Congressman-elect Allen West hires longtime Florida talk host as chief of staff-Updated

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Update, 11/11: "Radio host Joyce Kaufman won't work for Congressman-elect Allen West following threat at Broward Schools," Miami Herald

• Someone called into Joyce's show making some kind of threat about Broward schools, and it went on from there.

11/9, "Incoming Congressman Allen West hires outspoken Fla. radio host as chief of staff," Washington Post, P. Rucker

"Congressman-elect Allen West (R-Fla.), who rode the tea party wave to unseat Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.), has hired Joyce Kaufman, a local conservative talk radio commentator known for her provocative and sometimes incendiary statements, as his chief of staff.

In discussing the move on her show Tuesday afternoon, the husky-voiced radio commentator said she is excited to come to Washington and get a "bird's-eye view" of Congress. Kaufman dismissed the outgoing Democratic leadership as "garbage."

"Over these months I have been blessed to form very wonderful relationships with the West family," Kaufman said, adding that she had been a supporter of his campaign. "I looked at this family and [told] myself, how do you not fight and put them up on the pedestal when we've got this garbage up on the pedestal now, people like Nancy Pelosi?"

West's campaign manager, Josh Grodin, defended Kaufman's outspoken style. "What's been working in Washington has not been working," he said. "Things need to be different."

Kaufman is an afternoon host on WFTL-850 AM in the South Florida market. The station on Tuesday announced on its Web site: "Joyce Kaufman becomes a Washington Insider!"

"WFTL is proud of their midday drive talk host as she goes into the belly of the beast," the announcement said, adding that Kaufman has been retained as the station's "Washington correspondent" and will occasionally "report to us live from D.C."

• Kaufman will be a rookie in Washington. So West has hired Grodin as his deputy chief of staff. Grodin has nearly a decade of experience in navigating Capitol Hill, working for several House members and in the Bush White House's legislative affairs office....

Kaufman, whose hiring was first reported by the Palm Beach Post on Tuesday, has a history of making controversial comments on her show....

Kaufman has been a prominent and controversial voice on the Florida political scene for decades. ...She reportedly told listeners that she quit buying cable from Comcast after the company's answering system asked callers to "Press 1 for English."

She also reportedly criticized Publix, a regional supermarket chain, for publishing 2010 calendars that marked Islamic New Year on Dec. 7 instead of Pearl Harbor Day."

via RadioDailyNews

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