Palm Beach GOP Leader Sid Dinerstein Isn't Picking on Opponents Because They're Not Rich

Dinerstein did not call himself an "excellent" fundraiser.

​Palm Beach County GOP Chair Sid Dinerstein wants you to know that he did not, not, not write a mailer accusing his opponents for the GOP chairmanship of Florida of being stingy little peasants without the earning power to do the party a damned bit of good.

Dinerstein explained the deception in an email claiming he wasn't behind a mailer that went out November 12. The flier was supposedly from Dinerstein as part of his campaign to be head of the Republican Party of Florida.

"RPOF needs a chair who doesn't need or want a title," the mailer, postmarked from Daytona, read. "RPOF needs a chair who can raise millions. RPOF needs a chair who can stand up to Tallahassee powerbrokers and lobbyists. RPOF needs a chair who is
prepared to be on the national stage with the coming RNC. RPOF needs a chair who will win Florida for the Republican nominee in 2012."

The mailer went on to compare the donations the GOP chair candidates have made to Republican candidates and causes in the past two years. Sharon Day has given away $12,500; Tony DiMatteo, $5,600; Deborah Cox-Roush, $800. Dinerstein has given away $26,899. For the math-impaired, each candidate had beneath his or her name an assessment of their fundraising abilities. DiMatteo and Day were "good" fundraisers. Cox-Roush was "weak." Dinerstein was "excellent."

"I DID NOT DO THAT MAILER!!!" Dinerstein wrote in an email to supporters and the media a day later. "I do not donate to candidates to brag. I donate because my family has been very blessed and we are able to promote the candidates and the causes we believe in."

Because there's self-regard, and then there's self-regard. Dinerstein walks a fine line between the two. He does, for example, fancy himself a deep political thinker, and he doesn't mind you knowing it -- which is why he is running to chair the Florida GOP and why he has a page on his website devoted to "Sidisms." Example: "There is no such thing as a first offender." Also: "The beautify of assimilation is that it's self-selecting." But compiling a list of your own quotable quotes and massive successes is one thing. Bragging about your fortune while making fun of the poor? Really rich people don't do that.

In the news release announcing his candidacy for GOP party chairmanship, Dinerstein savagely misuses and abuses commas, quotation marks, and semicolons. The hoax mailer, meanwhile, is grammatically flawless. Whoever wrote it, Dinerstein should retain him.