Kate Callahan was the only candidate to show up

Miami Commission 2 candidate Kate Callahan (right) was the only one to show up out of the five who were invited to last night's Coconut Grove Elementary School PTA meeting. There were hardly any audience members either, but Kate made it all worth while.

The other candidates who were to attend, current Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, Williams Armbrister, Michelle Niemeyer, and Donna Milo were no shows. One had an emergency, others were at a Commission meeting. Kate joked, "It looks like I am the only one running, so I am sure to be elected." She did make a very good first impression to many last night.

A couple of people in the audience thought it was a good idea to heckle Kate with rude questions, but Kate held her own and her class showed through while the others showed they had none.

Kate was elegant and was grace under rudeness. She mostly talked about her personal life, how she was a nurse for 39 years and now owns a business with her husband and has been a community activist since moving here in 1992 (four days after Hurricane Andrew, in fact). But some rude folks thought it was a good idea to sit there, arms crossed, shaking their heads the whole time as if Kate's lifetime accomplishments were all made up.

One person, a well-known Sarnoff supporter, had the audacity to question Kate on ethics, when Kate explained that she taught ethics classes for many years. This coming from a person who has never acted ethically in her life. I thought she was gonna ask for Kate's birth certificate next!

With the anti-incumbent attitudes and recalls in the air these days, the hecklers are not helping Sarnoff at all. The other people in the audience did not seem to like it or appreciate it either, especially since these were PTA parents and not cut throat political people.

It's gonna get ugly this campaign season and it's only beginning.