Discourse.net

Kos Cheerful in FL-25

Kos looks at the early votes in FL-25 and finds reasons for optimism.

I think it will be a nail-biter.

Update: Looks even better in FL-21

Local Congressional Race Update

Lots going on on the local political scene.

FL-18

• Ileana Rushes Recycled Ad Into Rotation … which may be connected to …

• Miami Herald, Naked Politics, Ros-Lehtinen’s haircut makes the cut

• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen defended her support for privatizing Social Security at a recent candidate’s forum. (See Rivals spar at only meeting.) Imagine if your social security — or even only half of it as Ros-Lehtinen has proposed — were in today’s stock market.

• Annette Taddeo points out that Ros-Lehtinen Took $939,044 in campaign contributions from financial, real estate, and other special interests.

• Ros Lehtinen won’t debate Annette Taddeo — their only joint appearance was that candidates’ forum — where they told her all the questions in advance.

• Good Taddeo spot:

• The latest poll shows Taddeo improving, but with a long way to go. The Telemundo 51 poll shows Taddeo behind 48-35, 13 points down, with 17 percent of the voters undecided. In June, a Bendixen poll had Ros-Lehtinen leading by 27 points. Taddeo is leading among independent voters 39% to 36%, with 25% still undecided.

• Usually, I’d say a gap like that was too much, five weeks before the election. But given the state of the economy, the fact that IR-L remains under the 50%+ that spells safe incumbent, I think there’s still everything to play for. And that social security comment ought to bother people here. (Who in their right mind wants social security in this stock market?)

• And here’s an old video — from March. Even then, Taddeo was pretty good. And she’s better now.
  

FL - 25

• Joe Garcia creates a web site to celebrate GW Bush’s stealth visit to the area. The website is called Bush-Balart

• Polls are looking better and better for Joe Garcia.

FL - 21

• Dems attack Diaz-Balart, look to tie him to indicted PR pol (it’s Raul’s Diaz-Balart, not Joe’s). Cf. LINCON DIAZ BALART ACUSADO POR SENADOR EN PUERTO RICO DE RECIVIR MALETIN CON DINERO

• I hear Raul Martinez’s polls look even better than Joe Garcia’s…

Taddeo, Garcia, Martinez Wow the Grey Panthers

Strong account of what must have been a great event by John Hood in the insurgent SunPost, Congressional Candidates Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo Blast It for the Gray Panthers:

… Annette Taddeo, Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, who are vying to represent what’s surely the majority of our peninsula’s tip: Taddeo and District 18, which stretches from Miami-Dade’s southern suburbs all the way to the Keys; Martinez and District 21, which includes his beloved Hialeah; and Garcia and District 25, which comprises much of Miami-Dade, as well as the entire Everglades.

If they were a band, this three-piece would sell out arenas, so it’s no surprise that on this day the turnout was just about standing room only. Each candidate is running on issues very near and dear to the Gray Panthers’ hearts, as well as their wallets — health care, prescription drug costs, housing — and each came out blasting the incumbents for a reckless disregard of the people and their needs.

Naturally, their opponents weren’t on hand to answer back, despite being repeatedly offered a chance to do so. According to Gray Panthers Miami-Dade Chapter board member and event organizer Jack Topel, today’s proceedings were “originally slated to be a debate, but there were scheduling conflicts, so we decided on forums. The Republicans — for whom we’ve set aside Oct. 18th — still haven’t replied.”

Too bad too, ’cause if they had, they would’ve met a gaggle of good folk consistently committed to cause. Then again, neither Ileana Ros-Lehtinen nor the Diaz-Balart brothers, Lincoln and Mario, has thus far accepted an invitation to debate anyone, unless you count Lincoln’s acceptance of an invitation from CBS, which was never even extended in the first place.

No matter, the Democrats showed and they showed strong. Joltin’ Joe Garcia, the natural who, given a podium, could command a crowd for days, opened the proceedings with a vow to take that which Mario had gerrymandered into being, and turn it into something representing a district, rather than a fiefdom. Taddeo, as determined as she is poised and informed, followed up by lambasting Ros-Lehtinen for, among other things, rubber-stamping Bush’s efforts to end the S-CHIP program. And then Martinez, who in person seems like the kinda man you’d want to take in a ball game with, concluded by warning everyone to be on the lookout for an element of fear to be injected into the coming election, adding a crack about the newfound respect hoisted upon former mayors since a certain someone was given the VP nod, even though he has represented condos with a larger population than the entire city of Wasilla.

Mario Diaz-Balart is Vulnerable

The latest poll in Florida’s 25th Congressional District, conducted by nonpartisan Research 2000, shows Joe Garcia within 4 points of Republican opponent Mario Diaz-Balart. According to the poll, if the election were held today, Garcia would receive 41 percent of the vote, and Diaz-Balart would get 45 percent. Thirteen percent of voters remain undecided. More people have a favorable opinion of Joe Garcia, than they do of Mario Diaz Balart. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Being that far under 50% has to be really bad news for a long-time incumbent. This seat is definitely winnable — especially if the Obama turnout in South Florida is as large as recent polls suggest.

Contrasting Ads in FL-25

Contrasting ads in FL-25.

First, Joe Garcia again lampoons incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart:

Next, Mario Diaz-Balart trowels on the innuendo, suggesting that Garcia somehow has a connection to … Enron (!):

Both ads strike me as flawed, but in different ways. Garcia’s ad has a very weak and silly start. Its point risks getting lost on the split screen. And it’s high risk: ridicule can backfire…. Although it’s interesting that the politically engaged Cuban-American I sat next to on the plane the other day who said he thought Joe’s ads were too much had a few minutes earlier (unconsciously) adopted the very phrase in Joe’s first and most effective effort, “one-trick pony”.

The production values on the Diaz-Ballart ad are better, as you’d expect given his is designed for TV while the Garcia ad is a web-only quickie. But it seems to me that the ad has two more serious problems. First, the claim it makes is pretty silly, and can only work with voters who know nothing about the candidate. It’s too late for that group to be sizeable, although maybe it includes a good chunk of the undecided. Second, when the ad says “get rid of Enron Joe” it makes it sound like he’s the incumbent. Maybe that’s supposed to be a subtle hope that voters will think he is and vote to throw the rascal out — but to anyone who knows the score, and most voters do, this will look weak.

And, indeed, Channel 10 totally debunked Mario Diaz-Balart’s ad:

As Garcia himself said in a recent email blast:

While serving on the Public Service Commission I helped usher-in the biggest utility rate cut in Florida history, which saved Floridians $1 Billion and forced FP&L to share excessive profits with consumers.

Diaz-Balart is scared of my record of fighting for consumers so he is trying to lie his way to re-election. …

One can see why Mario is run away from his record.  If I had been in Congress for six years and only passed one bill, while giving myself five pay raises, and voting against healthcare for children, services for our returning veterans and giving oil companies billions in tax breaks, I would be doing the same.

Joe Garcia at the DNC

Joe Garcia got a rousing welcome at the Democratic National Convention (see the video), which briefly overwhelmed the moderator. (The National Journal said, “Joe Garcia may have stolen the show as he earned a wild and prolonged applause from the Florida delegation.”)

This takes a little of the sting out of the starring roles given to Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kendrick Meek, both of whom have been pretty awful in their lack of support for South Florida’s Democratic candidates.

Dems Surging in South Florida

Surge down here usually means “storm surge” not Iraq. But from now on it should also mean ‘rapid growth in number of registered Democrats.’

Read all about it at Daily Kos: Miami-Dade’s Democratic resurgence. I knew things were good, but I didn’t think it was as good as this. Great news for Taddeo and Garcia!

So it’s time to give generously to Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia.

Mario Diaz-Balart Is Afraid

Who says Mario Diaz-Balart is dumb? In an (uncharacteristic?) display of savvy, the incumbent GOP congressman in FL-25 is busy trying to avoid appearing on the same stage as Joe Garcia, his charismatic and articulate (in both English and Spanish) challenger.

Incumbents frequently don’t want to do events with challengers, on the perfectly sensible (if selfish) theory that incumbency is an advantage, and sharing a stage just elevates the opponent. And, if the challenger’s name recognition is low, a debate raises it more than do single-person events, so why go there.

The trouble is, of course, that the public likes debates, and often learns from them. So even the most cynical incumbent usually agrees to a few of them.

In the case of Mario Diaz-Balart, however, there’s a lot of betting that he’d get his clock cleaned in a debate. So on the one hand, he comes in with low expectations, which can help him, but on the other hand to the extent that those low expectations are justified … well, it could be bad.

So it’s not a surprise to read that not only has Mario Diaz-Balart refused Joe Garcia’s invitation to do a series of non-confrontational joint events (where he’d risk looking bad even by comparison), but that now “Diaz-Balart is attempting to squirm out of his promise to attend a debate organized by Spanish network Univision on Wednesday, September 17, 2008.”

Better to have voters suspect you’d lose than to actually lose. Which if you think about it, is either not stupid…or very stupid if macho Miami voters decide you’re … afraid.

Local Political News Catchup

While I was away, Annette Taddeo endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. (Joe Garcia had endorsed it previously.) It’s not a perfect plan, but nothing to do with Iraq is perfect, and this is the basis for as good a solution as we’re likely to get.

Also while I was away, Joe Garcia’s campaign started a blog they’re calling A Cup of Joe. There’s an Atom RSS feed. Looks good.

Obama to Ramp Up Staff in Flordia

Sam Stein, in the Huffington Post, Obama ‘Months Ahead’ Of Gore/Kerry In Organizing Florida:

The new locations will include Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Sarasota, and the ever-important (think, 2000) Miami-Dade. Next week the campaign will be adding centers in Ft. Myers, Tallahassee, Orlando, Miami-Dade (2nd), Homestead, Naples, Hollywood and Tampa (where they already have an office) to the list. The Illinois Democrat is currently operating out of Tampa, Gainesville and Ft. Lauderdale.

The offices, according to Bubriski, will be staffed, and do not include the varous volunteer offices that Obama will have at his disposal. None of the locations are existing Democratic party headquarters

The implications of this extend well beyond the Presidential campaign. Obama will stress turnout. Turnout will help the whole ticket — especially the Congressional candidates.

Joe Garcia May Be Cool, But He Can Also Be Tough

If you understand Spanish, you will probably enjoy these video clips unearthed by a writer at Daily Kos in which Democratic Congressional Candidate Joe Garcia (FL-25) faces off with Frank Calzon of the Center for Free Cuba on the issue of what his Center is doing with taxpayer money. Eventually Mr. Calzon storms off the set…except he can’t bear to stop shouting…

Incidentally, Congress subsequently began asking the same question about where the money went. It smells a rat.

(Politics in South Florida is heavily bilingual.)

National Dems to Buy $1.4 Million of Local Congressional Ads

According to a Washington Post blog, The Fix, House Democratic Campaign Arm Broadens TV Buy, the DCC is buying $1.4 million in local ads to boost the chances of Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez, and Annette Taddeo.

This is what comes of overturning the GOP’s traditional edge in fundraising. And AFAIK these are genuinely uncoordinated expenditures (as the law requires) because (at least in my presence) le tout of Democratic political South Florida has been on tenterhooks wondering if, when, if, the DCCC would make a local move.

Joe Garcia Is Cool

Joe Garcia has been hanging out at Netroots Nation and talking to bloggers.

He’s also being interviewed by bloggers and traditional media. Here he is being interviewed by MTV:

I wish I could say this shows he has the media at his feet, but it’s not quite as good as that.

Off to Netroots Nation

Once upon a time, I used to do a lot of local politics. I worked as a young intern in the McGovern campaign (not the world’s most organized organization). In high school, I volunteered for the late, great Mo Udall, the best President we never had. In college I was one member of a small committee that set up a state office for the primaries for an underfunded Presidential candidate in Connecticut — without his approval (they eventually sent an actual staffer to take over). Just after I graduated from college, I was the press secretary for the Ira Lechner for Congress (VA-10) campaign (we got clobbered by Frank Wolf in the Reagan landslide). Later, while a first-year law student busy not crossing picket lines at Yale, I ran phone banks for Bruce Morrison for Congress (CT-3); he got re-elected, making it one of my few winning campaigns.

Then I lived abroad for long enough to lose many of my local political ties; when I came back to the US it was to a new and strange place, South Florida, where serious politics seemed to happen in Spanish. And I had other things to worry about: hurricanes, children, tenure, life. So I didn’t do much beyond the armchair.

George Bush has (re?)radicalized me. And once again, I’m doing a little activism. This time, I’m helping out one of our wonderful local Congressional candidates, Joe Garcia (FL-25). (Our other great local candidate is Annette Taddeo (FL-18), but we’ve got that covered too, in a different way: my older son, age 14, has been interning at the Taddeo campaign office, and he’s coming too to help Annette and her staff.)

When I called Joe to volunteer, he first asked me to look over his web presence and see if anything needed improving. That wasn’t hard, it was pretty good already. Then, when Joe came over to breakfast to get my report, I asked him what else I could do for him.

I figured he’d ask for money, and was even braced to do a fundraiser, although it’s really really not my style. But he surprised me: Joe asked me to go with him to Netroots Nations and introduce him around to the other bloggers. I tried to convince him that I don’t actually know most of them, except by email, but he seemed to think that would do.

So Thursday, I’m going to Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos), to act as a sort of advance man for Joe Garcia. Perhaps I’ll see you there? If so, there’s this great candidate you might like to meet…

(Poster from Miami & Beyond.)

If you won’t be in Austin for the conference, you can follow along online in Second Life. See NNinSL.org for details. All the main events will be streamed and they also promise inworld parties and special events. And, unlike the meatspace version, this one is free.

Joe Garcia Trounces Incumbent in Q2 Fundraising

Joe Garcia’s campaign just sent out an email about their fundraising — and they have something to brag about.

We beat Mario Diaz-Balart, a three-term Republican career politician, this quarter by over $100,000.

The totals: Joe Garcia - $513,000

Mario Diaz-Balart - $392,000

Here’s the best part: we beat our opponent’s individual contributions by over $300,000.

Want to help? They’re asking you to volunteer.

I’m helping out — details about that tomorrowThursday.

Miami Wakes Up to Political Normality (This is Good for Democrats)

David Rieff has a long piece in tomorrow’s NYT magazine about Cuban-American politics in Miami, provocatively titled, Will Little Havana Go Blue?.

The main conclusions track what those of us who live here see around us: Cuban-American politics are being changed by a generational shift (a rising generation that is American first and treats its hyphen much they way other ethnic groups do), and a political differences between recent immigrants and the revanchists who have been here 40-50 years. The recent escapees are much less willing to support policies that prevent them sending money to relatives left behind, and which limit their ability to visit their families still trapped in Cuba.

The result is a breakage of the monolithic support for the GOP and for its candidates. Particularly hurt are the Diaz-Balart brothers, who suffer from poor constituent services and a failure to bring home the kind of bacon that their storied predecessors — Claude Pepper, Dante Fascell — did.

Although Rieff doesn’t address this directly, it turns out that Joe Garcia’s vicious mockery of the Diaz-Balarts as a “one trick pony” may be right on the mark.

Rieff’s piece contains another bit of wisdom. Miami’s shift to normal politics away from unthinking equation of the GOP as the natural home for Cuban-Americans does not mean automatic victory for Democrats.

The lesson for local campaigners is obvious: Cuban-Americans being up for grabs means that they will need to be addressed in the same way as other swing constituencies: with appeals on the issues they care about (housing, jobs, health, social security, as well as Cuba) and — and this is probably key — turnout will rule. The community is no longer monolithic. Just like with many other communities that means whoever gets out their voters will win.

It’s going to be a turnout election down here.