Carl Hiaasen - Kick Ass - Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

For the upcoming election, the Martinez camp should make an earnest effort to find ballot witnesses who won't get laughed out of court, or require their own defense attorneys.

• Get undetectable voters.

Signing up the infirm and mentally disturbed must have seemed like a clever idea, but it backfired on the mayor's goon squad.

Equally ill-advised was the scheme of putting nonresidents on Hialeah voter rolls. For example, ballots were mysteriously cast in the names of two North Dade people who've never lived in Hialeah. Another woman claimed to have been a legal resident of the city, but she couldn't recall her home address.

Where election riggers made their big mistake was by using living and breathing humans in the fraud. That's not only risky, it's dumb. Dead people make better phantom voters, because they won't blab to federal agents, and they can't be subpoenaed.

The cemeteries of Hialeah are full of potential Raul Martinez supporters, absentee in the largest sense of the word.

So it's your birthday, Miami.

A hundred-year journey ends with three stunning words: Mayor Joe Carollo.

It's perfect, really. Absolutely splendid.

In many ways, the man epitomizes the character of Miami—crafty, combustible and doggedly opportunistic.

Never mind that he would have scared the bloomers off Julia Tuttle and sent cranky Henry Flagler cursing all the way back to St. Augustine, yanking out the railroad ties behind him.

Carollo truly deserves to be mayor. He deserves it because he went to the bother of running, and because he knew that—despite a reputation as a pernicious little ferret—he could gnaw his way out of political purgatory and win.

More than most local office-seekers, Joe seems to understand South Florida's rich tradition of voter apathy, rotten judgment and shallow values.

The hype surrounding Miami's 100th birthday has sparked absolutely zero interest in how the city will be governed entering its second century, or by whom. Joe counted on the fact that folks would get much more excited about the chili dogs and free concerts than the mayoral race. He was right.

Up to 250,000 people are predicted to show up for today's huge centennial birthday bash in Bayfront Park. Less than 22,000 showed up for last Tuesday's special election.

Carollo was elected with a preposterous 16,556 votes—even fewer souls than attend an average Marlins game. Joe deserves to be mayor because an astounding 81 percent of registered voters stayed home, sat on their butts and let it happen.

Too bad for them. Good for him.

Even as modern-day Miami puts on its glossy birthday face, it continues to revel in a checkered history full of rogues, hustlers and blowhards. More than a few of them were elected to public office.

Sure, the city can do better than Joe Carollo, but it must also be said that there's not exactly a sterling legacy for him to sully. Local politics has produced plenty of colorful characters, but few truly memorable leaders.

It's impossible to predict what kind of mayor Carollo will be, but one thing he won't be is dull. Where Steve Clark was happy as long as he had a five-iron or a cocktail in his hand, Carollo isn't content without tumult and controversy.

Forget all the media baloney about a "new" Joe, mellow and matured—that's wishful thinking by jittery old enemies, hoping he'll forget old affronts. He won't. Carollo is as ruthless and nakedly ambitious as he was eight years ago; he's just smoother now.

Besides, Miami (of all places) shouldn't begrudge him either ambition or egomania—basic ingredients, going back to the hairy days of Fort Dallas.

It's fun watching Carollo jerk Wayne Huizenga's chain over the arena lease for the soon-departing Panthers. The sports tycoon deserves a dose of his own petulance, and it's refreshing to see a politician brash enough to stick it to him.

Ever since Miami was born, its so-called leaders rolled over like puppies for anybody who showed up at City Hall with a nice suit, the right lawyer and a fat wad of dough. Nobody asked where the money came from because they were too busy asking for favors.

Land developers always got the red-carpet treatment, but occasionally so did gangsters, gamblers, bootleggers, bank swindlers and cocaine smugglers. Miami became known as a very friendly and gullible town.

The last thing it needs at this point in history is another glad-handing, ribbon-cutting, look-the-other-way mayor. Joe is capable of all that, but he's clearly more comfortable in the role of doubting Thomas.

He doesn't mind infuriating the rich and powerful, and he has always had a pretty good instinct for sniffing out dirty laundry. One of his first acts as city commissioner was to disrupt the cozy downtown parking monopoly around the arena, something that should have been done long ago.

If we're judged by the enemies we make, Joe's got an impressive list. It's encouraging, for example, that he is despised by Jorge Mas Canosa. Perhaps now we'll see a decline in the undue influence of the Cuban American National Foundation upon the city manager, and the police department.

Of course, the potential for fiasco follows Carollo like a hungry bear. He has a knack for the half-baked, half-cocked and insensitive remark, and the black community especially has reason to be wary.

Time will reveal Joe's true self. Sixteen months from now Miami will get a chance to re-elect him, or once again banish him to obscurity.

It's entirely possible that (as his enemies have muttered) Joe Carollo is a sneaky crook, or a nut case. Miami has had its share of both. It's also possible that he's in it just for the glory and honor.

In any case, he is the mayor—and 81 percent of the city's voters have no room to bitch. Enjoy the birthday party and pray, between chili dogs, that history will judge you kindly.

The long-anticipated indictment of Commissioner Humberto Hernandez leaves open, once again, the designated crooked seat on the Miami Commission.

Long held by Miller Dawkins, now imprisoned for taking payoffs, the post was won by the controversial Hernandez last fall. The lawyer's lopsided margin carried a message from voters:

We'll always hold a place for sleaze in our hearts, and in our government.

Hernandez was hardly an unknown commodity by Election Day. It had been well publicized that he'd been canned as an assistant city attorney for basically operating a private legal practice out of City Hall.

Much had also been written about the buzzardly antics of his law firm following the Valujet crash, and the complaints lodged by heartsick families of victims.

Similar hard-to-miss headlines had been devoted to Hernandez's prominence in an FBI investigation, and to the fact that agents had visited his office to confiscate files.

So it shouldn't have surprised a soul when the commissioner was formally charged Tuesday in a 27-count indictment involving ambitiously devious bank fraud.

Prosecutors say the plot centered around a Key Biscayne condo, The Pyramids. Phony condominium sales allegedly were set up as a means of securing inflated mortgages, often never repaid. Agents say some of the bogus deals were used to launder millions in dirty Medicare money.

Future-commissioner Hernandez served as an attorney in some Pyramids transactions, and as a buyer in others. (Under oath he once asserted he didn't know the name of a client for whom he was holding almost $1 million of real estate.)

In subsequent testimony, Hernandez developed a fondness for taking the Fifth Amendment.

If convicted on all charges, the commissioner could be sentenced to several lifetimes in prison. His political career will now be put on hold while he strives to avoid joining his predecessor behind bars.