This blog has moved.

Please visit our new page here https://www.miamiherald.com/naked-politics/

« Rouson who? Williams and Pafford vie for House Dem top job | Main | After Broward, Miami-Dade gets ready to defy Rick Scot's anti-Obamacare order »

Miami Beach commissioner yells expletive at candidate in debate

@NewsbySmiley

As a comedian who’s done some standup, Steve Berke has no doubt handled a heckler or two. But the Miami Beach mayoral candidate he says he was taken aback Monday when during a public debate he heard shouts of “asshole” — from a city commissioner.

Berke, in a press release, said the “foul mouthed attack” at the Miami Beach Golf Club by Commissioner Jonah Wolfson was captured on film. Wolfson was sitting in the audience.

“I am incredibly disappointed that a Miami Beach Commissioner would stoop to such a low level of public discourse,” said Berke, who during his inaugural foray into Beach politics two years ago interrupted a city commission meeting with the help of a saxophonist playing George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.”

Reached by text, Wolfson — who recently dropped an F-bomb in a Miami New Times interview — said, “I stand by my description of Berke.”

“He’s a comedian trying to make a video and profit off of our local electoral process,” Wolfson said. “He’s not a legitimate candidate. He’s a clown.”

A Berke campaign representative said the video couldn’t be released Tuesday because it’s owned by MTV, which Berke says is going to run a documentary of his campaign. Expect Wolfson to make a cameo.

--DAVID SMILEY

Comments