Flack

Many South Florida sites were visited by a new commenter last night: Michael Caputo. He went from site to site cutting and pasting the same Frank “Bully” Bolaños editorial, in which he puts forth the preposterous claim that it’s okay to remove a book for political purposes.

Caputo, if you didn’t know (and there’s no reason why you should), is a Republican PR flack. I don’t know for certain that he’s being paid by Bolaños’ campaign — the campaign site can’t seem to stay up long enough to do anything — but given that he’s done this sort of work in the past (Bush I campaign in 1992, Boris Yeltsin campaign in 1996, Michael Moore smear campaign in 2000), it certainly seems likely. The only question is one of payroll: is he an official member of the Bolañ campaign, or is he being paid out of an astroturf fund kept in David Rivera’s pocket.

I really don’t like to talk about local politics here, as it tends to stink up the place. But since I have gathered that many of my readers keep their distance as well, I’m going to break my own rule (It’s good to be the king!), and give a little background on the whole Vamos a Cuba concocted controversy.

State Senator Alex Villalobos pissed off the Republican machine this year by voting to support his constituents, not the governor. On two key education votes he voted against his masters, one on changes to the class size amendment, and once against the unconstitutional voucher program. Since in the Republican party the penalty for independent thought is political death, he was stripped of his senate rank, and the party black hat team started looking for another Republican to run against him, preferably one incapable of original thought.

Enter Frank Bolaños: an easily manipulated, anti-public education Cuban school board member. The problem is that no-one in Miami knew who he was, let alone anyone in the rest of the state. Villalobos would kick his ass in a heart-beat. Clearly a controversy was needed, something to get Bolaños free press time, and maybe do a little blustering and pandering on TV, too.

Enter Vamos a Cuba, an utterly inoffensive kindergarten book which actually manages to make Cuba look worse than it really is, while still remaining kid-friendly. While it isn’t known if Republican triggerman Rivera actually put the book into Bolañ’os’ hands, his fingerprints are all over the deal.

Thus far it seems to be working. The taxpayer’s have agreed to pay for the Bolaños campaign’s publicity, by funding the school board’s legal defense to keep this in the papers for a while. My guess is that shortly before the election they’ll negotiate a deal to put the book back on the shelves, giving Frankie a last chance to grab some air time ranting about the evil anti-American, pro-Castro ACLU and liberals. Then he’ll waltz through election day and we’ll have yet another mindless toady in Tallahassee, and one beholden to Rivera and the black hat team, at that.

So I’ll let your little bit of comment spam go this time, Mr. Caputo. In the future, however, please be advised that I charge for use of this site as political advertising. (My rates vary, depending on the extent to which I agree with the politics.) So the next time you’ve got a huge wad of Rivera’s money burning a hole in your pocket, drop me a note. Until then, back off, flack.