The phone call came in Monday afternoon. “Jaime,” if that is her real name, was surprised that the person who answered was not just willing but happy to participate in a survey about “important issues in Florida.” Ladra just loves these calls.

Turned out to be one of many recent polls for the congressional primary in District 27, testing message points on both Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and State Sen. Annette Taddeo, both of whom jumped into this race from another contest (U.S. senator and Florida governor, respectively), to go against Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar.

Read Full Story

The first mailer of the Election 2022 season to hit Ladra’s mailbox arrived Saturday. It’s a piece for Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar and, predictably, it touts her as “a freedom fighter” who is keeping socialism out of the United States.

And it comes within days of Sen. Annette Taddeo‘s announcement that she switched races from the governor’s bid to this congressional contest.

Read Full Story

How do you beat the most cubanasa member of U.S. Congress in a somewhat Cuban-American district when it seems libertad en cuba is going to be an issue the GOP seizes on? You run a Democrat cubanita against her — a former Republican who used to work for the beloved Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who would still hold the seat if she wanted to.

Nobody can call Janelle Perez a communist.

Read Full Story

Ya que se las cago with the Cuban-American vote, former University of Miami President and congressional candidate Donna Shalala may be going after the Colombian vote in District 27 with a new gimmick Saturday aimed at endearing her with the Hispanic community: A chiva tour.
Ladra said long ago that Kristen Rosen Gonzalez was the only Democrat candidate who could beat Republican nominee Maria Elvira Salazar — who the most recent polls show head-to-head with or ahead of Shalala — because both are young attractive women who speak Spanish. But Democrat insiders insisted on Shalala and bulldozed everyone else out of the way.
Now, they’re not only losing a race they had in the bag a year ago, they should be downright embarrassed about how clueless Shalala is pandering to Hispanics — who make up more than 70 percent of the voters in the district — in a last ditch and plainly oblivious effort to stop the bleeding.
Read related: Donna Shalala is snubbed; missing on Obama’s FL endorsement list
First, she pretends to sing the Guantanamera on Enrique Santos radio show, but Santos really does the singing while Shalala shakes her head back and forth and utters a few syllables. I mean, who doesn’t know la Guantanamera?
Then, last week, the Shalala campaign launched a new Spanish-language ad reminding voters of Salazar’s interview with Fidel Castro and the words she used to complement him. They call it “Sinverguenza.”
“El Comandante… the man who captured our social imagination in the 60’s,” Salazar calls Castro in that interview, a clip of which is shown in the ad.
Salazar is also shown talking about it, explaining that all journalists called Castro comandante, which isn’t true, as evidenced by a series of clips where journalists refer to Castro as a dictator, instead. We held our breath and used the word president at the Miami Herald.
But while its true that Salazar was practically drooling in that exchange, it seems disingenuous for Shalala — who invited Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee to campaign with her in Coral Gables — to judge.
Read related: Dumb Dems invite pro-Cuba pols to stump for them in Miami-Dade
It’s like family. We can say Maria Elvira es una comemierda. Shalala — whose party embraces giving more opportunities to a government that continues to repress its people, jail dissidents and deny basic human rights — can’t.
The latest gimmick: A chiva — the traditional, colorful, folkloric two-tiered bus used in rural Colombia and Ecuador — will take the candidate to early voting locations in Shenandoah and Little Havana, as well as area parks, leaving from Coconut Grove Park, 3628 Grand Ave., at 3 p.m.
Ladra kids you not! Photo op!
Will there be yerba mate? Pastelitos? Tamales? Cigars? What’s next? Canvassing with mariachis?
All this is to substitute for the fact that Shalala does not speak Spanish and that’s not the only reason she doesn’t understand a majority of the constituency she seeks to represent — but it sure is part of it.
Y le van a pasar la cuenta.
In Spanish, that means that they’re going to hand her the bill, make her pay. In Cuban Miami politics, it means she’s toast.
So maybe that’s why she’s going after the Colombian vote now? Someone ought to tell her that voter bloc is in District 26.

Read Full Story

The congressional primary in dielection is too important. So I did something I thought I would never do. I registered as a Democrat.
Ladra has been a deep purple, card-carrying, proud NPA all her adult life. It started as a pragmatic choice by a journalism student who did not want to be linked to either extreme agenda. It ended up being perfectly suited to me since I found issues and problems in both parties that I was just unable to swallow. So I stayed NPA and proudly proclaimed it from every rooftop.
This year, I have already vowed to vote blue up and down the ballot because of Parkland. Yes, a school shooting at a Broward high school that took 17 lives did what LGBT rights and immigration battles, climate change and taxation and energy priorities and even the systematic privatization of what should be public education couldn’t do — it turned me into a single issue voter. After watching the Florida legislature debate gun control in the wake of those deaths at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, I had no choice. Those creeps who said the MSD students didn’t know what they were talking about and put guns in our schools, they need to be voted out. We need a blue majority in Florida.
So, yeah, I am going to vote for the Democratz in November in both my House race (Jeff Solomon has my vote Aug. 28) and Senate District 40.
But I couldn’t wait for November when it comes to congressional District 27, because there is only one Democrat candidate in the primary on Aug. 28 that I know can beat the eventual Republican winner, who is apparently going to be Maria Elvira Salazar — and that’s Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.
I can hear some of you now saying that I am only doing this because I am a paid campaign staffer. That’s ridiculous. Do the people who worked for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only support her because they work for her? Do the people on Marco Rubio’s staff secretly wish they could support someone else but are there only because of their paychecks? Shame on you. If you think my vote is worth any amount of money, or that I would change my voter profile from my entire life, you are delusional. This is something I treasure. Nobody can pay for my vote. You have to earn it. And Kristen has. I was always going to vote for her. Rosen Gonzalez only invited me to be part of Team Kristen because I’ve supported her for the three years she’s been in office. Heck, I supported her candidacy two years prior to that, before she withdrew from the 2013 city elections on the Beach. So, yes, I am paid to help her with her messaging and media. But no, I am not paid to support her. I do that for free and happily because of who she is.
What is it about her? A few things.
A single mom, like me, she is the only candidate in the Dem #FL27 primary who has a full time job and lives paycheck to paycheck, like me. She recycles obsessively and drives a hybrid. She walks the walk, not just talks the talk. She is a teacher, with ten years experience as a professor at Miami Dade College and a real intense desire to make community college free for everyone, so higher education becomes a right and not a privilege. She has passed legislation to raise the minimum wage and protect hotel workers from sexual harassment, so she took on the hotel industry in a city that depends on hotels. Sure, she is often unpolished and sometimes says things off the top of her head that she later regrets. I kinda like that about her. Because at least she says something. Her answers are not pat rehearsed and practiced talking points written by someone else. Trust me, sometimes I wish she would stick to my script. She can’t. It is in her nature to be natural. She is the real deal.
She has also been campaigning the longest, having announced a bid for that seat before Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired. So she was willing to challenge the congresswoman on her own turf. That takes guts. She has something slightly resembling gumption. Nobody else had the nerve. They only jumped in after it was an open seat, which makes them opportunists of a sort.
Most importantly, Kristen is the only candidate in the Democratic primary who speaks Spanish fluently. That is going to become important after Aug. 28 when whoever wins has to battle Salazar for votes in a district that is 73% Hispanic.
Ladra likes Matt Haggman. We worked together at the Miami Herald and he was a fine journalist. But he and his campaign are out of touch with the average voter or resident in my community. Ladra likes former State Rep. David Richardson. Despite his stupid trip to Cuba and the fact that he talks about being the first gay elected to the House like its his only achievement, I think he has good intentions. I love the fact that he took it upon himself to visit state prisons and evaluate their operations as a state legislator.
But neither of them speak Spanish very well. And when pressed to vote for a David Richardson or a Matt Anything against a Maria Elvira Salazar, I fear that a lot of the elderly, high performing voters in the district will go for the name with the Z in it. This is not racism. It’s clarity. Nobody is saying this is how it should be. Just that it is what it is.
And that Gonzalez has two Zs.
There are only a few hours left to change your voter’s registration, if you are an NPA like me and want to vote in the primary. You have to do it before midnight at this website here.
But this message is also or more for those of you already registered as a Democrat: Think about the impact of your August vote in November and don’t throw it away. Think about who would be the best match against the eventual GOP nominee before you cast your ballot. Think about who will best be able to represent the majority of the district, and speak to her constituency in their language.
Then vote for Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.

Read Full Story

Want to meet a candidate for office this year? You will have plenty of opportunities in the coming weeks before the Aug. 28 primary and practically simultaneous to the absentee ballots are about to rain on Miami-Dade voters. Get your calendars and your pencils out.
There are breakfasts with congressional hopefuls and meet and greets with incumbent state reps, potlucks with Democrat activists, town halls and candidate forums from Miami Gardens to Kendall.
But there may not be a single better opportunity to catch as many Democrats as possible in one  place than Tuesday’s “Political Palooza II” in Coral Gables, organized by RiseUp Florida. Confirmations are already in from:

State Rep. Robert Asencio, District 118 incumbent
Candidate Javier Estevez, State House, District 105
State Rep. Javier Fernandez, District 114 incumbent
Candidate Demetrius Grimes, Congressional District 26
Candidate Matt Haggman, Congressional District 27
Candidate Michael Hepburn, Congressional District 27
Candidate Dotie Joseph, State House, District 108
Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, Florida gubernatorial candidate
Candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Congressional District 26
Candidate Heath Rassner, State House, District 119
Former State Rep. David Richardson, Congressional District 27
Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, Congressional District 27
Candidate James Linwood Schulman, State House, District 115
Donna Shalala, US House of Representatives, District 27, candidate
Candidate Jeffrey “Doc” Solomon, State House, District 115
State Sen. Annette Taddeo, District 40 incumbent
Candidate Maryin Vargas, County Commission, District 6

Wait. Where’s Mary Barzee Flores? Or any of the three Dems running in Miami Beach’s open House seat? The Facebook invite says there are “more to confirm.”
And there will be representatives from the campaigns of the other four Democrat gubernatorial candidates — who seem to have given up Miami-Dade to Levine — and Sen. Bill Nelson‘s camp as well.
The palooza event begins at at 7 p.m. at Coral Gables Congregational Church, 3010 DeSoto Boulevard, Coral Gables. Questions will be solicited from the audience and simultaneous Spanish interpretation will be provided.
Read related: Promised ‘blue wave’ ends up being a little splash in state House races
 
There’s a candidate forum on Thursday that is a lunch meeting of the Palmetto Bay Business Association. Even judicial candidates have been invited, but the Facebook event page doesn’t say who has confirmed.
Then, on Friday, there will be another group sighting of candidates in the north part of the county. Barzee Flores and the three Dems from Miami Beach — former Commissioners Michael Grieco and Deede Weithorn and newcomer nobody Kubs Lalchandani — have confirmed for that one. Hosted by The Democratic Women’s Club of Greater Miami-Dade and FL Democrats for 2018, the event is free with snacks and a cash bar (but a $10 donation will be appreciated). There will also be repeat appearances by Grimes and Mucarsel-Powell for the FL26 seat, Richardson and Shalala for FL27 and Schulman, Asencio and Rassner for House Districts 115, 118 and 119 respectively.
Other confirmed attendees so far include perennial Florida House candidates Ross Hancock, in District 115 this time, and Cindy Polo in District 103 and state Senate candidates Julian Santos and David Perez, who want to fight State Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. for the open seat in District 36, and Jason Pizzo in District 38.
This event is the only local meet and greet with cabinet candidates — Nikki Fried for Commissioner of Agriculture and Jeremy Ring for CFO — and it begins at 5 p.m. (ends at 8:30) at the Country Club of Miami Golf Course, 6801 NW 186th St.
Then on Monday, Aug. 6, there will be a judicial forum for candidates to the bench — and there are plenty — hosted by the Gwen Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, the ACLU and the League of Women Voters. It begins at 6 p.m. at New Birth Baptist Church, 2300 NW 135th St.
There’s another judicial forum from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at the law offices of Stearns Weaver Miller, which seems kinda odd. Like the fox inviting the hens to come over for a bite. This is hosted by a bunch of attorneys, actually: the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Caribbean Bar Association, the Haitian Lawyers Association, the Miami-Dade Chapter of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers, the South Asian Bar Association, and the Wilkie D Ferguson Bar Association. Admission is free (even for non lawyers) and light appetizers will be served at 150 West Flagler, Suite 2200. Haven’t you always wanted to see inside? Now’s your chance.

Read Full Story