By 1979, I already had some history with Gersten. Five years earlier, when he first ran for office, I had the job of writing endorsements for the Herald 's subsidiary Coral Gables Times . I ignored the warning and endorsed Gersten, and no one said much about it. Curious about the Herald 's collective antipathy toward the guy, I asked around and learned Gersten's father had represented unions when they had walked out in a bitter strike against the Herald in the 1950s. The Herald had also intensely disliked other of Gersten's relatives.
Newspapers have long, and occasionally malicious, memories.
I remember suggesting to an editor that we might want to acknowledge the bad blood between the family and the newspaper. That was truly urinating upwind. Despite the never-ending ill will of the Herald , Gersten went on to become a state senator. Then, in 1986, he ran for Florida attorney general. Initially, his only opponent was a Volusia County senator who was weakened by reports that he had had a minor legal violation fixed.