Not many people were surprised by the Miami-Dade County Commission’s decision Wednesday to ignore the petition of 127,000 voters who clamor for campaign finance reform in our pay-to-play county government.

And it’s not like they didn’t have good reason.

Even the petition gatherers — a group calling itself An Accountable Miami-Dade — had already filed a lawsuit in the court. Even before Wednesday’s meeting, the county attorney had already said last month that the language for the ballot question that the petition was based on was legally insufficient — a term used to discredit the work done by dozens or perhaps hundreds of volunteers.

The group itself was also discredited. Exposed as part of a national phenomenon with labor and Democratic Party interests at the wheel rather than the grassroots effort it claims to be, Accountable took a beating on the dais Wednesday. Perhaps they deserve it a bit. The connect the dots to special interests is undeniable and they did try to pass themselves off as just one of us.

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“I love to have people get involved and engaged and the fact that they signed these petitions is a good sign. But I have to question the motivation,” said Commission Juan Zapata, who wasn’t keen on having “outside interference” drive the effort.

Commissioners had legitimate questions about how the petition may have targeted black voters in certain neighborhoods or intentionally had it set up to go to commission during their break for a distracted, smaller group.

But others had questions about the county’s own process. The Accountable group got approval from the county clerk for the language of the petition and had no reason to think it was legally insufficient, some commissioners said.

“These people went out and collected signatures based on what they believed was sufficient. And we let it happen,” said Commissioner Barbara Jordan.

If passed, the measure would have cut maximum contributions from $1,000 to $500 and would have prohibited gifts from anyone doing business with the county. There was also some language about matching public funds for some candidates.

Ladra could never really get behind the petition itself. The language seemed insufficient for other reasons, not legal. Of course, once the signatures were gathered, they had to be counted and verified. But we told Juan Cuba months ago that this measure, if passed, would only make PACs and non-profits stronger and more prevalent. If people can’t collect contributions one way, they will find another. And who has the most access to PACs and non-profits? The professional politicians. The insiders and incumbents. Not the newcomers. On the public money front, Ladra thinks that there are a whole lot of other things that need to be addressed with our tax dollars and that candidates, by the very nature of being candidates, ought to be able to stand on their own merits. Money doesn’t always buy elections. Look at Miami City Commission Ken Russell.

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Of course it helps. But getting contributions is also a sign of viability. If you can’t get anybody to support you by putting their money where their mouth is, then why are you even running? Wouldn’t this, as one commissioner suggested Wednesday, encourage every nut, loony-tunes and wacko to run for office?

Unfortunately, the merits of the petition are not what we are talking about now. The commission squashed that when it squashed the referendum in a 9-4 vote.  But it should still be part of the conversation.

The commission can, all by itself, move an ordinance forward that would accomplish the same thing — more or less — on the campaign finance reform. At least the thing that we really want — which is to limit contributions from those who do business with the county. Something logical. Something sensical. And stand alone. Let’s not tie public financing to it.

Yes, hundreds of people worked really hard to make the petitions happen. But if the county wants to squirm out of it in some legal way, trust me, they will.

They don’t pay their legal staff millions of dollars for nothing.

What An Accountable Miami-Dade should do now is apply pressure directly to the source — until the commission puts forth something on its own.

And there is, indeed, hope that they will. Even though not immediately. After all, many of them are termed out four years from now. The rest are termed out the election cycle after that.

What do they have to lose?

While everybody was concentrated on the primary last week, several Republicans without August challengers were eager to get to November, with mailers and TV ads already — since even before qualification and the Fourth of July.

That would be State Rep. Frank Artiles, who is running for Senate in District 40 against incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard, who won Tuesday. Artiles, whose also had people knocking on doors, sent a Happy Fourth of July piece with a framed picture of his family. In others, he touts himself as an education champion. He even sent a 2016-2017 public school calendar as school started. Smart.

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And Artiles is targeting independent voters, which is also smart. He’s got the Republicans sewn up already. And maybe he can win some Democrats over with his campaign against the MDX tolls. The most recent mailer Ladra saw touted Artiles’ fight against these tolls.

Incumbent Sens. Anitere Flores and Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, as well as State Rep. Michael Bileca, have also been working it alongside the August wannabes.

Flores has traveled to the Keys, which are also in her district, for months and she has been airing a TV commercial for a couple of weeks that features her husband, Dustin, and their two boys, who she is raising in the same neighborhood where she grew up.

The Flagship DLP started airing a TV ad this week, paid for by the United Teachers of Dade, featuring real teachers thanking him for listening to them and voting to increase their funding. He also sent a couple of mailers way before the primary. One of them had voter petitions enclosed, so it was even before qualification. The most recent used the Zika scare to offer voters a list of tips voters can keep on the fridge.

Read related story: Miguel DLP vs J-Rod make it a hard choice in Senate 37

Bileca’s most recent “fighting for taxpayers” mailer touts the old Miami Dolphins stadium financing he helped kill in 2013. What? He’s got nothing fresher from the last three years? He, too, is very smartly targeting independent voters. 

But his first piece — “Working Hard. Delivering Results.” — was sent in both English and Spanish and was a four-panel bi-fold. The latest piece is a 8X11 flat card.

Up to the north, State Sen. Rene Garcia and State Reps. Manny Diaz, Jr., Jose Oliva and Bryan Avila have been hitting the streets since at least mid August, when they opened their collective headquarters in Hialeah.

Maybe these early birds know that the weeks ahead are going to give our mailboxes a bellyache, so they snuck in before prime time.

Let’s see if voters remember come November.

There have been a few protests of Donald Trump‘s immigration positions and proposals at the Doral Resort and Spa he owns. Now, it’s his side’s turn to picket.

Latinas Por Trump — “a 100% volunteer coalition of Latina influencers that networks and stays true to the promises created by the Trump campaign and the needs of Hispanics” — is calling on local supporters of the Republican presidential candidate to bring their “homemade signs” and join a protest of the Univision television station, also in Doral.

“Our mission is to inform and educate the public with the truth from now until the elections in November,” said a statement. “We plan to reinforce the values, needs and importance of Latinos/Hispanics in MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Yes, the statement yelled with all caps. They really take that “staying true” to the Trump campaign seriously. Either that or they did it because they sent the press release on #ALLCAPSTHURSDAY.

Read related story: Local Latinas come out for Trump with Brickell event

“This is a peaceful protest to call attention to the liberal media bias especially with regards to the Spanish networks like Univision. #LatinasPorTrump is tired of responding to the lies perpetuated by the liberal media and people like #MrJorgeRamos.”

Univision star anchor Jorge Ramos, if you remember, is the national Spanish-language journalist who first challenged Trump and got into a little tussle with him last year after Trump cut him off mid-sentence in a press conference. Seemed The Donald didn’t like the question about, you guessed it, his immigration proposals. And he had Ramos thrown out of the press conference. Reminds me of someone in Hialeah.

Ramos has not let up the heat, however, staying critical of Trump. Most recently, he got into a tweet rant ripping Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday after the president met with Trump. Clearly upset that Trump has not apologized for his comments Mexicans being all criminals — and, specifically, rapists — Ramos called Peña Nieto’s attitude a “weak and shy response.”

“What a poor, lukewarm and fearful answer from @epn when facing Trump. Where is the indignation with Trump’s insults,” said one tweet.

That’s the kind of thing that rubs the Latinas the wrong way.

“We are hosting this protest and sign-waving event to once again show that the liberal media does not represent the millions of Legal Immigrant Latinos in this country,” read the statement. “The Latino community has been fed lies since Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy last June.

“Latinos are extremely important to this election especially in key swing states like Florida and we plan to make sure they come out in support of Donald J Trump for President. This event will emphasize the fact that #JorgeRamos and #Univision do not represent all Latinos,” it said.

Well, neither do Latinas for Trump. Let’s agree on that.

The protest will not be in front of the Univision studios on Northwest 41st Street but at Doral Central Park, 3000 NW 87th Ave., several blocks away. There’s plenty of parking, sure. But do Latinas hope Univision execs drive by on their way home from work?

Interestingly enough, it is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. — during the news show.

Gas to drive around to the bigger West Dade and Kendall precincts on Election Day Tuesday: $22.

Bottles of water to stay hydrated: $10.

Lunch at Subway: $8.

The look on Barby Rodriguez-Gimenez‘s face when she realized her father-in-law, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, had not won the Miami-Dade mayoral race Tuesday and would be forced into a runoff: Priceless.

It’s almost like she’s saying: “F—! I may have to look for a real f—— job!”

Because Rodriguez-Gimenez has a mouth on her and a juicy no-show job at the county. She does “public outreach” for the water and sewer department as part of the same $139-million contract with CH2M Hill that pays the mayor’s BFF and campaign finance chair, Ralph Garcia Toledo, $200 an hour for clerical work. She got the job with subcontractor EV Services around the same time the company got the contract. You know, like it was criteria or something.

So… if Garcia Toledo’s total payout could equal $18 million over 12 years, what is the total payout for the mayor’s daughter-in-law?

Sources have told Ladra that this family botella is being investigated by the authorities. So is Garcia Toledo’s fraudulent use of what are called multipliers to pad invoices when he has no office (it’s a P.O. Box) or staff. We don’t know if that means the State Attorney’s Office or the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. But it makes sense that it would be looked into. At least if the authorities are doing their job.

Because this rampant cronyism is one of the reasons why a majority voters rejected Carlos Gimenez Tuesday. And the more they learn about him and his friends and family plan — the more relatives and buddies we find feeding on the public trough — the more likely Gimenez will be rejected again in November.

So, yes, Barby, you might want to polish off that resumé and make some calls.

You would think, from hearing Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez tell it, that he won the election Tuesday night. You would think wrong.

Gimenez, who may very well be the first incumbent mayor ever to be forced into a runoff in Miami-Dade, can claim victory all he wants. It rings hollow. He may have come in first with the most votes and almost 48 percent, but he really lost Tuesday.

I mean, does it look like he’s celebrating a victory here? A picture says a thousand words. Compare his face to his challenger Raquel Regalado‘s in these side-by-side Miami Herald photos of post-result candidates giving speeches. Is he holding back tears?

Gimenez tweeted that he had won every key demographic group. But he didn’t win the one key demographic that mattered most: A majority.

He told reporters in a mostly empty “victory party” room at the Miami Airport Doubltree Hotel that he was “well-poised to take this to victory in November.” Well, he thought he was “well-poised” to take this to victory yesterday — and look how that worked out.

Everybody knows Gimenez totally expected to win outright in the first round on Tuesday. He bragged about it to reporters. He dismissed Regalado as nothing more than a nuisance. Operatives were telling people that his early voting exit polls were at 53 or 54 percent.

But Gimenez and his team sure weren’t acting like they were leading. They blew his cash wad with giant mailers, constant radio ads and TV commercials. They went hyper negative with a mailer that morphed Trump’s face with Regalado’s (it totally backfired, by the way) and an uber repetitive robocall his campaign made disguised as Regalado’s campaign to piss people off, a dastardly deed and possibly illegal move (more on that later). In fact, they threw everything they had — actually everything they invented — against Regalado, who suddenly goes from underfunded underdog to front runner.

Yes, I said front runner. Everything changes now. Because, despite all the mayor’s talk, the demographics in a November race favor the challenger. She has the teachers, the cops, the nurses and doctors and the majority of the public employees. She has the librarians and the Pets’ Trust community. Because of her advocacy for immigrant children, she has the Dreamers and those who love and support them. In other words, she appeals to voters across party lines.

In November, there will be far more voters driven to the polls by the presidential election. There are a projected 600,000 voters or more who have never voted for Miami-Dade mayor — or for Carlos Gimenez. There’s no loyalty or history there for them. And many of them in this predominantly Democrat county will be excited about the possibility of the first female U.S. president topping the ballot. Regalado, who would become the first female mayor of Miami-Dade, is definitely going to get some of that #ImWithHer action.

So what on Earth does Gimenez see as his clear path to victory?

Maybe Gimenez suddenly announces today or next week that he endorses Hillary Clinton. The Democrats around him might even stage a big photo op or something.

He could even change his party registration to Democrat or Independent. He already toyed with the idea in 2014 — or just said he was considering it because he knew it would get him lots of free press.

Either of those strategies would be a way to appeal to Democrat voters in a nonpartisan race that now features two lifelong Republicans. In fact, he may not have to switch to pander for those blue votes. Just suggesting it is enough to put this into the news cycle for a week! People will assume he switched.

Certainly the Democrats surrounding him are mulling these ideas over. His county communications director, Mike Hernandez, who really wants to work for Hillary instead, is the one who came up with that whole party switch PR stunt in 2014. The mayor’s consultant, Freddy Balsera, might work for Donald Trump and his Doral resort, but he has advocated and campaigned for Clinton, most recently in Puerto Rico. And his golden goose fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, is a former Democrat Party operative who worked for the gubernatorial run by Alex Sink and who would love nothing more than to be a blue blood again.

So it’s really not that far-fetched to think that Gimenez would switch to gain an advantage in an election. Not in Florida, where we have party switchers like former Gov. Charlie Crist and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan.

Although it really hasn’t worked that well for them.

Because voters are smarter than he thinks.

That’s why Ladra bets Gimenez will have that same constipated look on his face in November.