With a Bullet

Udolf won acquittal for his client on the charges of manslaughter. Farrall was convicted only of DUI, for which he received the maximum 90 days in jail, still a far cry from the 30 years a conviction might have brought.

The campaign for Broward sheriff is not a hugely expensive one, at least not compared to campaigns for congress or governor. No Democratic contenders have raised more than $200,000. They don't travel much or pull all-night strategy sessions. Mostly, the race is a test of a candidate's concentration and commitment, as he's put through a gauntlet of tedious, seemingly inconsequential public appearances.

The evening of July 29 offered just such an occasion. This was a candidate forum at a meeting of the Koinonia Worship Men's Group. The venue was a Pembroke Park temple that accommodates more than 100, but this event barely attracted 30. This included four candidates, their campaign entourages, two moderators, the pastor, and a lone member of the media. "There's not a single uncommitted voter in this room," Udolf growled through a fixed smile before the forum's start.

This was about the 20th candidate forum since June, and there would be roughly 20 more before the primary. A half-hour delay did nothing to attract stragglers. Having long since exhausted the interest of most voters, the forums have become a means for his supporters to ask softball questions of their favored candidate — and a shooting gallery for the candidates' enemies.

Case in point, the man who handed a moderator a question card that said, "Please have the Rule of One explained and how it affects placement into units." If that question sounds suspiciously technical coming from a church member, it's because it surely came from a rival candidate's staff seeking an opportunity to demonstrate Udolf's naiveté about law enforcement terms. But Udolf had done his homework, answering correctly that it referred to the policy for awarding promotions to an officer who scored highest on the civil service test.

No polls have been released that would give anyone a sense of who is winning the race, and though political insiders contacted for this article mentioned Scott Israel and Rick Lemack as co-leaders, that may be attributable to those candidates' powerful campaign managers — Judy Stern and Barbara Miller, respectively — who are both adept at creating buzz among Broward big shots.

"A lot of people are speculating based on who has what signs and what television ads, but this is a really difficult one to call," Udolf says. "I think I'm doing well, like we're in the place we want to be."

It may be a backhanded gesture of respect that Udolf and another candidate, ex-FBI agent Wiley Thompson, have been made the targets of anonymous fliers: The one that prompted a news conference from Udolf shows his face on a hayseed's body — presumably a reminder that he lives in the rural part of the county — alongside a list of his career lowlights, including a 25-year-old case from Udolf's stint as a DA in Georgia involving a man who was arrested in a drug sweep, then deprived of his civil rights. The man ultimately received a $50,000 settlement from the county. It was the same case Blumenthal had unearthed a decade before.

Neither Udolf nor Thompson have accused a specific rival of circulating those fliers, but since those low blows were struck, the two candidates have intensified their attacks on Israel, the police chief of North Bay Village. Israel, a former Fort Lauderdale cop, has enlisted the help of a few of the county's behind-the-scenes power brokers, notably lobbyist Judy Stern and Ron Cacciatore, an official with the county appraiser.

Policywise, few differences separate the candidates. They each promise to clean up any vestiges of corruption left from the Jenne regime. They each vow to reorganize so that anticipated budget cuts don't lead to a severe drop in services. They each want more-humane treatment of juvenile offenders and the mentally ill. And they each want to train deputies for a wider range of community functions. One gets the sense that if Jenne were in this forum, as opposed to his prison cell, he'd be making the same guarantees.

The tiebreaker, it seems, will be a combination of the candidate's qualifications and his ability to convince voters he's not susceptible to the temptations that unraveled Jenne.

Udolf has hammered Israel over his party affiliation, which was Republican as recently as last year. After Jenne's resignation, Israel appealed to fellow Republican Crist for an interview to fill the sheriff's job. Shortly after Crist refused, Israel switched his affiliation to Democratic. In doing so, he qualified for the primary.

In public appearances, Israel has explained that he always subscribed to Democratic principles but that he registered as a Republican when he was 18 because it helped him get a job in his native New York. Udolf calls that explanation "cock and bull," then offers a litany of reasons for voters to question Israel's integrity: the ten allegations of misconduct as a cop, some of which have disappeared from internal affairs archives; Israel's failure to land the chief's job in a host of Florida cities; and a campaign donor list that includes donations from Broward Sheriff's Office vendors — which, though legal, still raises concerns about influence peddling, the charge that brought down Jenne.