In a year of hotly contested elections and raging anti-incumbent fervor, Florida's 23rd Congressional District remains a stagnant backwater sure to re-elect U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.
The Democrat appears a lock for a 10th term in office, as he sleepwalks through yet another election.
With $280,140.97 in the bank and an all-but-invisible Republican opponent, Hastings makes only token campaign appearances. His staff does not bother responding to phone calls or e-mails from the press.
And, really, why should he? The African-American sits comfortably in a racially drawn district that is 52 percent black and gave 83 percent of its vote to Barack Obama in 2008. The Cook Political Report gives Democrats -- any Democrat -- a 28-point electoral edge there.
The fact that Hastings is an impeached federal judge who was removed from the bench in 1989 has long ceased to faze him or his constituents. Hastings has won nine straight elections by double-digit margins in a district that was tailor-made for him.
The gerrymandered CD 23 winds through some of the poorest sections of Florida's southeastern coast, from Miramar to Fort Pierce. With Republicans few and far between, the GOP has effectively conceded the district again this year.
Bernard Sansaricq's name is on the ballot, but the Republican candidate is almost nowhere to be found. Like Hastings, he doesn't answer his phone, either.
On paper, Sansaricq appears to be running a campaign. His most recent Federal Election Commission filing -- which was filed late -- showed $65,613.74 in contributions.
But virtually all of that money was listed in the form of "in-kind" donations. That same report showed $64,472.03 in expenditures -- again, almost entirely of the "in-kind" variety.
Bottom line: Sansaricq had $1,041.84 in cash on hand last month. Little wonder he bounced a $1,160 rent check for his campaign office in Lauderhill.
Hastings, meanwhile, is loaded with PAC money. His report shows $625,453.03 in contributions, with $367,427.70 in expenditures -- though there's little evidence of that money actually being spent in his district.
Elected to Congress just three years after his impeachment, Hastings is one of the most reflexively reliable Democratic votes on Capitol Hill. With his seat safe from serious challenge -- at least until congressional reapportionment next year -- he can afford to be hyper-partisan, which he is.
Sansaricq, by contrast, offers little more than bland campaign slogans on his website, along with excerpts from the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address, and portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Julia Ward Howe. His campaign calendar is empty.
Yomin Postelnik, listed as a "senior campaign adviser" and simultaneously making an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in Florida House District 91, was one of eight people who made a $2,400 in-kind contribution to Sansaricq on July 31.
Curiously, and without explanation, each received an identical $2,400 "in-kind" disbursement from the campaign on that same day, just before the FEC filing period closed.
Postelnik also was unavailable for comment.
With a shell organization like Sansaricq's, the only question on Nov. 2 will be the margin of Hastings' victory.
As veteran Republican political strategist Rick Wilson said, "You can't beat somebody with nobody."
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
