Negative Campaign Lies Work

It happened again - my favorite kind of positive thinking bullying.  You know the kind, also called "meta-bitching" where the person complains about the complaining and proclaims themselves a positive person.   They're not.  They're ignorant.  

The truth is that negative campaigns work.  And nobody knows this better than Laura Cattabriga's political mentor and friend, Mayor Kreps.   

On any objective measure, Cattabriga is a terrible candidate for mayor and a failed commissioner.  Her record alone of destructive votes should disqualify her:

• Voted for a change to zoning regulations that increases maximum height to 400 feet, then denies it.  
• Voted to hire legal services, lobbying services, and communications services without an RFP.
• Voted to remove parking from Treasure Island.  
• Voted to pay out over $200,000 in legal settlements to three employees.  

The list goes on.  Her supporters should be a disqualifier:

• Ana Watson, who is facing four counts of felony fraud. 
• Mitch Edelstein, who ran all of Connie's campaigns, while lobbying for strip clubs and developers. 
• Every developer who she already paid off above. 
• Herself.  She's put in $25,000 so far to her own campaign for a position that pays ~$12k per year.   
• Faked an endorsement from the police by using two officers in uniform for her campaign flier without permission.
• Publicly attacked the Village Clerk for legally appearing in another video, reportedly with the Village Attorney's okay.  

And then even talking about her positions

• Suddenly she concerned with resiliency.  Didn't put a nickel into resiliency in the budget.
• Now she announces she wants a dog park.  Never brought that up.  
• In a whiplash turn, she announces that she is in favor of every thing that Latham proposes.  

Her strategy then:

Present herself as an angel of positivity, seeking a bright positive campaign and then being dragged down by the "negativity" of others.   

Following her signature on the Fair Campaign Voluntary Pledge, Laura Cattabriga and her supporters have engaged in the same old nasty campaign crap we have seen for decades in this town.  

• A series of anonymous videos using racism, homophobia, and mocking the disabled have been produced and circulated to bully people who are perceived to not support her.
  
  Cattabriga claims not to know who did it but I don't believe her.
• Her repeated claims that her opponent committed a state crime on his homestead exemptions (he did not) and that he doesn't live here (he does.)
  
  This is an inoculation against her own, documented homestead issue.
• Cattabriga "wonders" if her opponent even lives here and her supporter, the Vice Mayor, has been wobbling around town telling people that he does not.
  
  That's what ethicists call a "lie."

Why even bother to bring this up?  Aren't people smart enough to see low life like Cattabriga for what she is?

Well, yesterday, the oldest living voter (self reported) in North Bay Village said, "I can't vote for him.  He doesn't live here."  Not to single out a specific case where age and wisdom apparently passed each other on life's journey, but that's what happens.  

Negative campaigns work and Cattabriga knows it, so do the strip club promoters, the developers, the overpaid legal staff and the host of her supporters.   It keeps decent people off balance and on the defensive and in the meantime, allows Cattabriga to swan about the village claiming she is the experienced professional and in a stunning display of caradura Cattabriga bemoans the negativity.   

And people buy it.  Because it's easier than thinking.  

Kevin Vericker

October 17, 2018