Bromance break-up at Miami City Hall as Joe Carollo and Ralph Rosado split

Well, that didn’t take long.
It took Joe Carollo less than a month to go from proud political padrino to spiteful ex in the case of newly-elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado, who Carollo helped usher into office with more than half a million from his political action committee and hours upon hours of his unique political strategy.
“He is such a huge disappointment,” Carollo said, on his morning radio show.
This was predictable. Pinky is only the latest name scrawled onto Joe’s ever-growing Burn Book of Betrayals. But it may be a record in the quickness. Even the bromance with former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla lasted longer.
Just six weeks ago, Carollo was allegedly burning the midnight oil during the special election for District 4. He told The Miami Herald he stayed up until the wee hours writing and designing those negative campaign mailers. But
He also burned his own political capital. Literally. According to the most recent campaign finance report, he spent at least $547,000 from his Miami First PAC, mostly attacking Jose Francisco Regalado and his family, which includes former Miami mayor and current Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado. He was spotted out in the sun at Douglas Park, directing the TV ad that Rosado filmed with his mother in law. Carollo’s wife Marjorie was there, too, with a clipboard in hand. Taking notes?
In other words, the Carollos poured their time, sweat and money into Rosado’s campaign. And while they were already sorta estranged, Carollo has made formidable enemies out of the Regalado clan. They’re not going to get over it any time soon.
“The worst political mistake of my life,” Carollo said last week on his radio show, about supporting Rosado.
Really, the worst? It wasn’t the weaponization of city departments to target political foes? Or losing a$63.5 million lawsuit for violating someone’s First Amendment rights because of who they supported in your election? Or using public tax dollars to raise your political profile? Or the misspending of monies while you were chair of the Bayfront Park Management Trust?
If political missteps were an Olympic sport, he’d be a gold medalist.
Read related: Joe Carollo wants to abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust
Carollo also has a long list of former employees that have turned on him (and testified against him). This new and sudden breakup, which is a surprise to nobody, seems to stem from the swing vote that Rosado made to cancel this year’s mayoral and commission races in favor of moving the municipal election from odd to even years. Carollo has threatened to run for mayor and could benefit from the current clown car of candidates that will definitely drive a runoff.
Rosado was also the swing vote for the lifetime term limits, which would stop Carollo from returning to office, and pushed the dissolution of the Bayfront Park Management Trust to next year when Carollo wanted to do it immediately. Because, while the investigation and audit into the abuse of funds during his chairmanship would continue, the witnesses might scatter to the winds.
So, instead of Carollo getting a majority on the dais with Rosado’s election, he’s been losing all his important votes.
Carollo does not return calls or texts from Ladra. But he talked to The Miami Herald’s Tess Riski and took the credit for getting Rosado elected. “If Mr. Rosado had not had an angel like Joe or Marjorie Carollo, he never, never, never would have gotten elected,” he told the Herald.
Right. Because angels accuse candidates and their families of animal abuse and ties to drug trafficking.
Crazy Joe owned up to the negative campaign — and also said that Ralph “100%” knew what was up. So much for that positive, issue-focused campaign Rosado claims he ran. ¿Verdad, Ralph? He’s got gaslighting down to a science. Remember when he told Political Cortadito that Joe wasn’t even present during his campaign video shoot at Douglas Park? When told there was a video of Joe and Marjorie behind the camera, like Spielberg and Spielbergita, he stammered and said he’d get back to Ladra, which he never did. Then, to the Herald, he claimed Joe just happened to be “in the area.”
In the area? ¡Niño, por favor!
Read related: Miami’s District 4 candidate Ralph Rosado is backed, helped by Joe Carollo
Now Rosado is officially dead to Joe. “I didn’t expect him to come here to be a lap dog — another lap dog — for Mayor Suarez,” Carollo fumed in the Herald story.
Mayor Francis Suarez, meanwhile, says that Carollo’s breakup is the result of “the recent Commission votes that could impact his and his family’s ability to continue making a living out of the city taxpayer’s pockets.
“For the past two and a half years, our office has had a positive working relationship with Commissioner Carollo’s office,” Suarez was quoted as saying in the Herald, in what amounts to a declaration of war. “However, now Commissioner Carollo is throwing out baseless claims hoping something sticks.
“You have to ask: why now, and not a year ago or two years ago? These are the same political tactics we’ve seen for years, and they’re as transparent today as they have ever been.”
But that’s weird. Because everyone knows that Suarez — who dumped $1 million of his own PAC money into Rosado’s campaign — and Carollo worked together to get the urban consultant elected to replace the late Manolo Reyes. It was coordinated, even though Suarez denies it. Las malas lenguas say they are also both raising money for a new political committee that will fight the lifetime term limits on the ballot.
It’s not just for papi. Yes, former Miami Mayor and Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez is threatening to run for mayor. It’s also for the current mayor himself. Baby X is only 47. He might need a safety net in a decade or two.
Read related: Francis Suarez, Joe Carollo spend $1.6 million to elect Ralph Rosado in D4
As for why now? It’s very possible that Carollo is trying to change the conversation. He wants to distract people from the court appeal he and the city just lost to Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla, who own Ball & Chain, and their $63.5 million jury award for violating their first amendment rights, as well as the investigation into the commissioner’s use of the Bayfront Trust funds as his own political piggy bank, kickbacks and all.
He could also be trying to throw Rosado under the bus for the absentee ballot fraud investigation that is allegedly happening or going to happen after several senior voters reported voting for Rosado because they were told they would lose housing, meals, day care or other services if they didn’t (more on that later).
Whatever the reason is, Thursday’s commission meeting promises to have at least one pelea: Carollo against Rosado or Gabela or Commissioner Damian Pardo — who Rosado was caught having lunch with at Pollo Tropical in what is now a sign of the coming breakup — or Mayor Suarez, if he decides to show up.
And if history tells us anything, it won’t be long before Carollo finds someone new, another gem in his flawless legacy of political backstabbing, to bankroll, micromanage, and eventually denounce.
The post Bromance break-up at Miami City Hall as Joe Carollo and Ralph Rosado split appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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