FL-25 Draft Joe Garcia, sign up here

We have to help Joe Garcia make up his mind about the right thing to do. Draft Joe to run for Congress. Sign up on Facebook, which conveniently has a group called Draft Joe Garcia for 2010!

Joe should go in Congressional District 25, where he ran a strong race in 2008. The winner then was Mario Diaz-Balart, who now is proving himself a quitter like a surprising number of other Republicans including Sarah Palin and Charlie Crist. They think there’s a better place, and they must know their days were numbered.

The past couple months have been a time of heightening suspense for your blogger, who remembers two years ago and four years ago when the end of one odd-numbered year and the beginning of the next even-numbered year were runups to campaigns for Congress. About this time -- February shading into March -- was when good Democrats rose up or were drafted/encouraged to run for supposedly entrenched Republican-held seats. It’s more than just a seat in the US House -- it’s recognizing a new population demographic, it’s the approaching dawn of a better policy on Cuba, it’s cleaner government with a closer grip on reality, it’s capitalizing on the little-realized potential of Barack Obama.

But it wasn’t happening. Good Democrats weren’t raising their hands to run for Congress, and I’ve got to say, my blood pressure was up in anticipation of a curtain that was late in rising.

It rose over on stage far right last week. Lincoln Diaz-Balart announced he’s retiring from his seat in District 21, and his younger brother Mario said he would abandon (my verb, not his) District 25 and run to succeed Lincoln. May he rue the day, that’s my wish. Those two adjoining districts in the western suburbs of Miami, with parts of Broward and Collier counties, are due for better representation. They include the Everglades, which needs more energetic saving than Mario Diaz-Balart could ever muster.

Now Mario Diaz-Balart is a quitter, and we’ve got to help convince Joe Garcia to run again. All he’d have to do is improve by 3.5 percent of the vote, over his 2008 run, to take the seat.

So I’m signing up on Facebook to Draft Joe Garcia for 2010! Pass the word! This is a fast-growing group.

Joe Garcia’s last published word on this can be found at http://joegarciaforcongress.com/ but don’t take that as final. Joe is in a tough spot, having to decide whether to save the world by running for Congress or to save the world by serving the US Department of Energy, as he’s doing now. My vote is for Congress.

UPDATE: A story today on Politico reports that the White House and the DCCC are courting Joe to run for FL-25. Why am I not surprised? There are some smart people in the White House, and they know Joe from his work in the Department of Energy, and this is an opportunity not to be missed. Now, the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has amends to make for its tardy backing of our Democratic candidates for Congress in 2008. I'd guess that Joe Garcia is making sure the DCCC will be in his corner -- and early -- if he decides to run.

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?

FL-21, FL-25: Miami New Times writes off the Diaz-Balart brothers

Here's a long and good read about victory around the corner for Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, and oblivion for the Diaz-Balart slime machine and the two brothers who dishonor their elected office in the U.S. House of Representatives.

See the post just before this for one of the examples of dirty politics the brothers practice -- a TV ad intended to boost the fortunes of Mario Diaz-Balart. But Mario, how are you going to explain this at the Pearly Gates? What about the Commandment to Bear No False Witness? His elder brother Lincoln Diaz-Balart has been almost as bad in his noir TV ads against Raul Martinez.

Thanks goodness that the Miami New Times has seen its way through all that crap to write that this year is the "end of the dynasty" for the Diaz-Balarts. Would that the Miami Herald had been equally perceptive.

Anyway, please make a cup of coffee and sit down for a lengthy read through the thinking that will put at least two more Democrats in the U.S. House from South Florida.

Congressional candidates finally talk; Dems are superb

I haven’t heard Dave Patlak so revved-up since he was just back from Camp Obama.

“I’ve finally realized my dream!” he shouted down the phone.

What was it? A “debate forum” that brought together the three rubber-stamp Republican members of Congress from South Florida with their Democratic challengers. The format was so restricted that the designated moderator, Michael Putney of ABC Channel 10, withdrew and wrote in Wednesday’s Miami Herald that it “promises to be little more than a dumb show – a play done in pantomime, Kabuki theater.”

Someone among the candidates – no one would confess to it – had demanded that the sponsoring Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce reveal the questions beforehand, otherwise no show. Putney said he suspected one of the Republican campaigns for making the demand.

So there was a certain “canned” atmosphere, but the encounter itself was enough to give Dave Patlak chills down his spine, since when he ran for the District 18 seat in 2006, incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wouldn’t even touch the idea of a debate with a 10-foot pole. Now Democratic challenger Annette Taddeo is running a powerful and well-financed campaign against Ros-Lehtinen, and Patlak said she spoke with wonderful heart and directly demanded that Ros-Lehtinen explain her votes against expanding children’s health insurance.

And Patlak had ringing praise for Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, who are challenging the Diaz-Balart brothers in Districts 25 and 21, respectively. Patlak said Joe Garcia was “presidential” in his remarks against Mario Diaz-Balart and Martinez was “dominating” against Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Alas, no one took the trouble to spread the word that the forum was being broadcast live on NBC6.net, so it could have been watched as it was under way. Channel 6 assures me that it’s being processed and uploaded, and should be available Wednesday evening on their archives website.

The Diaz-Balarts, Patlak reported, repeatedly tried to joke their way out of tough corners, and Ros-Lehtinen pranced around like a cheerleader to disguise her weak positions. I hope for more detail from Dave later, amid his constant work on the Obama campaign – he was off to deliver yard signs.

Meanwhile, here’s some word from Joe Garcia about a forum where he and Mario Diaz-Balart appeared earlier this week.

Not once did he offer a plan as to how we're going to get our economy moving again. He also never spoke about how we're going to make health care more affordable for the 1 out of 3 people in South Florida that don't have any.

Here's what he did do: He lied, attacked me, played partisan politics and made jokes.

There's nothing funny about thousands of struggling middle-class families losing their homes, or teachers getting laid off in places like Kendall and West Miami-Dade. The fact that Mario Diaz-Balart has voted over 90% of the time with the failed economic policies of George W. Bush is no laughing matter.

It's no surprise now why Mario Diaz-Balart insists on having questions given to him ahead of time.

This is what politicians do when they've only passed one bill after six years in Washington.

This is why we need change.

Our campaign is different. It's about finding solutions to the problems we face, like fixing our broken economy.

The stakes couldn't be higher. Get involved and let's make history.

Thank you so much for being there for us,

Being there means helping. You will find these links useful in getting to a place where you can help. Annette Taddeo. Raul Martinez. Joe Garcia.

“Awesome numbers” for Joe Garcia, and look at Barack: Up 22 points

This one on DailyKos slipped by the other day, so some of you may already have memorized this good news. It was referred to in yesterday’s post here about the two races that Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez are mounting against the Diaz-Balart rubber-stamp brothers.

Kos himself looks at the polling for FL-25 and called it “awesome numbers” for Garcia – awesome in that Mario Diaz-Balart is well under 50 percent. He’s polling 45 to Garcia’s 41, which means stepping on the gas for these final five weeks, right, Joe?.

A key factor, Kos says, is that Barack Obama’s campaign is accelerating, too, and while the Democratic presidential candidate may be well behind in the congressional district, he has surged to a 22-point lead in Southeast Florida, from 12 points up in an earlier poll.

Some of the details are available on the Survey USA website, for those who want to know how Aunt Augusta responded.

FL-21, FL-25: Good news for Martinez and Garcia campaigns

Here we are at five weeks to election day – meaning three weeks to start of early voting – and the momentum looks positive for the Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia challenges to the Diaz-Balart rubber-stamps.

Very proud, the Martinez campaign announced a promotion by one of the handicappers on Tuesday. No longer “lean Republican” to the Rothenberg Political Report, this race in FL-21 now is “Pure Toss-Up.”

” The race's inclusion as one of only ten races in the country ranked as ‘Pure Toss-Up’ signifies that this race is more competitive than ever,” the Martinez campaign said.

That doesn’t make it easy. Incumbent Lincoln Diaz-Balart has run an ad about as sleazy as they come, and Raul Martinez is asking donors to help in the stretch to Election Day. You can see how Miami’s Channel 10 skewered the ad in a post a few days ago on this blog.

And at Joe Garcia’s shop – also contending with gross distortions from Mario Diaz-Balart’s ads – they’re announcing good news from another of the handicappers, Real Clear Politics, which is calling the race in FL-25 one of the most competitive House races in the country.

This race, according to the Rothenberg Political Report (linked above), is still in the “lean Republican” category. But there’s yet another piece of good news for Joe Garcia. Mario DB is polling below 50%, which is a classic sign of trouble for incumbent members of Congress. If I recall correctly, this has been true for several months, so the incumbent has not done himself any good with his crummy ads (also linked in the same post as for Raul Martinez).

Here’s part of a statement from the Joe Garcia campaign:

A poll that was conducted by a non-partisan firm was recently released that shows Mario Diaz-Balart is only getting 45% support, and that Joe Garcia is polling within the margin of error. As you know, “polling under 50 percent generally spells trouble for incumbents.” [Rasmussen Reports, 9/22/2008].

This explains why MDB is running scared and has resorted to lying about Joe Garcia's record of fighting for Florida's families. The fact that a career politician like Mario Diaz-Balart is polling below 50% provides proof that South Florida is ready for a change. The poll also states that Joe Garcia's favorability is higher than Mario Diaz-Balart’s.

Don’t forget that Joe needs money, too.

Speaking of momentum, my favorite Congressional candidate, Annette Taddeo in FL-18 where I live, is advertising on radio and TV, so I expect her to start taking big bites out of incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Taddeo is getting help from the national Democratic Party establishment, having been promoted to the Red to Blue list of top Democratic challengers, and her internal polls have shown for months that the incumbent has meager support. Once voters see and hear the ads for Taddeo, they will realize there’s a powerful challenge and bid Ros-Lehtinen an unfond farewell.

Taddeo has been getting coverage in the Miami Herald and in the Florida Keys, so the word is getting out. Now it’s time to step on the gas, and that’s what the campaign is doing. You can pitch in with money and time. Sign up at Annette2008.com.

Bailout vote: Joe Garcia would have voted yes, Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo no

An interesting split among our three Democratic challengers for the U.S. House in South Florida.

For starters, all three Republican rubber-stamp incumbents voted no on the bailout bill, which failed with both parties split bigtime. The vote was 228-205. Voting no were 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats. Yes were 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans.

UPDATE: Let's pause and read what the Obama campaign said about this trainwreck:

“This is a moment of national crisis, and today’s inaction in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington. Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe. Every American should be outraged that an era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and Washington has led us to this point, but now that we are here, the stability of our entire economy depends on us taking immediate action to ease this crisis,” said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Both Annette Taddeo, challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18, and Raul Martinez, challenging Lincoln Diaz-Balart in FL-21, issued statements before the vote saying they opposed the bill before Congress.

Joe Garcia, running against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25, told this blogger he was reluctantly in favor of the bill that failed.

“I thought it was a bad bill but I would have voted for it. I think there will be a better bill when it comes back,” he said.

“The Democrats did the hard thing, and we’re going to get nailed for it.” Asked about the many Democrats who voted against the bill, he said, “They’re scared. They didn’t create this, and are asked to pay for it.”

Again, on all the Republican no votes, Garcia said, “They’re not willing to pay for the mess they created. They broke it but are not willing to buy it.”

Garcia noted that all three Republican incumbents in South Florida voted against the bill, and called it a failure of leadership. The real estate crunch was evident in South Florida months ago, he said. “But the Republicans hid and took the easy route.”

Annette Taddeo’s statement was featured on DailyKos Monday morning and I quote it here.

MIAMI, FL – Annette Taddeo, candidate for Congress in Florida's 18th district, this morning released the following statement expressing opposition to the bailout legislation moving through Congress:

"We must protect homeowners and taxpayers. This bill fails to address the collapsing housing market, the root cause of the crisis. I do not support spending $700 billion in taxpayer money on a flawed bill. I call on Democrats in Congress and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to draft legislation that protects the people and families of South Florida."

"While the proposed bill is a start, it is not complete until homeowners and taxpayers are protected, and there are mechanisms in place to assure proper oversight so this does not happen again."

"As a small-businesswoman and Past-Chair of the Coalition of Greater Miami-Dade Chambers of Commerce, I know what our economy needs to right itself. Congress should send President Bush a bill that includes real protections for homeowners and taxpayers."

Raul Martinez issued this statement:

"The Diaz-Balart/Bush economic policies have failed and the country is worse off. The same people who rushed us to war in Iraq and rushed us into a stimulus bill that has not worked are trying to rush us into another bad idea.

"The proposed ‘bailout’ by the Bush Administration to be voted on today in Congress does not do enough to ensure that the middle class, the people who are truly being hit hard by tough economic times, will be sufficiently helped by this legislation. Hard-working South Floridians, many who are struggling to escape home foreclosure, have not received enough support from Congress to help them stay in their homes. The mortgage crisis is the root cause of this problem and it has not been addressed sufficiently.

"Any bailout should be directly targeted at homeowners, have strict accountability, conflict-of-interest, regulatory and oversight rules attached, including a hard cap on executive compensation and stock warrants for the rescuing taxpayers."

"The Bush Administration is seeking an unprecedented power grab to address the mess that they created. The Treasury Secretary would be largely unrestricted in his ability to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money at a cost of about $2,300 to every man, woman and child in America."

Mayor Martinez proposed the following suggestions:
• Work directly with people that were affected and lost their homes. Not with people that committed fraud, but individuals that got swept into the craze of owning their own home.
• Prevent more foreclosures by negotiating with owners and banks to buy those loans at a discount (the actual value of their homes).
• Require that the net gain of any sale or transfer of the property within the next 10 years, for those homeowners who are being helped, be shared with the government 50/50.
• Create public works jobs so these people will be able to pay for their mortgages.
• Place a cap on the amount of the mortgage.
• Only those people who live on the property will be allowed to participate (Homesteaded properties only).
• Interest rate for new loans will have to carry a low interest rate of about 4-5%.
• People that need to refinance to avoid problems in the future can participate.
• Homes that have been foreclosed could be bought by a first time homebuyer who can participate in the program. Also, any new buyer could obtain a property as long as a new appraisal is done.
• Do away with predatory lending.
• Bring back tight regulations for banks and investment houses
• Regulate hedge funds to make sure that the leverage financing is controlled.
• Stop short selling in the stock market.
• Prohibit speculation on oil.

For the record, your blogger was somewhere around Joe Garcia’s position. I figured the bill was flawed (aren’t all bills flawed?) but was pretty well convinced that something had to be done. What, exactly? That question is above my pay grade.

SoFla House races plagued by false TV spots from Republicans

The Diaz-Balart brothers have won a race, of sorts. Their TV ads have won the quickest condemnation as FALSE I’ve ever seen.

I’d like to hear from other congressional races around the country. How fast have your local media managed to examine and produce condemnations of TV spots run by your Republican incumbents?

Not that I could say exactly how many days and hours it took our brilliant Miami ABC outlet, Channel 10, to pronounce these ads as false. I hadn’t even seen the spot running against Raul Martinez, the Democratic challenger against Lincoln Diaz-Balart in FL-21, and here’s the condemnation already. And it was maybe a week from when I saw the spot run by Mario Diaz-Balart against Democratic challenger Joe Garcia in FL-25 to when it had been exposed as false. In both cases, it was pretty fast, and highly commendable of Channel 10 to have acted openly and forthrightly against the two Republican representatives of the supposedly invulnerable Miami Cuban exile hard-liners.

Here’s what Channel 10 reported on the ad against Raul Martinez:



As Channel 10 said, some of the charges were sort of accurate, since Raul Martinez had a long run of legal troubles two decades ago – political prosecutions similar to what took former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman into prison on dubious charges. Siegelman has been freed, and we’d oh so like to have Karl Rove reveal his role in this affair but he refuses to testify before a House committee.

House, you say? That’s the body we’re trying to elect Raul Martinez, Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo to join and help set it right.

And thank you, Channel 10, for pointing out who’s the only convicted person in that story: Lincoln Diaz-Balart, convicted and fined $30,000 for taking excessive campaign contributions.

It should be noted that the prosecutor who launched against Raul Martinez, Dexter Lehtinen, is the husband of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who soon thereafter was elected to the U.S. House seat that Martinez had planned to run for. Talk about sleazy politics.

Now we turn to what Channel 10 has reported on the whoppers told by Mario Diaz-Balart’s campaign ad against Joe Garcia.



I remember my reaction to seeing this spot a few weekends ago. It was shown among the Sunday morning talk shows, and I erupted in wild guffaws to see it claim that Joe Garcia was some creature of Enron. What a wild-hare story!

Thanks again, Channel 10, for wrapping it up so neatly. False, False, False.

Where in our wonderful system of government and society are the sanctions for putting such crap on the public airwaves?

While we’re thinking about these South Florida congressional races, anyone for a debate? Not if you’re a Republican. They have ducked and dodged, set some dates and then demurred, making the media mad and frustrating their Democratic opponents.

It behooves us to donate to the challengers, because they’ll need more money to run ads themselves to get their names before the public. Annette Taddeo, running against Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18, has her first TV spot now running, and there must be more to help voters realize there’s a strong challenge to the FL-18 incumbent.

So please unhinge your Act Blue or other political donation mechanism, and give to Annette Taddeo, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez.

Good prospects for three Democrats in South Florida congressional races

Click to Play

Joe Garcia, running in District 25, speaks at fundraiser on the key nature of Annette Taddeo's candidacy in District 18. He says she is doing the heavy lifting that will help him win and also help Raul Martinez in District 21.

Cry foul: Lincoln Diaz-Balart won't debate Raul Martinez

Sorry, little mistake in the headline. Replace the word foul with fowl, for chicken. That's should be the modifier for Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who's not up to the challenge of meeting his challenger in the debate arena.

Close readers of this blog may remember back on Sept. 10 when there was a post reporting at least two debates scheduled between the rubber-stamp incumbent and the Democratic contender for FL-21's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The post quoted from the Miami Herald column by Channel 10's respected political reporter Michael Putney, who was himself to be moderator or co-moderator of two debates between Martinez and L. Diaz-Balart.

Sorry to report now that the Martinez campaign says it's all off. As I suspected back on Sept. 10. Too good to be true. The Diaz-Balarts never have the fortitude to meet a challenger.

Last night I was at a fundraiser for Annette Taddeo, challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18, and a welcome guest was Joe Garcia, who's running against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25. No surprise to hear both Annette and Joe report no luck in enticing their opponents to debate. They may hint at this date or that, only to pull back.

Why do they do this? My guess is that they may fool some few voters who will approvingly remember the little news story saying the Republicans had agreed to debate, but not see the one reporting the debate had been called off.

Thanks to the Raul Martinez campaign for rounding up links to various news stories about the "debates," as follows:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/692549.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/get-ready-to-ru.html

http://www.local10.com/editorials/17503337/detail.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/channel-10-miam.html

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.

2 Debates on between Raul Martinez and Lincoln Diaz-Balart

Mark your calendars: Oct. 8 and Oct. 31, the dates for debates between Democratic challenger Raul Martinez and Republican rubber-stamp Lincoln Diaz-Balart, FL-21.

I’m a little surprised. Didn’t figure Diaz-Balart would ever agree to it. What does this mean for the two other congressional races in South Florida, Annette Taddeo vs. rubber-stamp Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18 and Joe Garcia vs. rubber-stamp Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25? Will the Democratic challengers finally have something to debate other than the empty chair at the many forums where they appear?

Michael Putney’s column in the Miami Herald gives a thorough rundown of the issues between Raul Martinez and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Highly recommended reading. Putney is to moderate the first debate, sponsored by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, and co-moderate the second, sponsored by the Latin Builders Association, with Myriam Marquez of the Miami Herald. Putney also hopes to host a debate on his ABC Channel 10 at a date to be determined.

Meanwhile, the Martinez campaign calls attention to a Herald column by the afore-mentioned Myrian Marquez urging that the United States ease restrictions on Castro’s Cuba to let more hurricane aid through.

Raul Martinez made that suggestion himself as Cuba reeled from the impact of Gustav, and now that Ike has caused even more damage in Cuba – as well as Haiti and elsewhere in the Carribean – the needs are even greater.

Marquez writes:

No one with any sense is saying dump the Cuba embargo and kiss up to the Castros. But what's so wrong with a 90-day window for Cuban exiles to rush to their families left behind and offer help, as Democratic congressional candidate Raúl Martinez has suggested?

Indeed, what’s wrong with helping people in deep affliction?