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South Florida Smackdown: voters fire Miami mayor in recall election by 9-1 margin
Voters swept Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez out of office by a stunning margin Tuesday, capping a dramatic collapse for a politician who was given increased authority by voters four years ago to clean up much-maligned county government but was ushered out in the largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history. The spectacular fall from power comes after two years of missteps, ranging from granting top staffers big pay hikes to construction of a publicly funded stadium for the Florida Marlins to implementation of a property-tax rate increase that outraged an electorate struggling through an ugly recession.He reacted to the recall in a fashion all too typical for a member of the political class. Alvarez tried to fend off ouster by twice filing suit to block a recall vote. After the lawsuits went nowhere, he defended his record in speeches, radio and television appearances and paid advertisements, arguing that he made the tough calls to preserve vital services for residents. But voters responded by handing the mayor a humiliating defeat: Nearly nine of every 10 voted to remove Alvarez from office. That's not a landslide, that's a horsewhipping--and they didn't even use a horse! Posted by: Mike 2011-03-16 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=318344 |