FL-18: There will be a fight: Taddeo vs Ros-Lehtinen

Lightweight? No, not Annette Taddeo. Just ask her.

There’s a cleverly worded item on The Hill that wraps up our South Florida Democratic challenge to incumbent Republicans in the U.S. House as a “fight-night boxing card.” According to this, Raul Martinez is the heavyweight, Joe Garcia is the middleweight, and Annette Taddeo is the lightweight.

She spoke briefly about this at the super fundraiser we had Wednesday night in South Miami, and it was clear she didn’t enjoy being called a lightweight. Joe Garcia got a laugh by saying he’d always wished to be a lightweight, but Annette Taddeo left no doubt that she was happy to be considered a fighter – just not “lightweight” in terms of impact.

Today I went to take a new look at her campaign website, annette2008.com, and understood better where she’s coming from. Look at the video featured on the site, where she speaks at a businesswomen’s award event, and hear the emotional drive behind her.



There’s a rather long introduction, but once you get past that, Taddeo’s humor and grit come through, along with a blistering event when she was running for student office in college, and one of her posters was defaced with “Taddeo for deportation.”

Now is the time to unload my notes from her recent meeting with the Miami Beach Democratic Club, where many of us are her future constituents in District 18.

If elected, Taddeo would be the first member of the House from South America, since all the Latinos so far have been from Central America or the Caribbean, she said. She’s born in Colombia to an American father and a Colombian mother, and has two teen-aged twin stepdaughters and a 20-month-ol d daughter with her husband Dr. Eric Goldstein, a sports psychologist.

“So many issues” with incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:
• Health insurance. Taddeo “couldn’t understand” how anyone could not support the expansion of children’s health insurance coverage. The Republican claim that it would hurt small businesses was “a bunch of crap.” Small businesses especially need federal health insurance programs because it is hard for them to cover the costs; this hits Florida hard because it’s a small-business state. She prefers a non-mandatory program.
• Iraq war. Pull out soon.
• Disaster insurance. Ros-Lehtinen was in Congress when Hurricane Andrew hit – wrecking Taddeo’s parents’ home among a multitude of others. The congresswoman did nothing as insurance rates went to the sky.
• Ros-Lehtinen is not a leader. She’s not on any powerful committee for domestic concerns, and is less effective than the two Democratic freshmen in the House, Ron Klein (FL-22) and Tim Mahoney (FL-16).
• Cuba. Keep the embargo, though she doesn’t agree with family travel restrictions.
• Gay rights. She supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and backed it as president of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
• Political courage. “I will not be quiet … even if it’s my own party.” “What upsets me the most about Ileana is the rubber-stamping.”

Go, Annette!