Now, this is a victory.
Sen. Annette Taddeo showed on Tuesday that she is truly a viable candidate who can win more than just special elections against racist apologists when she solidly defeated a challenge by Republican superwoman Marili Cancio, who was handpicked by the GOP for this specific race and moved from Key Biscayne to a condo in the Dadeland area.
Taddeo won 53 to 47 percent, a six point lead that Ladra is certain would have been double digits if voters had known her campaign was run by the racist himself, former Sen. Frank Artiles, who called some fellow legislators niggers in a loud rant at a bar.  Still, it is double what she won her seat with last year and that will resonate going into 2020. Yeah, okay, Ladra will concede while the campaign definitely benefited from Cancio’s Trump ties during a blue wave year, Taddeo’s final numbers were also boosted by the Andrew Gillum excitement in his native Richmond Heights and the NPA trend to go blue this year because of Trump and Parkland.
But, let me remind you, it’s a midterm election after all!
On Monday, Taddeo was the unelectable perennial candidate who finally got lucky one time running against former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, who did not do enough to distance himself from Artiles and lost despite outspending Taddeo 3 to 1. On Wednesday, Taddeo was an entrenched incumbent until she is termed out.
Because who are they going to throw at her now?
Read related: Jose Felix Diaz outspends Annette Taddeo 3 to 1 plus — but loses anyway
It can’t be Cancio, who should have stayed in Key Biscayne and run for Congress with better chance against Donna Shalala. After all, she did get 47% showing in the Senate district she just moved to in a campaign she started less than six months ago. Nothing to sneeze at.
But if she runs again, Cancio should run in her district — she has to move out of her Dadeland condo anyway; no room for the dogs — where nobody can call her a carpetbagger GOP invader. And she should not scrub her Twitter of her Trump love and extreme right conservative views. That is who she is. She needs to own it.
She also needs to stay away from the lies. The commercials and mailers calling Taddeo an NRA flunkie did not pass muster. Democrats in District 40 are not stupid, Marili. They are not going to buy the argument that she sided with the NRA by voting against the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Student Safety Bill. And that backfired because we felt like you thought we were stupid.
“You can say a lot of things about me but to say I’m with the NRA is really a stretch,” the senator said Wednesday.
Read related: GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’
Taddeo joined most Democrats when she voted against the legislation only because of the poison pill — put in there by Republican State Rep. Jose Oliva — that puts guns on school campuses. Only 10 joined the Republicans who wrote and ushered the legislation in.
Does Taddeo feel like she still has a target on her back? Like Artiles is gonna run someone else against her two years from now. Bring it on, she said.
“I’ve never been one to start worrying very early,” Taddeo said. “I’m just going to continue doing my job. I think I’ve shown people that I’m a true public servant. I’ve gained fans.”
Cancio would not say no Wednesday to another race. But she also won’t say yes right now. Her life is full enough with her law firm, her volunteer work, her house on the West coast she hasn’t visited in a while, her son’s wedding in January and her grandchild, who is due in three to four weeks. “I feel so blessed,” she said.
Maybe she’ll also get back on the guest panel in Channel 10’s This Week In South Florida, where she used to be the regular GOP mouthpiece before she announced her run. We know she misses that.
Cancio thanked everyone who helped her in a class act statement posted on Facebook Wednesday but which, she said, was written three weeks earlier.
“It really doesn’t matter what the end result is tonight because as some say it is the journey and not the destination. I am a better person after meeting and talking to so many people in our community. I love our community and this race has been the honor of a lifetime.”
Ladra hopes it was also a lesson: Don’t lie. Be yourself. And try again.

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If you live in Senate District 40, where incumbent Sen. Annette Taddeo is facing a challenge from Republican superwoman Marili Cancio, then you also probably live in either House District 115 or House District 118.
This Wednesday, you have a chance to see the candidates in both your senate and house race at the first of three candidate forums brought to us by the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations, which has been hosting some well-attended candidate forums since at least 2011.
Beginning at 7 p.m., residents can hear from Democrat Jeffrey Solomon and Republican Vance Aloupis in the 115 race and State Rep. Robert Asencio and his Republican challenger Anthony Rodriguez in 118, as well as Taddeo and Cancio.
Read related: Vance Aloupis fails to mention GOP as required, courting NPAs in general
A week later, they will host Democrat Javier Estevez and Republican Doral Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez, who are running to replace former State Rep. turned Ambassador Carlos Trujillo in District 105, Democrat James Harden and Republican State Rep. Daniel Perez from District 116 and Democrat Heath Rassner, who is running to replace termed-out State Rep. Jeanette Nuñez, who was tapped as LG for Ron Desantis, in District 119.
Juan Fernandez Barquin, the Republican in 119 who beat Analeen “Annie” Martinez, Commissioner Joe Martinez‘s better funded daughter, said he might be out of town, said KFHA President Mike Rosenberg.
KFHA wants to host the congressional candidates from District 26 and 27 on the 25th, but apparently only the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, has confirmed.
Read related: Carlos Curbelo is bad for public education; teachers back Debbie
“We’re still trying to confirm Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Maria Elvira Salazar, but we’re having a difficult time reaching them,” an email blast said.
Rosenberg told Ladra that Donna Shalala, the Dem running against Salazar to replace Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in #CD27, is willing and ready to come out any time, but that he has tried multiple times to reach Salazar to no avail.
“Sometimes I have to be beyond the ‘normal’ persistent in reaching out to candidates,” Rosenberg wrote in an email to Salazar he shared with Ladra. “For some reason there are candidates that don’t want to debate their opponents. I truly don’t understand that, but our forums are not debates, but rather questions. We want to know who you are and what kind of leader you would make. We simply want to ask you questions.
“I will continue to reach out to you as I believe our audience is very engaged and eager to learn.  As President of the Kendall Federation, I must try and make sure all the candidates appear. So, forgive my persistence, but I have always believed, if we can’t get you to meet with our community before an election, we’ll never be able to get you afterwards.”
Rosenberg, who said he hasn’t given up on Mucarsel-Powell either, is right about that.
The KFHA meetings are always in the Kendall Village pavilion at that shopping center, 8625 SW 124th Ave.

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Even though Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo has raised more than twice as much campaign fodder for her re-election as her challenger, Republican superwoman Marili Cancio has more cash in hand, according to the latest campaign reports.
That’s because Taddeo has outspent Cancio, who has only been campaigning since June, by almost ten times.
Cancio has reportedly raised $319,457 between her campaign account and her PAC, Friends of Marili Cancio, according to latest campaign reports filed that tallied through Sept. 14 and Sept. 21, respectively. That’s less than half of the to the $760,408 raised by the sitting senator between her campaign account and her PAC, Fight Back Florida, only counting the funds since she won the seat in a special election in September, 2017.
But Taddeo has spent close to $530,000 since October 2017 and Cancio has only spent about $60K. That means Cancio has a small edge in cash on hand, by the tune of about $20K. Not enough to really make a difference. And she has struggled in the most recent reports, so maybe the donations were early and have been spent.
Read related: GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’
Of course, money is not everything. Taddeo won her seat in last year’s special election against former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, who had more than three times as much campaign funding as she did.
And also, this doesn’t count outside party money. Like the kind that paid for mailers that arrived in the district last week, courtesy the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (pro Cancio) and the Florida Democrats Legislative Campaign Committee (anti Cancio). A source involved in the race told Ladra that Taddeo had sent two positive pieces earlier, but this negative attack on Cancio’s support of the Marshall Program that puts guns in schools is the first received by Ladra.
“She’s worried. My campaign is too clean,” Cancio told Ladra in a text message over the weekend.
“You are not going to get mail from me because yo are now a registered D,” she added, with a smiley face emoji. “Focused on NPAs — can’t afford the entire universe.”
It’s true that in her own mail piece, she is appealing to NPAs and trying to come off as moderate. “I am a state senate candidate because I want to bring new ideas and perspectives to the challenges we face in our community, overcoming partisan politics,” the piece from the Senate Campaign Committee says, but in Spanish.
It landed last week in Ladra’s home, but addressed to both of Ladra’s parents, “Hispanics over 60,” an often sought voting bloc. One is Republican but one is registered Democrat, so Cancio’s universe is bigger than she says.
Read related: Jose Felix Diaz outspends Annette Taddeo 3 to 1 plus — but loses anyway
The intro/bio piece, which has waaaaay too much copy on it, has the word “Republican” only in one place — the tiny type disclaimer. It focuses on her community work — stints on the board of Directors at Miami Dade College (it doesn’t say she was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott), the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board, the Miami-Dade County Hispanic Affairs Board, the Florida Association of Universities and as pro bono attorney for La Liga Contra El Cancer.
“She has always put the interests of our community above partisan politics,” it says.
But who is Marili kidding? This is the Republican Superwoman, a nickname Ladra gave her because of her hard work for the party. She was proud of it before she needed NPA voters to help her win this seat. She constantly defended Trump on Twitter, which is the reason why she has deactivated her old account for a new campaign one — to hide all that partisan Trumpism.
But make no mistake about it, Marili Cancio is as puro GOP as they get. Cancio, who was recruited by the Republican Party, has been involved in local GOP causes, the Women’s Federated Republican club and has been a surrogate for national and state candidates on Spanish TV and radio for years, often providing the Republican voice on This Week in South Florida, where she goes out of her way to defend and promote the GOP agenda.
Of course, the people who vote in District 40 may not know that. Because they don’t know Cancio at all and they are getting very toned down version of her. It’s time Taddeo use some of her funds to let people know who Cancio really is.

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Sorry Ladra has had to take a week to recover from the primaries and, yes, I am talking mostly about congressional district 27, where I was part of the campaign. My candidate came in third and, even though she was always the underdog and most expected her to do worse, it still hurts a bit.
But not as much as the dread of November, where I have to choose between Republican Fidel fawner Maria Elvira Salazar and former UM queen bitch Donna Shalala.
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
The rest of the primary was oh so blah — Andrew Gillum‘s upset win being the only real bright light — that there was just no urgency to report or analyze the results or local impact or winners and losers. Even though former Miami Beach mayor Phillip Levine sure lost — even in hometown Miami-Dade — but I’ll get to gloat another day.
To be fair, on election night I was also watching two House races in real time: District 115, where I live and where Republican nominee Vance Aloupis rode his attack ads and establishment money to a short-lived victory — Jeffrey Solomon is poised to take this seat blue in November — and District 103, where Cindy Polo beat the plantidate and is well on her way to becoming a state rep. Former Miami Lakes Councilman Frank “Fat Chance” Mingo just got a new nickname.
Read related: Possible plantidate forces Democrat primary in House 103 for the GOP
True, there was that empty gut feeling after every county commission incumbent — even former Sen. Javier Souto, who is really going to embarrass himself now — won re-election. The problem is that nobody is getting serious about putting up real candidates and then giving them the support they need to win.
Ladra was surprised as anyone that Analeen “Annie” Martinez, the commissioner’s daughter, was unable to win the Republican primary, even though she was better financed than anyone by far — and than Juan Fernandez-Barquin by at least $100,000 not counting any PACs — and, one would think, have the more experienced campaign team. But Martinez came in 23 points behind Fernandez-Barquin, who got 44% of the vote.
There were some happy results, including David Perez for the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Manny Diaz Jr. (more on that later), Jason Pizzo and Dotie Joseph over incumbents Daphne Campbell and Roy Hardemon, respectively, and former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco over the other two duds in that race. Grieco (photographed right) becomes the defacto state rep because that district is just bluer than the sky and will go Dem in Novem. I like Mike. I hope he is basking in this, which is a double whammy for Levine.
Now we move on to the general, which has to live up to all the 2018 election hype all by itself because he primary fizzled. Which races become important to Ladra now?
Read related: Michael Grieco best choice in House 113 race
Well, the governor’s race. I am Team Andrew and want to start looking into that election and those issues. Because almost anyone is better than Ron De Santis anyway. And, while I have to watch FL27 as a reluctant voter, I am more interested now in FL26 as a blogger and political junkie. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has a real chance to take this seat away from incumbent Republican Carlos Curbelo, if she does it right. Part of that will be to expose him for the sniveling, lying opportunist that he is. Call me, Debbie.
We are also looking forward to the contest between Sen. Annette Taddeo and Republican superwoman Marili Cancio. Ladra sure hopes Annette is not taking her for granted. People tend to like Marili. Lots of people. Purple people, too. Even I like Marili.
Read related: GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’
But at the state level, Ladra is, as promised months ago, a single issue voter. Parkland is still fresh in my mind. Maybe it’s because my daughter was at a very similar high school in South Florida that day. Maybe its from the way I saw young people get woke. Maybe it was from watching Republican after Republican deny legitimate and worthy amendments and turn what could have been a national model for gun reform into a way to put guns in schools.
The real test of the impact the school shooting will have on elections is not in the primary, after all. It is in November. And it will be difficult for many of us to support any Republican this year because of their behavior after Parkland.
But it will be fun to watch them try.

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The Republicans know former State Sen. Frank Artiles wouldn’t stand a chance against newly-minted Sen. Annette Taddeo in a rematch so close to his fall from grace: Artiles was forced to resign his seat last year after he was caught in a drunken, racist and sexist tirade against fellow legislators in a Tallahassee watering hole, setting up a special election in District 40.
Democrat Taddeo won the seat in a bitter fight with former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz.
But how would she fare against a Repubican superwoman? We’re about to find out.
In the “year of the woman,” the GOP has apparently settled on Marili Cancio to run against Taddeo and try to take that seat back. Because she wasn’t their first choice.
Several sources have told Ladra that former Miami-Dade Commissioner and State Rep. Juan Zapata and State Rep. Jeanette Nuñez, who terms out this year and has not found a place to land, were both encouraged to run before Cancio. Zapata said he had “been approached through third parties. I was clear from the get-go that I had no interest.”  Nuñez doesn’t want to have to move.
Las malas lenguas also say party honchos tried to convince two of the five Republicans running in the open race in House District 115, vacated by termed-out Michael Bileca, to switch — although not Bileca himself?
Everybody knows that Cancio, who has served on Republican clubs and is often invited to TV programs to present the GOP side of every argument — you know, because they’re always right — makes a great candidate. She’s knowledgeable. She’s smart. She’s pretty. She’s well spoken. She’s practiced. She doesn’t get nervous. She’s got access to people with money.
Okay. So she lost her first attempt at elected office in the 2010 Republican primary for congress against David “Nine Lives” Rivera, getting only 11% and finishing third, under even “Captain” Paul Crespo, who got 24% despite having been arrested for DUI. Not a good first showing.  But she is much more well-known and stronger now.
Some political observers might ask why she’d try again in a bluish district in a blue wave year. Seems like a waste of political capital. Ladra says it’s because Marili likes a challenge. If it were easy, she wouldn’t be into it.
But she also doesn’t buy into all the hype.
“I don’t think that special elections are a true reflection of what’s going to happen in a general election,” Cancio said, referring to a wave of Democrat wins in special elections across the state — including Taddeo’s. “Independents are going to be very important.”
Cancio, the daughter of onetime Miami-Dade Commissioner and concrete giant Jose “Pepe” Cancio, said she was courted to campaign and had already discussed moving to the district to be closer to her son in South Miami and her just pregnant daughter in Pinecrest. She decided to go for it — and will be renting in the Dadeland area while she puts her Key Biscayne house up for sale — because Taddeo has done nothing, she said.
“She didn’t bring back any dollars. She voted against gun control, she voted against the budget, she voted against a raise for teachers,” Cancio said, adding that her contacts would have her hit the ground running from Day 1. “I’m going to bring the money back to Miami-Dade that she’s not able to bring,” she said.
But when she said that Taddeo voted “against gun control,” what she meant was against the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Student Safety Act because of the Marshall Program that puts guns in the hands of school staffers, which caused a quite a few Dems to vote against the bill, which passed 67-50 after a divisive debate with some victims’ family members against it.
“If she wants this to be about arming teachers and the defunding of our public schools, then bring it on,” Taddeo told Ladra Wednesday. “If she had bothered to go to any of the town halls that I went to in the District, she would know that we are severely underfunded and that people don’t want guns in schools.”
As expected, Taddeo voted against the MSD bill, named after the high school in Parkland where 17 lives were taken in a mass school shooting, because it puts guns in schools and because “all it does is provide an unfunded mandate,” Taddeo said, referring to the $400 million the state said should go to school hardening. “And after we worked so hard to take out the arming of teachers, they left in the arming of other people — the lunch lady, the librarian, the janitor — and I’m not okay with that.”
She said she spent much of the first session building relationships. She studied all the Republican bills and tried to find one bill from each GOP senator that she could co-sponsor. “So I could meet them and talk to them about the bill I liked,” she said. “We have to find what we have in common.” She said Republican lawmakers expected a party first liberal and she surprised them by being a small business owner.
“I actually do make payroll every two weeks,” said Taddeo, who owns a firm that does language translating. “They didn’t know this.”
She ended up co-sponsoring five bills with Republicans.
But her claim to fame is a flood insurance (SB 1282) bill that she sponsored and really carried through session. It passed unanimously and basically forces homeowners to sign the part of their insurance policy that would show they know they don’t have flood insurance if they don’t specifically get flood insurance. It is intended to encourage more people to get flood insurance coverage.
“I worked with the insurance industry to make sure we didn’t overburden them,” she said.
Now, Ladra would hate to think that Cancio is the type of candidate that would stretch the truth to get elected.
But Taddeo also did happened to bring some dollars back home, including funding for the Miami Military Museum, a project originally sponsored by none other than Artiles. Sen. Taddeo will be at the upcoming ribbon cutting. Other appropriations bills she sponsored or co-sponsored include:

$250k for a Children of Inmates project “Babies and Brains,” which is targeted towards early childhood education of children with incarcerated parents (an extremely high-risk group of children
$25 Million for post-hurricane beach recovery
$80 Million for Miami-Dade adults with disabilities
$750k for the Miami-Dade Institute for Child and Family Health
$250K for the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust
$69k for the West Miami Community Center
$1 Million for Zoo Miami
$400k to fund the Miami Fire and Rescue Department Mobile Command Center
$1 Million for the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center to research cures for firefighters with cancer
Nearly $100 Million to FIU and MDC in education appropriations

“I actually had an extremely successful first session not only in money to be distributed, but even projects that had never been funded before,” Taddeo said.
Marili should have at least known about the money for Miami Dade College, where she has served on the board of trustees for seven years. The biggest “sacrifice” running for office is to give up that seat, she said. But she also believes that experience is going to help her get elected. “I know what we need here, the infrastructure we need,” Cancio said.
A known Trump supporter who often defends his policy decisions on TV and radio, Cancio said she didn’t think that would hurt her in this election. “The economy is doing better. Businesses are doing better,” she said. “I’m running for state, not federal, and I’m going to make that about local issues, transit issues.”
Well, one thing is certain: The debates are going to be interesting.

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