“Team Democrat” – A sweep in view for South Florida in Congress

This is a link to Michael Putney’s column in the Wednesday Miami Herald about our three Democrats running for Congress against Republican incumbents in South Florida.

In itself the story is close to equal to all the coverage our candidates got two years ago mounting vigorous but lightly funded challenges to the same ineffective trio.

I’d pick away at things here and there in Putney’s column – Who are those people who think Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is so great? But no, let’s celebrate the fact that the coverage of our three launches is ample and pretty fair.

Last night I spent some time with Big Dave Patlak, who ran against Ros-Lehtinen in District 18 two years ago (I was his media guy and nominal campaign manager) and we marveled at the attention this year’s candidate, Annette Taddeo, is receiving. “She’s already got more publicity than we got in the whole campaign!” Dave exclaimed. In admiration, I say emphatically. And me, too.

The drift of Putney’s article is that our three candidates were recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Some will dispute that, though the DCCC certainly had a role. Who found the candidates for the DCCC to vet? I think more of a South Florida grass-roots thing is at work. And they certainly wanted to run themselves.

There is a rising up here (Have I been listening to Obama and Edwards a lot in recent months?) of people who see a need to assert leadership against entrenched and ineffective (that word again) representatives in Congress.

The incumbents do not represent us well. If they did, we’d have expanded health insurance coverage for children and the troops would be coming out of Iraq, and we’d have habeas corpus back and no torture permitted.

And they do not lead well. If they did, we’d be doing a good job protecting the Everglades and advancing alternative energy, and someone would have yelled that the economy was going to tank thanks to our over-development.

They may have convinced Michael Putney that they’re popular, but I have my doubts. If I wanted to visit my sick aunt in Cuba and couldn’t go, thanks to the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, they’d be my most unpopular people of all.

They are so vulnerable. Now, if the media will just let the story roll.