May 2, 2012 | By Javier Manjarres | Facebook | Twitter

LeMieux’s Charlie Crist Hacks Ambush Connie Mack

by Javier Manjarres

Just when you thought that Richard DeNapoli and the Broward Republican Executive Committee (BREC) were turning over a new leaf and setting a new tone, DeNapoli & Co. have struck again, this time by ambushing Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Connie Mack.

At the most recent BREC meeting that featured Congressman Connie Mack as the evening’s guest speaker, Mack spoke to the committee and then held a Q&A session that was highly choreographed by DeNapoli himself. DeNapoli’s infamous “no cameras or videotaping” rule was thrown out the window, as no less than five video cameras were in the room, further proof positive of the hypocrisy and opportunism that has come to define DeNapoli’s tenure.

During the Q&A, DeNapoli decided that ‘he’ would pick which questions to ask of Mack.

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Mack had asked if he could take questions from the crowd or if there was another process by which he could be questioned. While Mack was delivering his remarks, DeNapoli was sorting questions from a box. So instead of taking questions from the crowd, he told Mack they would ask him questions from the box which he selected. The questions that were asked sounded as if they were practically written by George Lemieux’s campaign.

In one of the questions, Mack’s was asked if character matters- this was in regards to his issue with his first wife. Another question asked him if he would disclose his travel records- many believe that Mack actually lives in California, not Florida.

While these questions are above board, the problem here is that when LeMieux spoke at the BREC meeting months back, DeNapoli allowed a couple of questions to be asked of LeMieux and was not confronted with any more pointed questions like the ones asked of Mack. The point here is that the questions were asked from the floor, and not hand picked by DeNapoli himself.

Several of the questions that DeNapoli chose were very eerily similar to the ones asked of him at the Orlando Tea Party gathering, an event which was orchestrated by Karin Hoffman, a George LeMeiux supporter. More on her in bit.

Here is the jist of what is going on in the Broward GOP- while they say they will not endorse a Republican candidate over another in contested primary race (even though they have in the past when they sided with Charlie Crist over Steve Gallagher in the 2006 Gubernatorial primary), the Broward GOP is already backing George LeMieux over Connie Mack.

Vice Chairwoman Colleen Stolberg is a strong supporter of LeMieux, and she’s already openly told committee members of her continued support for LeMieux. Second, sources close to DeNapoli have disclosed that he is also trying to push LeMieux behind the scenes.

That beings us the BREC’s colorful Executive Director, Rico Petrocelli, who was recently ordered to pay an ethics fine for shenanigans in his days as a Plantation councilman. He openly endorsed George LeMieux in April, 2011.

Here is what Petrocelli wrote back in April, 2011 on the Redstate Diaries.* Note- that after the Shark Tank reported this endorsement, Petrocelli,who does not lift a finger without DeNapoli’s direction, pulled the post down- here’s what Pertrocelli posted on Red State-

Recently, Senator George LeMieux participated in a debate hosted by the Florida Society of News Editors and Florida Press Association. During the debate, George proved that he has the depth of knowledge and command of the issues to best shine the spotlight on Bill Nelson’s decades long record of fiscal irresponsibility and wasteful government spending. George is the only candidate in this race that never votedfor a tax increase or asked for an earmark; he is undoubtedly the best Republican candidate to get the job done for our conservative principles in the United States Senate.(Click here to see the link to Petrocelli’s endorsment) (Link to the Post)

Karin Hoffman has also been pitching LeMieux’s candidacy to tea party members around the state. Hoffman, DeNapoli & Co. are all diehard “Charlie Crist” Republicans. LeMieux has famously stated that, “I am a Charlie Crist Republican.”

Hoffman refused to endorse Marco Rubio even after Crist dropped out to the Republican Party to run as an Independent because Crist had picked one of her family members to serve in prominent position within Broward County.

Connie Mack was also a supporter of Governor Charlie Crist during the 2010 U.S. Senate race, and it is a fact that LeMieux broke ranks and backed Rubio before Mack did.

To say that Mack will be swimming upstream in trying to get the BREC to support his senatorial campaign is an understatement. We can expect that DeNapoli, who cowardly hides behind his posse of ‘brown-shirts’, will come out with ‘guns hot’ to defend LeMieux and attack Mack from behind their fake Twitter handles, Facebook pages, and anonymous websites- their only purpose will be the character assassination of Mack.

P.S. We forgot to add that at this weekend’s Lincoln Day dinner, the BREC will be honoring George LeMieux with some sort of award.