Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez had his big fundraiser dinner shindig Saturday night and — 
while he was surrounded by friends and fans, including a contingency from the PBA — did not announce anything about a highly anticipated potential run for county mayor.
People left shaking their heads knowing only that Suarez might run someday for mayor of something, including Miami Beach, maybe. He joked about it when he introduced his wife Rita as the former First Lady of Miami and the future First Lady of, well, something.
“I didn’t say if it was Miami-Dade, I didn’t say if it was the city of Miami or the city of Miami Beach,” Suarez told the crowd of more than 1,000 people there. “I told you, if I ever retire, I’m going to be the mayor of Miami Beach.”
Some might say it’s too bad he can’t run for that seat now.
But there were definitely other hints that he is going to run for county mayor, after all, against incumbent Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who X has been increasingly attacking.
Read related story: Xavier Suarez still ‘not a candidate’ at Saturday’s big shindig
We start with the presentation of several county projects Suarez has proposed or advocated. Easels in the receiving room held blueprints and artists’ renderings of a Flagler Street pedestrian promenade called Town Square, a gateway to Little Havana, The Underline, The Overline — is there an In Between Line? — Vizcaya Village and other
regional improvements that could be described as part of the Xavier vision.
Perhaps the biggest tell tale sign was that none of the other 12 commissioners were there — seemingly not to ruffle Mayor Gimenez’s feathers. I mean, they would be front and center at a re-election fundraiser for a colleague, but since he still hasn’t said that he won’t switch seats, they felt safer staying away. The Herald’s Doug Hanks reported that some of the commissioners on the dais had said they would go — only if X swore he would not run for mayor. But Suarez would not make that commitment. He doesn’t strike me as someone who would respond positively to such ultimatums anyway.
There weren’t any big politicos there either. The highest ranking was State Rep. Erik Fresen, who is termed out after 2016 and is running for the Senate in 2018. There was also a bevy of local municipal mayors: Homestead’s Jeff Porter, Palmetto Bay’s Eugene Flinn, Pinecrest’s Cindy Lerner, South Miami’s Philip Stoddard, Surfside’s Daniel Dietch.
One interesting attendee was former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, who lost to Gimenez in the famous 2011 recall election to which our current Carlos II owes his seat.
Okay, there were two very interesting attendees when former Congressman David Rivera was spotted late in the night.
Hialeah Coucilman Paul “Pablitiquitico” Hernandez was there, as was Coral Gables Commissioner Vince Lago, but he’s practically an honorary member of the Suarez family.
Commissioner Suarez’s daughter named the electeds who were supposedly there, but many — including Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff and Congresswoman Frederica Wilson — bought tickets but did not attend.
There were also few lobbyists there. Or few of the A List lobbyists, anyway. The ones there were more like the B listers. Or the last generation of lobbyists. Ladra won’t name names, but you know who you are.
In fact, the lack of
high-profile politicos or lobbyists or insiders made it feel more like a family wedding reception than a fundraiser. Not the reception. That was jam packed and felt more like a Marco Rubio or Rick Scott event than a county commission fundraiser.
But — despite some empty tables and empty seats from people who had paid the $200 ticket price but did not go — the dinner in the huge adjoining room seemed more intimate, like a quinces. If the teenager’s favorite colors were red, white and blue. Xavier’s quinces we can call it. There was even a slide show of family photos, a DJ spinning salsa and a dance floor.
It was not your typical fundraiser, for sure. It was very old school. Candidates haven’t had that kind of sit-down dinner gala thing in decades. And some malas lenguas speculate the event — billed as a fundraiser for re-election — was to give added value to support for, basically, an unopposed county commissioner who can then funnel the funds to a PAC to use for his son, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, who has mayoral aspirations in the city of Miami.
Read related story: Francis Suarez says definite maybe to Miami mayoral race
Think about it. The longer he stretches this mayoral question out,
the more he can still raise funds from the same people who give to Gimenez. Suarez is running for re-election, so far. Then, if he stays in his own seat, he is unlikely to draw any opposition and can use those funds to help Baby X with the Miami mayoral election in 2017.
That said, Suarez the father sounded very much like a mayoral candidate of his own in his albeit anticlimactic speech, talking more about countywide issues than issues in his district (though, granted, there’s overlap). It was less moving than most of us expected from the gifted orator, maybe that is because he let Suarez the son and former Miami Beach City Manager Jose Garcia Pedrosa, who was the emcee for the evening, do the heavy lifting.
“He loves to talk. And he has so many ideas. I thought he would deliver a terrific monologue,” someone told Ladra after it was over. “There was no spark.”
Transportation was key, but that’s only because most polls rank it as the most pressing matter among voters. That’s why Gimenez is making it a priority also. So is everybody else, for that matter.
“There is one gaping defect, one glaring deficiency, one broken promise for which all of us in county government must answer,” he said in a huge room where people did not quiet down and the acoustics were terrible. “It is our system of transportation.”
He also supports lowering tolls or using MDX dollars to pay for surface road improvements to alleviate traffic. “It is inconceivable that it takes a working class person an hour’s wages to get from one end of the county to another,” he said.
Suarez, the only county commissioner who is registered with no party affiliation, also sounded a little like a Democrat — talking about income equality, affordable housing, effective mass transit — in what might be an appeal to those voters. The county’s Dems have been looking for a candidate to pit against Gimenez and the 2016 election is likely to bring out more of the county’s majority blue voters.
That might also be why he introduced special guests who had come to be introduced, it seems: Anthony Kennedy Shriver and his daughter. You absolutely cannot get more Democrat than that.
Still, most people left shaking their heads. Is he running for mayor or not?
“I don’t think even he knows,” said one of the attendees. “He’s waiting for a sign from on high.”
Xavier Suarez sounds like a candidate at anticlimactic dinner added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
