FL-18: Wasserman Shultz in public endorsement of Annette Taddeo for US House; Closing difficult chapter?

l-r: Annette Taddeo, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Raul Martinez, Kendrick Meek, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Garcia.

This was a long time coming, and so quite choreographed. A rising star among Democratic congresswomen, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of Florida District 20, stood on a stage in Little Havana Thursday and publicly endorsed the candidacy of the Democratic challenger to one of Wasserman Shultz’ friends in the House.

This is an observation and supposition I’m making without having interviewed her or knowing all the influences that brought her to this new point. I hope it means that she’s decided that Annette Taddeo, a successful businesswoman making her first foray into elective politics, is going to defeat the 19-year veteran, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in District 18.

District 18 is where I live. I campaign some for Taddeo, whose half-Colombian, half-American background is perfect for this district that spans from Key West in the Florida Keys to Miami Beach and a good bulge of Little Havana and downtown Miami on the mainland. The district is majority Hispanic but not quite as Cuban as before, so Ros-Lehtinen, who’s Cuban American, is fighting hard with a mass of TV ads that fail to mention her links to neo-con misleaders and play up her “service” to the district.

As I try to persuade some brilliantly intelligent people to vote for Taddeo, they often reveal themselves as having been conned by Ros-Lehtinen’s supposed “service.” They ignore or are unaware of her repeated votes for the Iraq war, for torture, against the expansion of children’s health insurance. Hardly anyone seems aware of her hardline position on Iran, and they profess to admire her ability to get the Miami River dredged. (Big deal – some say it’s the shortest river in the USA, at 4 miles. Though it certainly needed dredging. Took forever. Anyway…) Once in a while they can change their minds after hearing her voting record. More have been swayed by her saccharine manner, and if they go to her office in Washington, they get such a nice cup of coffee.

It’s disgusting what dupes we are. How so many of us agree to be bribed by federal dollars. How we vote against our interests. I know, this behavior has been analyzed to hell and gone, and Americans are well established as having a tendency to let their vote be swayed by vague feelings of patriotism or by which candidate presents as a good social pal. Not that we’d ever get close to the snob. But we’ll take our emotional leaning as somehow related to attaining the American Dream, and we throw away our chance to vote for someone who has a solid and intelligent view of our situation. Well, I’m thinking of good old wooden Al Gore there, but he’s not a very good example, since he really won.

Let’s get back to what’s publicly known about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her many months of reluctance to get on the side of Annette Taddeo and her two fellow strong Democratic challengers, Joe Garcia against Mario Diaz-Balart in District 25 (the outer suburbs and the Everglades) and Raul Martinez against Lincoln Diaz-Balart in District 21 (inner suburbs of Miami).

This came into the public eye in March, started by the Miami Herald’s featuring it on the front page. This blog picked that up pretty quickly (first post on March 9) and the story ran repeatedly on Daily Kos and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Wasserman Schultz was regularly creamed for not using her position of influence in the DCCC – Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – to help the Democrats challenging in her neighboring districts.

At one point I was quietly happy about it, because it got Taddeo, Garcia and Martinez much more publicity locally and nationally than the little-known challengers had two years earlier. I know that too well, as I was nominal campaign manager for Dave Patlak, who didn’t quite get 40 percent against Ros-Lehtinen in the 2006 midterm election. We made her spend over $1 million – so there was some satisfaction for that.

What was Wasserman Schultz’ justification this year? Best guess was some collegial loyalty among fellow members of the U.S. House. They were all in the business of promoting federal bucks for South Florida and had to act together. There may have been some socializing. She told a skeptical audience once that it was a difficult balance. Not convincing. Many of us walked out because she came down on the wrong side of that teeter-totter. A report from March 21 at this link.

This affair caused me to think a lot about our political predicament. And it’s not just South Florida. This is all over our beloved country: the invulnerable incumbent. Their districts are so gerrymandered that they worry little about re-election. Wasserman Schultz and her Democratic colleague, Kendrick Meek of District 17, do not even get Republican opponents. Their districts are 70-percent safe Democratic.

They don’t benefit from the American tonic of competition. (Remedy: there’s a petition circulating to amend the Florida state constitution to ban political considerations in laying new district boundaries. This must be a priority after this election.)

If the two Democrats are invulnerable, the three Republican incumbents have less of a built-in advantage nowadays, though they started out with more solidly Republican districts. Demographic changes have put them in danger, and their three challengers, with strong campaign staffs and decent financing, are evidence that all three Republicans are seen as vulnerable, like their fellows most everywhere in the last months of George W. Bush.

Yet it still took forever for Wasserman Schultz to be more open in backing first Martinez, then Garcia and finally Taddeo. She wasted a lot of time being unnecessarily tenacious in backing Hillary Clinton. Then she spoke in favor of Taddeo at a meeting of Florida delegates at the Denver convention, where she somehow also cadged a slot to second Barack Obama’s nomination. Now it’s the last lap before election day, early voting is already under way, and finally Wasserman Schultz is in public at home in Florida before the TV cameras. And not alone.

Before I name her companions, here’s the quote:

“We need to make sure that we have leaders in the Congress who will stand up and be your voice. To make sure that the middle class ... that they have members of Congress who are in Washington fighting for them. And these three candidates, Raul Martinez, Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo, are the people that we need to elect so that we can make sure that they do that…

“This is the most important election of our lives. We are at a turning point in the United States of America. The wealthy have had their leaders in Washington. The wealthy have been taken care of for a long time. It is time to elect these three candidates to Congress so that we can have a voice for people who have not had one for a very long time.”

You can see from her words that all three Democratic challengers were in the room with her, Annette Taddeo, Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, along with Rep. Kendrick Meek. The star in the room was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who for months has been trooping to South Florida doing fund-raisers for Garcia and Martinez. This was her first for Taddeo, I believe, and she also did fundraisers for Garcia and Martinez during a busy day.

Taddeo stood beside Wasserman Schultz and served as interpreter for the largely Cuban audience in the Little Havana Center for Activities and Nutrition, a senior center. Joe Garcia handled interpretation duty for Nancy Pelosi, who gave ringing endorsements of all three Democratic challengers, touting Taddeo’s strong business background, Garcia’s work in community organizing and Martinez for his long public service as mayor of Hialeah.

It’s time to say Thank You, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. I fervently hope you’re right in guessing that Annette Taddeo is going to win.

One last question, though. Those ads that the DCCC is running on TV here … the ones that criticize the Diaz-Balart brothers for their rotten votes in Congress. Why don’t they also mention Ileana Ros-Lehtinen? After all, she voted the same way as the rubber-stamp brothers. The ads run in the very same TV market that serves potential voters for Annette Taddeo. You’re a big wheel in the DCCC. Why, O why, don’t the ads also mention the third rubber-stamper, and maybe give your fellow Democrat a little boost? Why?

Walk for Annette Taddeo: Red to Blue winner in FL-18

Terrific news for Annette Taddeo, our brilliant challenger against a Bush rubber-stamp in Washington. Taddeo now has full backing of the Democratic Party establishment’s Red to Blue program. It was leaked out today on The Politico and the Down with Tyranny blogs. This will mean more funding for her campaign against Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and equal footing with the other Democratic challengers in South Florida, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, who have been on the Red to Blue list for some time.

We all can help build momentum in this important race by canvassing for Annette Taddeo, who’s a multiple winner this week – certified also after winning a national contest among progressives to show whose backers would work the hardest.

First, the canvassing details. This event is primarily backed by the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida but everyone’s welcome to join.

·         When:  1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday Sept. 14

·         Where: Little Havana, at the Ayesteran restaurant, 706 SW 27^th Ave.

·         Who: Millie Herrera 305 972-4162

Thanks to the readers of this blog and those receiving Democracy For America-Miami-Dade newsletters and others who boosted Taddeo in the Blue America contest among nine progressive candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.  

This is also a chance to introduce you to some nationally known blogs that were sponsors of the contest:  Down With Tyranny, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake and Digby.

 The idea in the contest was to register an individual’s support for one of the nine candidates by making a donation of as little as $1 to that candidate. Taddeo, who made calls herself to backers asking for a buck (I know, I got one of her calls), came out ahead in this national contest and will receive over $15,000 including a $5,000 matching check from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The DCCC now also has promoted Annette Taddeo from the category of “Emerging Races” to the fully emerged status of the Red to Blue program. This will call for the long-reluctant Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, FL-20, to become a full backer of Taddeo’s campaign to unseat Ros-Lehtinen, whom Wasserman Schultz has been reluctant to oppose. 

This blog has been writing about this conflict for almost six months, and it will be a great relief to put this chapter behind us and step into a more unified final eight weeks of campaigning.

Here’s a link to the Taddeo campaign site with news of the Blue America win – nothing official yet on the DCCC Red to Blue program – and you can click on the Contribute button and do the right thing.

And a Florida footnote: also among those promoted from “emerging” to Red to Blue” is Alan Grayson, the Democratic challenger in FL-08. The incumbent is Rick Keller, who must now think his 53-47 margin in 2006 is looking pretty skimpy. The district is in central Florida including part of Orlando.

Glory day at Denver convention for SoFla Congressional candidates

Our congressional candidates from South Florida are getting good exposure at the Denver convention, and Joe Garcia’s magnetism is spreading to the point that he got a boisterous welcome from the crowd Tuesday evening as he joined an on-stage group of candidates the Democratic Party is featuring this year.

He wasn’t the only Floridian – Raul Martinez, challenging in FL-21, and Christine Jennings, challenging in the Sarasota area, were also in the group. But when the DCCC chairman, Chris Van Hollen, called out Joe Garcia as the challenger in FL-25, the Florida delegation led wild and prolonged applause.

Also in Denver was Annette Taddeo, who spoke at a media breakfast Wednesday morning, along with Joe Garcia. Taddeo is challenging in my home district, FL-18, and a very fine candidate is she.

I had the pleasure of inhabiting the same plane as Joe Garcia flying to Denver on Tuesday and saw him getting the card of one of the top fundraisers. So look for his already robust treasury to remain healthy. Joe has raised more than $1 million.

Here’s a link to a National Journal blog about Joe’s appearance, and here’s a Miami Herald story about the event, with mention of the $1.4 million the Democratic Party plans to spend on advertising for the congressional candidates.

Bush rubber-stamp identifies Democratic "dear friends"

Attention in the camps of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kendrick Meek. This is what you get from your failure to be fully on board the campaigns of your Democratic colleagues. Your Republican incumbent friends will use your names – your Democratic names – in their desperate attempts to fend off strong electoral challenges.

Here is some murky video from Mario Diaz-Balart, FL-25 Republican incumbent, talking at a church in Homestead FL in June about why he should be re-elected for a third term.

(Apologies that I can't make the video appear here. Email this blog and I'll email you the file.)

He doesn’t say he is endorsed by Wasserman Schultz and Meek, but he says – untruthfully, but what the heck – that they’re not supporting his opponent, Joe Garcia. And it’s because they are his “dear friends.” And “I work with them.” They are his “colleagues.”

And, he says, they’re “getting a lot of criticism” for this. Who’s criticizing? He says with a deprecating gesture that “some groups” are doing it.

Hey, bloggers. He’s talking about us. This blog. DailyKos. We are his “some groups.” And to him, we’re communists – Communists. He doesn’t say it in this video clip but we know it’s in his heart because that’s what his foes all are.

Here’s the rough transcript from this short clip:

"… who are dear friends. Who are getting a lot of criticism by some groups because they are not from the party that I'm in. And yet they refuse to help my opponent. Not that my opponent may not be a good guy, or (inaudible) on the issues. Because I work with them. These two colleagues are, one of them is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, from north part, center part, actually like Broward and above. The other is our own Kendrick Meek."

Before more analysis of this clip, some reportage from Nancy Pelosi’s appearance Wednesday at a fund-raiser for Joe Garcia at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. Also present were Annette Taddeo and Raul Martinez, the Democratic challengers against respectively, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21).

Speaker of the House Pelosi, whom Garcia introduced as the “most powerful woman in the world,” was abundantly clear whom she backs in these races.

“I’m here to show the House Democrats’ support for Joe Garcia, Annette Taddeo and Raul Martinez,” she said. She referred to “these three races” and the “three quality candidates.” The opposition in Congress, she said, was not simply conservatives but “radical right-wing, status quo, special interest, not in the people’s interest” Republicans.

Your blogger should not go on any further since he had been admonished to be present as a loyal Democrat rather than as media, and he’d like to be invited back in the future. Also, ran out of scribbled quotes.

Except for this last gem, in which she said the “synergy of the three candidates … has its own drumbeat.”

That’s a fine rhetorical touch – the “drumbeat” coming from the three Democratic challengers running in Miami-Dade (mostly, plus parts of Broward and Collier Counties and all of Monroe comprising the Florida Keys).

So I’d say Speaker Pelosi is openly and strongly for the three Democrats. And she’s the head of the Democratic Caucus in the House, and overall the boss of the Democrats’ Congressional campaign. So it’s doubly hard to understand how Wasserman Schultz and Meek get away with not being fully supportive of the three Democratic challengers. Stressing fully is meant to acknowledge that Wasserman Schultz has donated money herself to Garcia and Martinez. But she hasn’t donated to Annette Taddeo, and she and Meek are notably absent from this sort of event that drew other Democratic politicians and donors.

The only explanation we’ve heard is that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Annette Taddeo’s opponent) befriended Wasserman Schultz when the latter entered the U.S. House two terms ago, and the bond of legislative colleagues somehow trumps party loyalty.

This would be more understandable if the Republican had not voted repeatedly for the Iraq war, for torture, for wiretapping and against expanding children’s health care. This would be the point where a good Democrat restricts the bonds of collegiality to the halls of Congress and polite chat with the friendly Republican – and meanwhile works like crazy to get good Democrats elected instead in the neighboring districts.

Now it’s time to look more at what Mario Diaz-Balart said in that short clip.

He’s wrong:

• Saying that the Democrats don’t support his opponent, since Wasserman Schultz has donated to Garcia. More correct would be that they don’t fully support Garcia, and also not fully support Annette Taddeo in FL-18;
• Identifying Wasserman Schultz’ constituency as if it’s all in Broward County, when 20 percent of it or so is in Miami-Dade. His utterance here just sounds confused. He seems to be saying that Meek’s District 17 is all in Miami-Dade (“our own”), though a substantial part of it is in Broward. He ought to know these districts, since he helped draw the lines to carve out a U.S. House district for himself when he was still a member of the Florida House of Representatives. Sorta like the infamous Tom DeLay, known for redoing the lines in Texas in the middle of a decade, thumbing his nose at the quaint American notion of fairness.

Next on Mario Diaz-Balart’s schedule this week is an appearance Saturday at a health center where Kendrick Meek is also to be present. Groan. If this weren’t less than 90 days from the election, it could just be colleagues representing their joint work to constituents.

The last thing that’s really hard to see about these two errant but young and promising Democrats, who vote wonderfully progressive on most every issue, is why they don’t see the landslide juggernaut coming. Why are they not fully supporting the winners?

OK, now the last thing, really. Meek and Wasserman Schulz are afflicted with bullet-proof constituencies. I say afflicted because they don’t have the tonic of competition in their 70-percent solid districts. No Democrat challenger in the primary (Aug. 26) and no Republican bothers to run against them in the November general. It’s like the arrogance of absolute power. They can do whatever they like. And call it representing the people

Red to Blue taps Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez

The news is out on Swing State Project: Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia have made the list of candidates-to-back by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Read it here.

Now, what does this mean? They will raise more money to continue waging strong campaigns against the Diaz-Balart brothers, Lincoln in FL-21 and Mario in FL-25, facing Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, respectively.

And once again it will put the spotlight on U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) and Kendrick Meek (FL-17) as to whether they will get wholeheartedly on the team and campaign for their fellow Democrats. (If you don't know the background on this, pop back to some of the posts starting in March on this blog and read up.)

This Red-to-Blue development was entirely predictable when this all started, so I'm wondering still why the Democratic incumbents were so categorical in their refusals to be on the team.

I also suspect that Garcia and Martinez are doing well partly because Barack Obama is doing better and better in Florida -- the coattail effect already showing up. See this morning that Obama is leading McCain in Florida in a fresh Quinnipiac poll -- and that was probably taken before McCain started talking about drilling for oil spills off Florida's coast.

With strong support from women, blacks and younger voters, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the apparent Democratic presidential contender, leads Arizona Sen. John McCain, expected to be the Republican candidate, among likely voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to simultaneous Quinnipiac University Swing State polls released today.

This is against all received wise opinion a few months ago. Open your minds, folks.

Now we have to keep working to get Annette Taddeo (FL-18) on the Red to Blue list and take out my congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Joe Garcia vs one-note incumbent

The one-note politician toots it again: Run against him/them, and you’re a “left-wing extremist.”

It’s in the Miami Herald Wednesday in all its silliness, but at least Joe Garcia got his smiling face pictured on the front of the Metro section.

If we wonder why South Florida is not exactly flourishing under its present dominant political structure, we need only recall that our Republican members of Congress are laughable. In this instance, Mario Diaz-Balart, the incumbent in District 25, has his campaign declare that Joe Garcia “continues to align himself with left-wing extremists. The latest to join the ranks is Congressman Charlie Rangel.”

Oh? Charlie Rangel, decorated war veteran, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, is a left-wing extremist? No wonder we can expect to see the Everglades – the environmental jewel of this congressional district – dry up and blow away if Diaz-Balart remains in office. Why would Chairman Rangel want to arrange any special ways and means for this district with such insults ringing in his ears?

Or perhaps Diaz-Balart thinks no one is listening. Maybe …

Since he’s paying so much attention to who’s attending fund-raisers for Joe Garcia, we should do him the same favor.

While we’re thinking Congressional here: The Herald has one more interesting piece in Wednesday’s Metro section, back inside, under the headline “Democrats bid for state seats,” is a Washington story rounding up all the Democratic ambitions to take back Florida congressional seats. Good going, Herald! I wrote this up three weeks ago when it was announced that Joe Trippi was signing up to be senior media adviser for Joe Garcia’s campaign.

The Herald’s counting doesn’t extend as far as mine, though. Their story says the Democrats “are eyeing as many as six House seats in Florida,” while in fact the DCCC – Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – is eyeing eight House seats, or half of the 16 now held by the Republicans.

This, I like to say, is landslide country. And this is a landslide year. Any Democrat who’s not thinking landslide this year is out to lunch. Skeptical? May I remind you that last weekend the NY Times/CBS New poll said 81 percent think the country is on the wrong track. Yes, 81 percent is where we go to watch landslides occur. This is the Switzerland of political landslides, avalanches, sweeping victories, changes of eras.

Joe Garcia endorsed by Kos/Blue Majority

This was another strong development for the Democratic surge in South Florida: The Kos of DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas, endorsed Joe Garcia for the U.S. House in Florida’s District 25, which puts Garcia up on the Blue Majority top tier of endorsed candidates in the nation.

Not long ago it was Democracy for America urging his election. More recently it was the DCCC – Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – publicly offering strong support for him in a letter signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and four of her top colleagues in the House Democratic leadership. That was a roll, and it extended, too, to Raul Martinez’ candidacy in District 21 against Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Annette Taddeo’s challenge to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in District 18. They are included, too, in the Blue Majority/Kos endorsement as "sister districts."

My friends, we’re looking at sweep city now in Miami-Dade County. But it won’t happen without our whole-hearted work and donations. And it won’t happen if the Miami Herald is correct in predicting that a quarter of Democratic voters might stay home in November because of the early-primary fiasco. I know, they had a poll saying it – not exactly a prediction – but somehow the poll was bogus. I mean, are there really so many small-minded people out there that they’d withhold their vote because the Republicans connived to have that primary too early. The question was a little loaded, I think. Another in that category is their poll saying that Florida Democrats aren't going to vote for John McWar -- McCain, I mean -- even if he picks Charlie Crist for vice president. Who's dumb enough to pay a pollster to ask that question?

So I urge you now to do what I did: romp over to that Kos diary and click on the link to donate to Joe Garcia’s campaign. And while you’re feeling generous, remember Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo, too.

See the DCCC letter

Over at Draft Joe Garcia the resident genius has figured out how to show the letter from Nancy Pelosi et al promising support for our three challenger candidates for the US House. Here's the link.

Breaking news: Pelosi leads DCCC in supporting our D challengers

We may have a hard time getting our local Democratic congressmen to back fellow Democratic challengers, but how about a nice letter from Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James E. Clyburn, Rahm Emanuel and Chris Van Hollen.

Dated March 14, the letter from the five top figures in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee congratulates Joe Garcia on a "strong start" to his campaign for Florida Congressional District 25.

It concludes: "We look forward to supporting your campaign and helping you become our newest Democratic partner for change in Washington."

Identical letters went to Raul Martinez, challenging in District 21, and to Annette Taddeo, candidate in District 18.

Dear friends: this is a scoop. I think. I've checked the AP, the NY Times, the Miami Herald and its blog. They don't have it. Is it unimportant? I don't think so, in the context of a solid six days of turmoil and heavy blogging since the Miami Herald published an expose on Page One last Sunday.

UPDATE: Early Saturday the Herald put up a story online reporting the same development. UPDATE II: It's in the newspaper, too, p. 1 of the Metro section.

Readers of this blog and Brownsox' posts on DailyKos the last three days know the drill: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL-17), two rising young Democrats in the House, are somehow unable to back the three strong challengers to the three Republicans who misrepresent Miami-Dade County and chunks of Broward, Collier and Monroe counties.

The Democrats have "allegiances," in the Herald's terminology, with those Republicans, even though they are far right on the Iraq war, health insurance for children, torture, illegal wiretapping, executive powers, you name it -- the whole spectrum of Bushite folly.

Wasserman Schultz and Meek still may have begged off any close association with the campaigns of Joe Garcia (Fl-25), Raul Martinez (FL-21) and Annette Taddeo (FL-18). But with Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn, Emanuel and Van Hollen behind the three challengers, this will be a powerful campaign to turn South Florida blue and blue and blue.

This must be taken as a victory for the party grassroots, which rose in righteous anger when the Herald's story came out last Sunday. This was quickly blogged wherever possible, with DailyKos diaries ringing in with 200-plus comments -- all negative toward the position of Wasserman Schultz and Meek.

Earlier in the week the turn of the tide was signaled on the DCCC's own blog, where on Wednesday Brandon English had the byline on a post declaring that the DCCC would support the three challengers.

With the demurral: "While some of our Members may not always be able to actively campaign with every candidate, you can be assured that the DCCC will be there."

My friends, this practice of "allegiances" must be rooted out wherever it exists. There is a difference between having civilized debate with friendly opponents, on the one hand, and being bound not to oppose the re-election bids of neo-con hardliners just because they happen to live in your same county. This is politics, not junior high.

DCCC blog backs our Congressional candidates

With all the fuss – some of it appearing in this blog space – over our Democrats in the US House and their support for our challengers, it’s good to see that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a blog post up backing the challengers and promising full support.

This will be valuable down the line. I’m sure they won’t mind if I copy the whole post, so here it is, with the link:

Saturday's big Democratic win of Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat is just more proof that voters are looking for the big change that Democrats will deliver.

In South Florida, we have three strong Democratic challengers fighting for change against some of President Bush's most reliable rubbberstamps. Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21), and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) have rubberstamped President Bush's failed agenda time and time again. With only underfunded challengers as opponents, they have become entrenched politicians unwilling to respond to the will of the voters.

Those days are over. Democratic challengers Annette Taddeo (FL-18), Raul Martinez (FL-21), and Joe Garcia (FL-25) are running tough campaigns against the South Florida Republicans that will force them to defend their blind support of President Bush. With Bush's approval numbers mired in the 30's, that'll be no easy task.

The DCCC will be right alongside these candidates taking the fight to these loyal Bushies. The DCCC's sole mission is to elect Democrats to the House and that's just what we plan to do. We do it by ensuring our challengers have all the resources we need, knocking on doors, making calls and making sure no Republican attack goes unanswered.

While some of our Members may not always be able to actively campaign with every candidate, you can be assured that the DCCC will be there.

In a recent blog post at Swing State Project, there was frustration against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz's call that she would not be campaigning for South Florida candidates. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz works tirelessly to help elect more Democrats to Congress. She has made clear that she supports the DCCC involvement in these South Florida races and has made sure that a Member who could completely throw themselves into those races would be assigned to them.

These Florida districts are ready for the big change that Democrats will deliver with a Democratic President and a strong Democratic Majority. Let's keep the focus on beating Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21), and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25).

Joe Garcia’s campaign took this as a full endorsement and cited it in a message to supporters, also mentioning national endorsement by Democracy for America and backing by the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.

This is a good time to be a Democrat running for Congress, or for any other office. Let’s always make sure that our Democratic Party acts wisely and promptly in supporting these fine candidates.

“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.

The analysis starts on our three Republican (soon to be ex-) members of Congress

All it takes to start the ball rolling is a week of radio ads -- in Spanish, no less.

The analysis has started to percolate now that the Democratic establishment in Washington has written a check for a week of radio ads in Spanish criticizing our three Republican members of the U.S. House.

Well, they are proven opponents of healthy kids, now that they've voted to uphold the Bush veto of the SCHIP bill. So it must be pretty obvious that they're vulnerable in the '08 election. We're not the only ones to notice this. It also hit the thinkers at the Swing State Project, which analyzes "key races around the country," according to the banner on its web site.

So, we are now key races. That's a change of pace. People will be looking. Maybe even the Miami Herald will have to cover the candidates and their activities in the Herald's home county. I have been in the Herald building a few times -- a vast place teeming with staff and work -- and then while working on Dave Patlak's campaign for FL-18 (soon to be ex Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) last year I wondered why they never could spare anyone to cover our events. What were they all doing, if not covering congressional races.

Ah, later as election day drew near, it became clearer, though not satisfying. The editorial would come out saying that Congress is held in low esteem, but they'd endorse the incumbents anyway. Just a second: Isn't that a non sequitur -- that's Latin for Dummkopf-style thinking.

Anyway, the key races will have drama. In politics, that's big swing, meaning a lot of people seem to be about to change their minds.

This long analysis in Swing State Project rests on the report in The Hill (cited in my post earlier today on Raul and Joe) about the three Congressional races. And here's the drama and the nut graph in the SSP article:

"Could one, two or all three of these incumbents end up being the next Henry Bonilla, the Texas Republican who got trounced by Democrat Ciro Rodriguez in a district with a similarly red PVI (R+4.2) last December? Florida Democrats are eager to put the three incumbents to the test and are actively seeking challengers."

Oh, yes. As they say, let's "take these districts for a spin."

GLOSSARY Item: PVI, I'm told, stands for Partisan Voter Index, a way of measuring how strong one party or the other is in an electoral district. The numbers for the three are:

• CD 18-- R+4.3
• CD21-- R+6.2
• CD25-- R+4.4

Meaning they seem to be pretty reliably Republican. Until, like Henry Bonilla in Texas, the other side trounces his R+4.2.

THANKS to: Michael Calderin, for tipping me to the SSP item. Michael, running for State House District 119, has a long comment on the SSP link reminiscing on his run against Mario Diaz-Balart last year in District 25. Highly informative.

Will Raul run? And Joe? The Hill asks

Joe Garcia (left) recently on Spanish-language radio


















This article in The Hill, the congressional newspaper, lays out what may be our races for the U.S. House of Representatives in Miami-Dade County. Raul Martinez vs. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Joe Garcia vs. Mario Diaz-Balart. Someone vs. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Raul Martinez has been in this blog before as a potential candidate for Congress. Joe Garcia hasn’t. Now, as many of you know, Joe Garcia is my boss, and I could ask him what he intends. But I’m waiting for him to tell me, and what he told me was that The Hill article has it right.

And what does Joe say in The Hill article? He would run if the party asked him.

Raul says he will decide in the next few weeks, so that someone else who’s thinking about the challenge will have plenty of time.

Read it here and factor it into your plan for political donations for the ‘o8 campaign. And keep in mind that the national party sent a nice signal of future support when the DCCC took out ads on Spanish radio this week against the three Republican House members. That hasn't happened in many years.

And, oh yes, drop in to the DCCC website and see what they announced for their fund-raising accomplishments in the third quarter. "Record fund-raising" brought in $16 million in the third quarter and the DCCC has $28.3 million on hand. This was the third consecutive strong quarter.

The photo shows Joe Garcia in a recent appearance on "En Ruta," a weekly Dominican radio program, with Tomas Pena, Pablo Rodriguez and Victor Sepulveda.