Uncle Luke: His man buys ballots

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When the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office questions Luther Campbell about his endorement-for-a-favor , they should ask him what he knows about Julio Robaina‘s absentee ballot operation.

Uncle Luke, who came in fourth in the May 24 primary and later endorsed Robaina because Carlos Gimenez would not give his friend a job, went on twitter today and tweeted his man out. He was trying to slam the Miami Herald’s Sunday story about absentee ballot brokering, but he ended up slamming his own candidate, too.

“This paper is so one sided its a shame the two of them use brokers not one. Election in Miami if you have the money you can pay for votes. I’m the only one that didn’t pay a broker,” Campbell posted on his twitter account, unclelukereal1, around 8 a.m. today. Gimenez has told Ladra that he does not have a broker and his campaign finance reports do not show any of the known “baloteros” on his staff, while Robaina’s PACs are, indeed, paying the queen of the absentee ballot machine, Sasha Tirador.

Last week, Campbell (photographed here with me at the first Miami Foundation forum at UM) spelled his candidate’s name wrong and said “Voting Robaino for good reasons he’s the only on that cares about black people. You have to care about all people to be the Mayor.”

It’s RobainA with an A, Luke (I know, all our names sound alike). He’s not going to like that you misspelled his name on your status update. And the charge that he is the only one who cares about your community is sorta ludicrous (I know, that’s another rapper) in light of the support he has gotten from other black community and political leaders. Or do they not count? Only Uncle Luke’s black community matters? Not any of the other people quoted here or in other media outlets.

As far as your assessment that Ladra (what do you mean I was your girl #2 to JR #1?) threw you under the bus, that is not true. “You ran the bus over me. Frank [Alvarado] told me,” you responded to me on twitter. Luke, read my blog, don’t let your colleauges tell you what I write. I never said you did anything wrong. Like I told you over the phone, before the signal died and the call dropped and you decided not to answer the phone again: You were doing what you could to ensure that your candidacy had some lasting legacy. It is admirable. Naive, but admirable. Robaina, however, may have done something wrong.

Ladra liked you before the primary because you had some great ideas and I thought you spoke straight. Your thoughts on transparency and the dual billing/insurance system at Jackson Memorial Hospital are topics that need further discussion and review. I hope Mayor Gimenez will follow up on those things.

Even your last-minute switch in your endorsement, and the (videotaped) admissions that followed about some sort of quid pro quo showed nothing more than a naive community leader trying to do something right, to save something out of and battling with his own personal feelings to do so.

The only thing I didn’t like, still don’t, is that you didn’t stick to the truth.

Like I told you over the phone, Uncle Luke: You have nothing to hide or fear or be ashamed of. What you did was try to get someone you trusted into county hall after your shot was blown. Someone to watch over the things you care about, like the CRAs.

Luke told me that both men simply agreed to consider his recommendations. But that’s not what he said on tape. He said we could review the video together, the unedited version that Frank still has. Frank said he would get it to me tomorrow.

I’ll bring the popcorn.