Double Cross

One of my photography clients was the City of North Miami but I still thought of myself as the Hippie Photographer. My daughter Elena was responsible for changing me into a suit & tie sort of guy. Howard Neu was on the city council.

One day he called me up. He wanted me to meet him over at his law office. After the usual hand shake and "how are the wife and kids?" sort of small talk we sat down (good thing I was sitting down!) and he hit me with "I want you to chair my campaign for mayor!" Like I said, I had this self image of hippie photographer. Hippies aren't supposed to chair political campaigns.

We went with something a bit different, as campaign buttons go. These do not look like your typical red, white, and blue "Elect So & So" campaign buttons. They worked! Howard became mayor!

This past spring I got involved in a couple of campaigns, but I also attended functions where I didn't want to show favoritism. You're walking a fine line when you've been long time good friends with both candidates. Monkette came up with a great suggestion! We dug out old T-shirts like the one I'd saved from John Patteson's campaign from twenty or so years ago, and buttons going back to the early seventies from other candidates. I wore them. It gave everybody a good laugh. I collected a bunch of T-shirts from this election cycle for future use. Nobody seems to give out buttons anymore.

The double cross is another story for another time.

The Campaign Button ~ From Twenty Years Ago

Monkette was poking around in my desk when she ran across a couple of theses campaign buttons. She wanted to know the back story about them.

Twenty years ago Mayor Neu talked me into running for council. So I ran. Then the mayor double crossed me and started backing somebody else. I did the same! I let my campaign falter in my effort to defeat the mayor and elect a young unknown woman candidate. She won. Vengeance is sweet.

I was married to Claudia Bailey at the time and she designed the button. Scott Galvin and I both lost that election. A few years later Scott ran again and won. I decided to not bother. I had enough influence through my board positions and from being on a first name basis with the local congressman, Bill Lehman. Just about every Sunday morning would find Bill and me and a few others having breakfast at the big round table at Jimmie's Place. A few times a month you would find me accompanying Bill around the community or attending some function or another. As long as I shot a few pictures I'd get paid. That's what it's all about, right? Being on the council only paid a token amount.

Now that the mayor and council gave themselves that humongous salary and benefits package I just might run in two years. Monkette decided that it's not too soon to start the campaign. We're both wearing buttons!