The Lead. “She is coming out accusing me, without facts.” He then added that “I have not authorized or paid for any communication, nor did I know about, or have anything to do with the flyer.” Furthermore “I have spoken to my consultant [David Custin] and he has assured me that he has nothing to do with the flyer,” he said.

Not so, according to Mayer.

“It’s disgusting,” Mayer told The Lead. “We’ve researched the origin and have found that it’s a subversive underground operation run by Jorge Exposito’s campaign manager.”

The Campaign Manager

Expositio’s campaign manager David Custin, of DRC Consulting, is accused of being behind the ad because in 2006 he worked for Tell the Public the Facts, Inc., and helped Luis Garcia become the first Democrat to win district 107 in the Florida House of Representatives — a fact that Custin boasts on his website.

“My firm has done work for Tell the Public the Facts,” Custin told The Lead, “there is nothing shady or secretive about it.”

Custin confirms that he has done consulting work for the organization in the City of Miami, but he also claims he hasn’t done any work for Tell the Public the Facts in Miami Beach during 2009. “I did not have anything to do with the piece,” he said.

According to Custin, entities such as Tell the Public the Facts are not built on an ideological foundation. “Ninety percent [of them] are just built, and exist, to call people out when they do something wrong or give them a pat on the back when they do something right.”

Custin also explains that his relationship with the organization must remain entirely professional. “I can’t call, Tell the Public the Facts and call them out,” Custin said. “They’ll never call me again for business.”

Furthermore, the accusation that he was behind the attack ad on Mayer, apparently offends Custin as a professional political consultant.

“They’re calling me an idiot,” he said, explaining that if he were to do an attack ad, “I’d call another campaign consultant, get someone in another town and ask them to do it, so I didn’t have any finger prints on it.”

Ultimately, although Custin claims his client’s opponents are “connecting dots” with facts that don’t exist, Mayer is not buying it.

“We’re positive that this is coming from Mr. Exposito’s campaign manager,” Mayer said. “I think its just dirty politics and there’s just no place for it.”

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