Never Turn Your Back on the Monster

Will the Gables survive the upcoming runoff election?

Runoff or not, had you told me a couple of weeks ago that I’d be writing this post immediately after witnessing Kirk get democratically curb-stomped by nearly two-thirds of the voting public, I’d want to know what medications you’re on.

Had you suggested I would somehow resist plunging elbow-deep into the cornucopia of electoral data, extracting a handful of particularly damning statistics, and smearing them across KFC's collective face, I’d say you obviously don’t know me.

Had you predicted that I’d pen anything other than a 3,000-word victory lap titled “KFC Ya Later” replete with at least six novel variations of "I told you so,” I’d ask sardonically “have we not met?”

After all, I’ve waited two long years to dance on KFC’s grave, why oh why would I delay the celebration a moment longer?

Well, because once you get past the initial burst of gratification from watching the K in KFC receive the electoral comeuppance he so richly deserved, a certain sobering reality sets in: KFC is anything but in its grave. Sure, the first incarnation is dead and gone, but like any malignant ideology (e.g. communism, fascism, jihad) the demagogues come and go while the idea lives on. Celebrating KFC's supposed demise now, with someone like Tom Wells lurking in the periphery—a man substantially more cantankerous and combative than Kirk and equally willing to serve as Ariel's dutiful water carrier—would be to indulge in a particularly reckless form of naïveté.

To all those interested in foiling KFC for good, letting your guard down now would be a mistake straight out of an 80’s horror movie. You know the one, the young ingenue hits the hard-to-kill monster in the face with a baseball bat and instead of either running away or hitting him 157 more times she inexplicably crouches next to his body and cries with relief as though she didn’t just watch that same monster survive getting hit by an 18-wheeler mere moments earlier. Of course, we all know what happens next.

Ch Ch Ch Ch, Ah Ah Ah Ah…BurgerBurgerBurgerBurger, Bob’sBob’sBob’sBob’s

Hence today's post: a brief look at next Tuesday's runoff matchup between Rich Lara and Tom Wells, which if not approached with appropriate urgency, could easily resurrect KFC in a new and more malevolent form.

The Wells runs dry

The problem with Tom Wells, besides his temperament, judgment, vindictiveness, sanctimony, intellectual brittleness, obliviousness to context, inability to read a room, and preternatural ability to torture logic is that he is completely and utterly dishonest. And I mean dishonest at an existential level; he doesn’t merely say things that aren’t true, his entire identity as a concerned citizen turned activist turned “independent” candidate for commissioner is one enormous fabrication. Consider the evidence:

• Which fire-breathing uber-activist emerged from his decades-long political hibernation precisely when Ariel, another fire-breathing uber-activist, was elected to the commission? Tom Wells.

• What singular issues dominated Wells' sudden activism? Burger Bob's (where his wife represented the successor business—a conflict he consistently failed to disclose) and the ousting of Peter Iglesias, who was always the real target of the Burger Bob's controversy. And who else maintained a pathological obsession with deposing Iglesias? Ariel.

• Who orchestrated the creation of the prestigious, profile-enhancing Charter Review Committee two years ahead of schedule? Ariel.

• Who appointed Wells to that very committee? Kirk.

• Who vehemently demanded the commission deny Peter Iglesias his severance package? Who lectured endlessly about Iglesias's alleged overcompensation? Who pleaded for an independent committee to conduct the search for Iglesias's replacement? Tom Wells.

• Who suddenly lost all interest in overpaid, unqualified, and insufficiently vetted city managers as soon as KFC thrusted Amos Rojas onto the city? Tom Wells.

• Whose name mysteriously materialized in that suspiciously KFC-friendly phishing survey as a potential commission candidate before his official announcement? Tom Wells.

• Which supposedly "independent" commission candidate was reportedly spotted by multiple witnesses transporting stacks of Felix Pardo yard signs in his trunk during early voting? Tom Wells. (And since we know Wells enjoys frequenting my comments section, he's welcome to refute this if untrue.)

There is nothing remotely independent about Wells who, incidentally, boasts the enthusiastic endorsement of that grassroots insane asylum that calls itself the CGNA. His entire candidacy is a lie; his thoughts are KFC’s thoughts; his agenda their agenda. The one time he allowed a heretical word or two to slip through his sputtering lips (contradicting KFC’s city manager strategy), he dutifully shut his mouth and took a conspicuously long sabbatical, proving that one thing Wells does posses is a quality Vladimir Lenin used to call “revolutionary discipline”—a discipline that manifests itself exclusively in service of KFC.

The last line of defense

Unlike most recent commission candidates, it's hard not to like Richard Lara. I know I haven't devoted much column space to him over the past year, but that has nothing to do with indifference. A rhetorical pugilist needs to rhetorically punch things, and I just don’t find Lara particularly punchable. Unlike his opponent, he's thoughtful, measured, intellectually honest, pragmatic, steadfast, approachable, authentic, even-tempered, principled, forthright, and refreshingly unpretentious. And unlike his opponent he wasn’t recruited and propped up for a run by current members of the commission.

I'm sure that last part has some of you itching to punch me yourselves. I am quite punchable after all. But the assessment stands on its merits. While Lara is unmistakably aligned (now) with Lago and Anderson—comprising what some call the "ALL-in ticket"—this alliance differs fundamentally from being handpicked and groomed as a political vessel. I happen to know which candidates Lago initially favored for a run against Kirk, and Lara wasn't among them. Not because Lago detected any deficiency, but because Lara was an unknown quantity. Anyone familiar with the intricate social tapestry of the Gables knows that Lago, Anderson, and Lara swam in mostly separate circles until quite recently.

As a matter of fact, Lara was a Kirk man—one of the now ex-commissioner's (the “ex” is so rewarding to type) early supporters and personal friends. It’s what, I think, made Lara so compelling to so many early on. There was no dramatic falling out, no petty grievance festering between them. Lara simply saw Kirk lose his way, abandon his professed principles, and morph into something unrecognizable. And while countless former Kirk supporters have expressed similar disillusionment, Lara is the only one who had the chutzpah to stride into commission chambers, lock eyes with Kirk, and declare his intention to challenge him—face to face, man to man.

My only real gripe with Lara is that shortly after his gutsy entrance into the race, he became a little too mild-mannered for my taste. Civil? Good. Excessively cautious? Not so much. Apart from that little flicker of fire he showed when he tore into KFC over that $40K+ handout they gave to the Miracle Theatre, I found him to be a tad too agreeable and reluctant to offend for much of 2024. Gables politics ain’t beanbag anymore, and I want candidates that understand that. Say what you want about Lago (KFC certainly has), but if not for him and his “combativeness,” the unqualified disaster that was Amos Rojas would still be our city manager today.

I was similarly concerned by Lara's early positioning as a purely independent candidate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure everyone in his orbit was imploring him to distance himself from all incumbents. Why should a clean slate take on anyone else’s negatives after all? But this too ignores a certain uncomfortable reality about our community in the current era.

The middle ground in Coral Gables politics has effectively disappeared. The most engaged portion of our electorate—the roughly 1/4 to 1/3 who reliably turn out for April elections—has crystallized into two distinct and opposing factions. Within this politically active segment, approximately 40% align with KFC while 60% stand in opposition (this disparity grows even more pronounced when considering the entire electorate). I've maintained this assessment for two years, and last week's results provided compelling validation of this perspective.

Kirk and Pardo came within 62 votes of each other, while the distance between Kirk and Wells was 129 votes. This is insanely consistent. Meanwhile Anderson and Lago were separated by only 248 votes. The only outlier, if you want to call it that, was Lara who came in 856 votes shy of Lago. But Lara’s race was sui generis, as not only was it the one race devoid of incumbents, and not only were both candidates trying to carve out an independent lane, it was the only race with a genuinely competent third candidate (who drew the majority of her votes from Lara as opposed to Wells). Therefore, Lara’s race was the weakest of the three as far as being a referendum on KFC, yet it still followed the same general pattern as the rest.

These results provide compelling empirical evidence that the Coral Gables electorate has indeed divided into two distinct political camps, with voters recognizing this reality with immense clarity. Few residents genuinely believe, or even desire, the fantasy that candidates like Lara and Wells could somehow transcend these tribal affiliations. The political ecosystem simply provides no sustainable habitat outside these established camps.

Make no mistake, this polarization stems directly from KFC's deliberate scorched-earth strategy toward any middle ground. They constructed their entire political identity around a single, reactive principle: whatever Lago supports, we must oppose. And no, this isn't a case of "both sides" engaging in the same behavior. Ideologically, Lago and Anderson have maintained remarkably consistent positions since taking office. It was Ariel and Kirk (Dr. Castro is an intellectual vacuum so she doesn’t count) who were in favor of tax cuts before they were against them; who were in favor of November elections before they were against them; who favored residents input on key issues before they were against it; who were in favor of financial audits before they were against them. If you don’t believe me, just peruse Gables Insider circa 2019-2022.

In the final analysis, one simply cannot lay claim to any kind of principled neutral territory when the ideological map is constantly redrawn depending on where one guy, Lago, plants his flag. And based on last week’s results, it would appear 10,125 residents agree with me.

But at least Lara came around to this fact, and not just since the election, but since he started canvassing and meaningfully engaging with the voters. He realized that independence is a fiction and that it’s insulting to the rest of us to pretend otherwise. He became more forthright with his positions, with the specifics, and demonstrated without equivocation that yes, his agenda is wholly incompatible with KFC’s. He finally owned it.

Wells, for his part, has done the opposite. He continues to claim that he’s some kind of independent free agent as if we didn’t just watch him do KFC’s bidding over the past two years, as if we don’t know Ariel is involved in his campaign, as if he doesn’t despise Lago and Anderson with the heat of a thousand suns. It’s just one big, extremely obvious and incredibly insulting lie—which is kind of ironic in itself, because KFC’s trademark is nothing if not big, extremely obvious and incredibly insulting lies.

The Final Countdown

I hate to say it, but this runoff can go either way. True, the majority of residents clearly prefer Lara to Wells, and it’s essentially a mathematical fact that if enough voters turn out for the runoff, Lara will win going away.

But that’s always been the Achilles’ heel of the runoff concept—turnout almost always plummets to anemic levels. This undoubtedly favors Wells, whose loyal base of zealots (aka The Residents™) will crawl over broken glass to vote for him and thus can tip the scales all by themselves.

Not for nothing, but isn't it funny how the whole point of runoffs is to prevent a candidate from winning an election with too small a share of the vote, yet in practice they end up garnering such low turnout that the winner of the runoff can win with fewer votes than their opponent received in the first round? There exists a plausible scenario in which Wells wins the runoff with fewer than Lara’s 4,720 initial votes—a total that, need I remind you, exceeds Ariel's supposedly mandate-generating 3,972 votes from two years ago by a comfortable 748 votes.

Still, I find myself cautiously optimistic. Lara carries undeniable momentum into the home stretch, backed by a palpable groundswell of genuine support. He's not only the superior candidate but, dare I say, the better man.

This brings me to perhaps the most revealing aspect of this race: the Claudia Miro factor. Miro, the third candidate in the initial contest, ran an admirable campaign that maximized her resources and message. Both she and her team recognized that Lara, not Wells, was her primary competition (this isn't conjecture—the crosstabs from extensive polling confirm it). Given this competitive dynamic, tensions between Miro and Lara could have easily escalated into something ugly. They never did.

Contrast this with Wells' approach. According to multiple sources, the Miami Herald's editorial board interview devolved into a spectacle when Wells, our self-proclaimed paragon of civility, abandoned substance in favor of launching unprovoked salvos at Miro. So egregious was his conduct that several campaigns are reportedly clamoring for the Herald to release the video footage. Meanwhile, by Miro's account, Lara conducted himself throughout the entire campaign with grace, respect, and authentic decency—qualities conspicuously absent from the Wells/KFC playbook.

This stark contrast explains why Miro didn't hesitate to throw her full support behind Lara for the runoff. And since I believe Miro deserved far more attention than she received during her campaign, I'll cede her the final word: