Cong. Wexler in a re-election fight in Florida over residence.

Congressman Robert Wexler is one elected official who simply keeps on ticking. I first ran into his office workers while my wife's real estate office was located next to his Congressional District Office on Military Hwy in Boca. The woman who helped us refinance our mortgage told us that she had been Wexler's office assistant before he went into politics while he was a lawyer here in Boca. She described him as "laid back" and a "nice guy."

When a former state representative [Republican] moved next door to us, he told me that Wexler was "fundamentally lazy." I myself had told my brother to inform Wexler that I was a resident of his Cong. Dist. when my brother told me Wexler & family were going to visit him in Banda Aceh, where my bro is head of a big USAID project.

The Sun-Sentinel here has been on Wexler's case over his CD residence's being his father-in-law's condo in Delray Beach. This makes Robert the only FL Congressman whose primary residence is out of state, according to theS-S's Mging Editor Mr. Fins.

Very bad form, as the Brits would say. Wexler travels overseas incessantly, especially to Israel, according to newspapers in the S. Florida area.

The Palm Beach Post takes a more compliant view of Wexler's residential improprieties, focussing instead on Wexler's attacks on Sen. Lieberman, who is in-state supporting McCain's foreign policy.

As a matter of interest, the former Palm Beach Republican Party Chmn told me at a Christmas Party last year that the reason that the 2000 FL POTUS election was so close was that a significant number of the 40+% of Florida Jews who were/are Republicans decided in that election that blood was thicker than water & pulled the lever/or butterfly wings/for the Gorebot & his ethnic VP.

Wexler himself is a PR genius of sorts, but heavy-handed and wrong-footed, as he demonstrated on Steve Colbert's TV show in front of a huge national audience. He may squeak through to re-election, but odds are that statewide office might be beyond this fellow's reach.