In a previous column we noted that Aventura’s two zip codes are divided politically between predominantly Democratic donors and predominantly Republican donors. There is one key difference between the two: The Republican side does not make waves, indeed hardly a ripple, on the national radar.
Candidates with an R next to their names do not hold events in Aventura. West Palm Beach, yes; Tampa, yes; Jacksonville, yes; Aventura, no. But on the Democratic side, Aventura is a political destination. Democrats believe, for whatever reason, that it is a good idea to schedule major political events – with fundraising a stated or unstated purpose – in our own City of Excellence, Aventura. This is not limited to visits by staff or surrogates, although we get our fair share of those. Occasionally, national candidates themselves grace our domain.
The Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center is often a connection between high-level campaign donors and national political candidates.
To run through some of the more noteworthy examples of this phenomenon, we recall Sen. Gary Hart’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1984, and the time he spent in the area (that ended badly, as we have chronicled elsewhere). Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon spoke here, President Bill Clinton made a famous speech here and Michael Bloomberg chose to hold his first Jewish outreach program in our city. Most recently, attorney Douglas Emhoff attended an event here on behalf of his wife, Kamala Harris, the senator from California currently running for vice president on the Democratic ticket.
People ask me all the time to explain what accounts for all this special attention. Although there are some significant donors here, this area is dwarfed by Manhattan, Beverly Hills and the richest places in the country, all of which donate primarily Democratic. Of the ten richest counties in the country, according to the Census Bureau, five are in Virginia and one is in Maryland, all clustered around Washington, D.C., where they work for the government and get paid by taxes collected from all the poorer counties. Two are in New Jersey, one in New Mexico and one is in Colorado.
But while it is true that the richest counties are overwhelmingly Democratic, the biggest individual donors give much more evenly. According to Businessweek, of the top 25 individual donors giving $6.5 million or more annually, 11 give Republican (including No.1 donor Sheldon Adelson), 13 Democrat and one split down the middle to both. Thus, the secret of why certain local areas attract national politicians so often is linked to the presence of several influential donors clustered in a particular city or suburban area. That might very well account for the popularity of Aventura.
The Hart presence was tied to Don Soffer, while Wyden was linked to Dr. Barry Silverman. Another big donor who maintained these relationships with major national political figures was Bill Landa. I could throw out some other names that might be more familiar to some of our readers and less to others, but there is little point in doing a bunch of name-dropping. There is one piquant insight worth pausing over. Namely, that all of those mentioned were active in one particular synagogue, Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.
Soffer was a key founding member of the center. Silverman is a past president and Landa is a past chairman. When a series of important donors share a parochial affiliation, the pattern catches the attention of politicians and their handlers over time. Indeed many of the political events held by these national candidates are scheduled at the center itself. This no doubt explains why Rabbi Lauren Berkun, wife of the center’s presiding rabbi, Jonathan Berkun, delivered the benediction at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
It now behooves us to consider whether these linkages benefit localities over time, or even benefit those individual donors in sum. There are definitely upsides to being on the map, the most prominent of which is … being on the map! When politicians become familiar with an area a subliminal affinity develops, apart from specific gratitude for quantifiable donations.
For example, I grew up in Chicago but have not lived there for several decades. Still, when someone comes into my office and says they are from Chicago, I feel naturally inclined to help them out, even if we don’t know any of the same people and they say they never even drove through my childhood neighborhood. The same holds true for my alma mater, Georgetown University. When someone enters my orbit and lists that as their place of matriculation, I feel an extra kinship. In fact, sometimes I have to conduct a tough negotiation across a bargaining table with someone who shares one of those affinities with me, and I fear I am in danger of letting my comradely feeling cost my client money.
These kinds of intangibles play a role in politics as well. When Chief Rabbi David Baruch Lau of Israel met the late Pope John Paul at the Vatican, the Pope told him that he remembered Rabbi Lau’s father walking with his young sons to synagogue in Cracow in the 1930s. We can all understand how a little point of connectivity like this immediately builds a foundation upon which a productive relationship can be built, with good will on both sides. (Yes, I have a degree in international relations in addition to my law degree.) In much the same way, if a big mover and shaker in D.C. gets a call from a synagogue in Boston or Detroit or St. Louis with three times the congregants of Aventura Turnberry, she might not be inclined to take it, because the name does not ring a bell.
There are downsides to this name recognition as well. The biggest danger in politics is being taken for granted. We constantly hear talk among Black and Hispanic voters that the Democratic Party gives them very little consideration for their votes, because the party has come to expect their support. While this sort of complaint is often overstated, it is not entirely without foundation. It is important for voting blocs to have good lobbyists making the case for their concerns and holding politicians’ feet “to the fire,” as the expression goes.
Another thing donors often forget is that politicians prefer to repay their debt using honor as “legal tender for all debts public and private.” Of course, when you write a check to a politician or political cause, that should not entitle you to a quid pro quo. Otherwise we have bribery or corruption. Yet there is an expectation of some special consideration, if only in the form of access, to get your viewpoint on the elected official’s desk. But if he’s already visited your home – even for a fundraiser – he may feel you have received your due by virtue of being honored. Caveat donor!