Senate Hopeful’s Name On Times Square Billboard
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Lauren Book may be Broward’s only state Senate candidate who has had her name up in lights in Times Square.
Book’s new children’s book — it’s due to be published in March — is featured on a Books-A-Million store ad along The Great White Way.
Book — she’s the daughter of super-lobbyist Ron Book of Plantation — is almost certain to run for Hollywood-based Senate District 33 now held by state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, who is termed out next year. Her Leadership for Broward political committee has raised $433,750 as of Jan. 31.
The only other candidate who is being talked about to replace Sobel is former School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb.
Below is the cover Book’s Lauren’s Kingdom. You can learn more about it here.
February 18th, 2015 at 10:16 am
That surely qualifies her to be a State Senator who is nothing more than a back pocket vote for her daddy.
February 18th, 2015 at 10:48 am
We have a candidate for office who wrote a book that people nationwide respect! At long last a political candidate who people can vote for without saying there were no decent people outside honourably retired civil servants on the ballots or non lobbyists attorneys they could vote for! Someone who has a life besides politics to justify their existence
February 18th, 2015 at 10:24 pm
Some parents buy their children automobiles other parents buy Senate seats.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:27 am
So this means Dr. Seuss would have been a great member of Congress?
February 19th, 2015 at 7:48 am
So long as Lauren Book’s father is an uber-lobbyist doing business in Florida Lauren Book will appear to many as a puppet in awash in special-interest, corporate lobbyist cash. No matter what causes she champions or how nice her children’s books may be, that impression will be inescapable.
The obscene amount of PAC money already raised is a testament to her father’s lobbyism. It has nothing to do with her. He is raising all that money early to scare off a possible opponent. This way he can claim a Senate seat of his very own. His Senate seat. Ron Book’s senate seat. Not ours and certainly not Lauren’s.
Broward will need to decide if that Senate seat belongs to them or to Ron Book.
We know that Ron Book’s daughter Lauren has absolutely no experience in public service and is in her early 20’s. We can’t blame her for wanting to run but she can be blamed her for not seeing she’s being used by her father so he can make more money.
Any credible opponent who runs against her will become an instant political star in that district. Such an opponent can win and will raise a bunch of money of their own. All it requires is the courage to speak the truth to voters.
Lauren Book seems like a nice young lady with a bright future. She should be allowed to earn that future on her own just like anybody else. It should not be bought for her by dirty lobbyist money.
Her entire candidacy smacks of arrogance and lobbyist bully tactics and it’s time to nip this in the bud. Our Senate seats belong to us not lobbyists.
February 19th, 2015 at 9:43 am
You know what they call a candidate runs and wins a seat in the Florida Senate who is funded by her family, friends and business of her associates of her father?
A SENATOR
Now sit down and STFU
February 19th, 2015 at 12:19 pm
Any political candidate who writes a book could get a Times Square nod given enough money too.
I’m willing to bet children’s book writing is the level of representation you can expect from Lauren Book if she gets elected.
Maybe Lauren’s Kingdom has people living under a bridge in Miami, too.
February 19th, 2015 at 9:49 pm
#6 We will just have to see about that.
February 19th, 2015 at 10:46 pm
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2015/02/is_lauren_books_charity_being_used_for_political_gain.php?page=2
…In the final days of the 2011 legislative session, Lauren’s Kids was denied $3 million it had requested for a program but was then awarded $1.5 million that neither of the Books had requested. In 2014, an appropriations bill granted Lauren’s Kids $3.8 million, far more than any of the 50-odd other similar beneficiaries; most received $100,000 to $500,000.
To some in Tallahassee, this is alarming. It amounts to taxpayers subsidizing publicity for Lauren, they say, which would come in handy if she were to run. “All they do is put Lauren’s name and face on billboards,” says one insider who has spent decades in Tallahassee. If elected, companies could hire her father and expect her vote in return. …
Steve Geller, who served 20 years in the Legislature, was considering running for the District 33 seat but now says he won’t bother. Lauren, he says, “is a very formidable candidate” who has “virtually unlimited funds — in a primary. I don’t know any people who’d want to run against millions in a primary.” Even the best candidates could expect to raise only half a million, he says — a figure Lauren has nearly met. “I think Lauren will have whatever it takes to win, whether it takes 2, 3, or 4 million dollars.”
February 20th, 2015 at 8:17 am
Anyone who has been a parent knows that they cannot control what a child will do.They can only hope that as a parent they have been a positive influence on their lives.I think it is obvious that Lauren’s back ground in service was done with good intention. She deserves a chance to continue service based on what what she has done with her life,not what her Father does or doesn’t do .
February 20th, 2015 at 3:05 pm
#10 It’s one thing for a young person to say “give me a chance” to make my own way in life despite my Dad being Florida’s biggest lobbyist.
It’s another thing for Dad raise his 20-something year old daughter $500K to run for a Florida Senate seat despite having relatively no life experience.
And it’s something else entirely to try and confuse the two. As if anybody can ignore that an attempt is clearly being made by a lobbyist Dad to buy a Senate seat for his daughter. As if buying her a Senate seat was comparable to buying her a new Porsche for her birthday.
Some voters in Broward were born at night. But not last night.
February 21st, 2015 at 2:59 pm
First of all, Lauren Book is 30 years old, not in her early 20s. She has guided the work of her foundation since its inception. Its premier “products,” curricula to teach children from age five and beyond about sexual abuse, how to recognize it and, most importantly, how to tell someone about it, have received nationwide acclaim. She has been educated and trained in the field. Yes, her Father has financial resources greater than most, and contacts which naturally accrue from 40 years in the business of representation. While I understand that his resources, contacts and drive are superior to most, is it fair that his daughter should be shut out of seeking public office because of it? Would her interest in elective office be okay if she were 40, not 30…50 not 40? When should she be permitted to offer herself up for public service? It seems to me that she is extremely accomplished for her age, young as it may be. I have no doubt that the campaign ahead will afford her the opportunity to prove to all of the doubters that, the benefits of birth aside, this is a woman deserving in her own right of the opportunity to represent the citizens of Broward County.
February 21st, 2015 at 6:39 pm
Is it fair that, as Steve Geller pointed out everyone other than Daddy’s little girl is being shut out of running for public office because Daddy already bought her the seat?
We don’t need to elect a lobbyist’s puppet to the Florida Senate. What we do need is comprehensive campaign finance reform and a good set of reasonable objective qualification standards that candidates for public office must satisfy.