Baby X stumps for Papa

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Forget Norman Braman and his considerably anticlimactic endorsement (though maybe not his money). Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez has another big advantage in his bid to become the next county commissioner in District 7: His son, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez.

The son is allegedly helping raise money for his father, whose giant warchest of $117,000 dwarfs the $6,500 raised by former State Rep. (REP, District 117) and South Miami Mayor Julio Robaina. (Though with several big fundraisers — including one at founding Pinecrest Mayor Evelyn Greer’s home and one at Lario’s last week and two back-to-back today and tomorrow — South Miami Robaina may be doing much better). But debonair Baby X (Xavier is his middle name) also stood in the rain on Sunday afternoon to greet the trickle of voters that showed up for early voting at the Coral Gables Library.

Asked about the local political chatter that has eyebrows raised about the possibility of both father and son Suarez sitting together on the board of the county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Miami commissioner told Ladra, as he stood under a Lincoln-Marti schools umbrella, that he’s willing to quit the MPO if it made anybody terribly uncomfortable.

“I may resign,” Francis Suarez said. “I will bring it up and see what the commission things. If they want me to resign because of any possible perception of an issue, then I will.”

Suarez, whose dad lost a bid against Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who now resigned to run for mayor, is voting for Marcelo Llorente in the mayoral race.

“He’s my wife’s cousin,” Francis Suarez said, moments before his wife arrived in a the Ford Explorer with a Llorente bumper sticker. Suarez’s little girl was also wearing a Llorente t-shirt.

Which may bring up the MPO conflict again if his wife’s cousin is elected to the county commission next year, in District 12, as we have hinted he may run for.