Carlos Alvarez...thanks for the memories!

A photograph I shot of Carlos Alvarez during the 2004 mayoral campaign.

Tuesday is election day.

Short of divine intervention, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez will be unemployed  come Wednesday morning.

Here's a look back at Carlos Alvarez's brief six and a half year tenure as mayor, told in his own words and the words of others.

``He is courteous and congenial; however, this is not to say that he cannot be autocratic when the need arises.'' -from Carlos Avarez's evaluation in 1980 after serving his first 18 months as a Metro police supervisor - as quoted by the Miami Herald, October 28, 2004

``Our citizens deserve a mayor that has dealt with major events and catastrophes. Our citizens deserve a mayor with experience. Our citizens deserve a mayor who won't panic when it starts raining hard.''  -Carlos Alvarez quoted by the Miami Herald, July 25, 2004

``He did not want to hear constructive criticism. Once you did that, you were persona non grata.'' -retired Metro police captain Charles Miller quoted by the Miami Herald, October, 2004

``Carlos Alvarez surprised me. He ran the most simple of races with the most simple of messages: `I'm a good guy, people like me. My family loves me.' No real positions on the issues, no great amount of money, especially in the primary. And he won both races easily.'' -pollster Sergio Bendixen commenting on Alvarez's election as mayor in November, 2004

"I'm looking forward to the next four years. There are a lot of challenges, but I'm very optimistic." -Carlos Alvarez following his August 26, 2008 reelection

"While support for me in this community is strong, I know its not universal." -Carlos Alvarez following his August 26, 2008 reelection

By almost any measure, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez's reelection this week was a landslide: more than 110,000 votes on a day of dismal turnout, and nearly a 2-to-1 margin of victory.

Yet a deeper look at the results reveals a pulse of discontent. Political experts were buzzing Wednesday with the news that Helen Williams, a former teacher fired by the school district a decade ago, captured nearly 60,000 votes with practically no money, campaign operation, political experience or public profile. -from an August 28, 2008 Miami Herald story on Alvarez's reelection to a second term as mayor.

"A billionaire who lives in a mansion, spends 6 months out of the year in France and has a yacht about the size of a destroyer is saying that I'm insensitive. [I'm] a middle-class, blue collar guy that spent 28 years as a police officer. When was the last time Norman Braman rode on a Metro bus or went to a Dade County park? Or went to a police station or went to a crime scene?" -Mayor Carlos Alvarez, on CBS4, March, 2011.