Fort Lauderdale’s Long History Of Gutter Politics

Fort Lauderdale residents. When you open your mail box for the next two weeks, be prepared to hold your nose.

The reason is the January 16 city election. Fort Lauderdale has a long history of vicious, nasty political attack ads.

The latest example is hit pieces mailed this week against Commission Dean Trantalis, one of three candidates for mayor.  Others candidates are Commissioner Bruce Roberts and former Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom.

Like most of these attacks, the ad doesn’t deal with real issues like managing growth or fixing the deteriorating infrastructure. It accuses Trantalis of lying.

If we wanted to parse comments from all three candidates we could find plenty of false statements. Easily. They might call it spin.  The rest of us would call it lying.

Still, obviously the authors of this cheesy, amateurish-looking mailer believes accusing Trantalis of lying will work.