Hialeah Out of Control. By Geniusofdespair

Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez

Yes, Raul Martinez --- Long time Mayor of Hialeah --- ran against the current mayor, but for Mayor Carlos Hernandez to sponsor a resolution to strip Raul's name from City Hall, that sounds like something a totalitarian regime would do like....You know what country goes here.  From the Miami Herald:

The Hialeah City Council Tuesday night approved a resolution to remove the names of former Mayor Raúl Martinez, his wife Angela and former state Sen. Roberto Casas from three municipal properties.

As the audience applauded, the council unanimously passed the three resolutions, sponsored by current Mayor Carlos Hernandez.

The properties include City Hall, a low-income apartment complex and a small park.

This isn't like the case with Lynda Bell naming a building after her mother -- who did nothing in the community except to spawn Lynda Bell. Raul Martinez has been in public service since 1971. So bad blood between Mayors can obliterate your name from Miami Dade County? Good to know. Let's get rid of the name Stephen P. Clark
 from County Hall while we are in this mindset. You might not like Raul Martinez (he was cleared of any wrong-doing) but he was a force in Hialeah for over 30 years, you just don't 'forgettaboutit'. Last I spoke with him, he was looking into corruption in his city. Hialeah never ceases to amaze me. They do what they did in the old days, in that other place I will not name, and don't see it even though it is clear as a bell.

Raul Martinez is politically finished. By Geniusofdespair

Just like Maurice Ferre, it is time for Raul Martinez to hang out with the grandchildren. Just be sure not to mentor any young politicians Raul - we all know about your last mentee Julio Robaina.

The PAC numbers are out and Raul Martinez's "Fiscal Responsibility Now" had a total of $123,200 in the last reporting for a total of $231,800 collected. That is in addition to what he had in his official campaign report (don't have that) running for Hialeah Mayor. The PAC was run by his former secretary Mabel Mizrahi. The Florida Democratic party gave $5,000 to this PAC. Shame on them for getting involved in a non-partisan race. John and Stephen Brunetti were the big losers, between them they gave $65,000 to the PAC.

With all the money he had, the once invincible Martinez couldn't make a dent in Carlos Hernandez's machine losing by 6,816 votes.

What's New with the Hialeah Runoff Election. By Geniusofdespair

There were debates in Spanish this morning.

There is a rumor that a guy is impersonating a firefighter (they have endorsed Raul Martinez), picking up absentee ballots that were requested by voters through the Raul Martinez campaign.  That was done before -- the impersonating -- this happened when Raul was running against Lincoln Diaz Balart in 2008.  State Attorney Centorino did an investigation of this 2008 race.

Hialeah's runoff election is November 15th and early voting starts on the 10th. This must feel like deja vu for Raul since the same Sasha Tirador is working for the Hernandez campaign. Here is what they were doing in 2008 according to authorities I suspect it is no different today:

Observations from the County Chamber ... by gimleteye

At the Miami Dade county commission meeting yesterday, I was curious what transformation may have occurred as a result of the recall of former Miami Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez and Natacha Seijas, district commissioner from Hialeah. On the table in the special meeting: to set a date for the election to fill empty seats. There was also a question whether an interim mayor would be appointed by the commission. I wondered: had attitudes changed? Was arrogance banished, now that the catalyst-- Seijas-- had been dismissed by 88 percent of voters? Had The New Age of Humility arrived?

The TV news cameras were out in force. Not that they had done much good, exposing the depths where Seijas and her supporters wallowed. On several occasions I had witnessed Seijas commandeer the TV trucks to her purposes. She had less luck with the Herald, despite the fact her supporters complained to the publisher every time a story appeared that contained a whiff of criticism against her core constituency; the builders, developers and rock miners. The Miami Herald printed "by the barrel of ink", she would declaim from the dais while her funders rubbed shoulders with the brass at One Herald Square. It became a popular rallying call of the unreformable majority (and part of the insanity that led Art Teele to blow his brains out in the Herald lobby). According to yesterday's meeting, the refrain hasn't lost its currency. If you read EOM you will know our view: The Miami Herald hasn't done nearly enough to expose the toxic sludge through which Miami Dade politics moves in a torrent. Yesterday, there were again dark utterances from the dais against the media. For doing what? For instigating the public? For using hysteria as a tool to sell advertisements?

The commissioners still find fault everywhere -- too few voters, too few town hall meetings, too few opportunities to meet with each others' constitutents-- everywhere but in their own culpability for the sorry state of the county. Won't the media finally expose how many BILLIONS in infrastructure deficits piled up during the time in which "growth paid its own way"?

A few themes emerged, along the lines of the dark undercurrent of Miami-Dade ethnic politics. During the Charter Review process two years ago (whose recommendations were entirely rejected by the county commission), former state legislator, GOP operator and lobbyist Miguel De Grandy represented the status quo. He claimed (rather, lectured) that anything other than single member districts disenfranchises minorities. It is an appealingly simple concept for the deal-makers on the African American side of the county commission and was embraced, yesterday, by Audrey Edmunson and Barbara Jordan although in cryptic, incomplete thoughts. They are against anything that threatens single member districts (ie. the addition of some at-large members of the commission, as recommended by the Charter Review). So are the Cuban Americans: Javier Souto, Joe Martinez, et al.

Single member districts mostly represent the horse-trading of votes by distant commissioners in the inner city for zoning changes in open space and farmland to benefit land speculators who seed and fertilize political campaigns. That is the equation that Seijas represented in her metaphorical whip and leatherettes. But who gets metaphor on the county commission? (please click, 'read more')

No one. Certainly not Javier Souto who reliably delivers the inappropriately memorable whenever he asks "for a few minutes to speak". Yesterday after emphasizing something about co-chairing the 1992 state legislative committee on reapportionment-- that delivered a Congressional seat to my dear friend, Carrie Meek, he said five times-- he added, "At the end of the day we are shooting ourselves in the head." He meant, foot. Who knows what he was shooting at, but the African American commissioners nodded. (Souto also said, "I decided to leave before I vomited on the people.") I had no idea what the 29 year veteran of political life was talking about and from the fidgeting on the dais-- exasperation, tedious patience-- no one else did, either. Someone in the audience waved a toy American flag at the end of a pencil or chopstick.

There were other non-sequitors worth mention. At the start of the meeting, Chairman Joe gave two members of the audience an opportunity to speak. Miss Williams-- a constituent of Barbara Jordan-- got up to ask that she be appointed county mayor as she was the only candidate to run in the last election in which Alvarez was voted in. She demanded her "first amendment rights" for the "60,191 people who voted for me". I was prepared to move to the speaker's podium to throw my own name in the ring for the interim appointment (Please appoint me, relentless blogger and critic, to fill the vacuum in County Hall.) , but one Pedro Martinez who "put his life on the line when this was a ghost town", which was in 1959, took the wind out of my sails. I assume he meant the Bay of Pigs. "Enough is enough!", he sort of thundered, winning me over. Then he darkly intoned against one who I assumed was Norman Braman, our billionaire benefactor who turned the county commission jugos cart upside down. And that was enough for me. Clearly I haven't been listening to Spanish language radio, but what I gather is that the refrain echoed from several directions on the dais-- that a small group that controls the media (I'm guessing, bloggers too?) is responsible. Oh that small group! Oh those do good'ers! Oh, oh, oh!

Small groups. Media. Meeting in the dark. Conspiracies to wreck democracy. Actually, there are a handful of reporters who, if they had adequate backup and funding from their corporate gigantic parents, could run about half of them to federal prison. But when I go on about that, your eyes glaze over the same way mine did when Joe Martinez kept saying, "some day we have to go back to governing and not just reacting one crisis at a time."

Joe. Joe who wants to fix the Urban Development Boundary is wistful for the chance to "govern". I'm not entirely oblivious to the fact that while the elections and charter amendments ping around in the county attorney's office and on the dais, that the operations of government have virtually ground to a halt. Sources tell us that morale is dragging along the bottom like a claw anchor on smooth rock bottom. It does make me wonder what the county commission is good for, that couldn't be provided by a strong regional civil service taking direction from a county administrator. Why, the county commission?

Joe Martinez is looking forward to the county commission governing again and said so enough times to make even the "ink by the barrel" crowd wake up. But what exactly has Joe Martinez done, other than the bidding of the Growth Machine when the going was good; ie. the time in which he was able to secure a sweetheart price for a building lot from Charlie Martinez of the LBA and Lennar co-host of suburban sprawl where presumably his wine cellar is filled? (If you don't get the reference, read our archive under "Martinez" back to the beginning.) Or to shill for Lowe's at the edge of the Urban Development Boundary. (Read our archive, "Lowes") We all remember the performances, the rent-a-crowds dragged in to fill the Chamber and diminish the do good'ers, and we all know perfectly well that it would not take much juice to recall Joe Martinez. Next!

The will of one man-- Norman Braman-- his wallet, and feisty volunteers organized around Vanessa Brito in Hialeah shook up the political order. Alas, if yesterday confirmed anything, it is that the order is intact. For the time being the lobbyists representing the builders, contractors, rock miners et al. are out of sight. Construction and real estate development is in the biggest ditch since the Great Depression. Yet the facilitators are itching for action. All there. Watching on their video monitors and reading the blogs.

Who could fail to observe yesterday Raul Martinez in the county chamber. Former Hialeah mayor, former candidate for US Congress, former subject of a federal criminal investigation and former supporter of every development pushing to the Everglades. Hialeah was Everglades. Sweetwater was Everglades. Kendall was Everglades. If Joe, Javier, Pepe, Bruno et al. yearn to govern again, just wait for Raul to be up on that dais, settling into his seat and cellphone.

History, repeating itself in Miami Dade politics through Hialeah? by gimleteye

What do Hialeah voters really know about their elected officials and what interests they represent? The question bears repeating, in context of G.O.D.’s photo of former Seijas chief of staffer Terry Murphy huddled with former Hialeah mayor and candidate for US Congress, Raul Martinez. Both formers are plotting their way back to power since none of the currents have the brass knuckle instincts of Natacha Seijas who obsessively ruled Miami-Dade County, pulling levers for campaign contributors through county agencies and a compliant county manager, George Burgess.

Seijas was turned out by Hialeah and Miami Lakes voters disgusted with the economy. But those voters understand only a little ... (please click 'read more')
... how the economy ties back to a political system that virtually guaranteed county government would serve the purposes of speculation first and foremost: speculation related to infrastructure like roadways, sewer, and water on which development and construction depends. Seijas was turned out because voters sought accountability for unwanted tax increases, but those voters understand very little of the scope of hidden deficits – on the order of $7 billion at least—that accumulated throughout the time that Seijas was the populist minister of pothole politics in Hialeah.

That the story of how the $7 billion accumulated never made it into the newspapers verges on the criminal. In so far as the mismanagement of the county budget and priorities is concerned, long-timers like Javier Souto might properly say; “What is the big deal? We always do things, this way.” And so, it is no wonder that there is—on the county commission dais at this particular time, a sense of the surreal. How much, the unreformable majority is wondering, do we really change the roles we are accustomed to play?

They know that the same wave of populist anger licks their heels, but it can only reach them if the billionaire financier, Norman Braham, invests to recall them the way he did Alvarez and Seijas. (Ordinary voters don't have that muscle.) Meanwhile, managing their roles through the Depression requires adjustment to the play-by-numbers structure of governance, through which lobbyists representing campaign cash bundlers guarantee that scripts and agenda items on the county commission calendar are orchestrated neat as a freshly starched, pressed guayabera.

Terry Murphy was turned out of power, along with Seijas who he served as chief of staff. There would be little surprise if he latched onto the next county commissioner from Hialeah. Murphy is the institutional memory for a political order made vastly wealthy through the biggest bubble in Florida real estate history. He can take credit for much of the staging of the Kabuki drama that presents itself as representative democracy in Miami-Dade. Murphy was Larry Hawkins' mastermind, too, before Hawkins faced sexual misconduct charges as commissioner in the South Dade district and subsequently defeated by then newcomer, Katy Sorenson. His principal achievement was to consign the wrecked Homestead Air Force Base to a group of board members of the Latin Builders Association reconstituted as that private corporation, HABDI. In doing so, Murphy paved the way for county government to misdirect tens of millions in taxpayer money, deforming the purpose of county agencies, and diverting at last in 2000 the political fortunes of a presidential candidate—Al Gore—persuaded by local lobbyists (Chris Korge, Mitchell Berger) to keep his hands off the Homestead Air Force Base while Ralph Nader siphoned off enough votes to throw the presidency to George W. Bush. Not conspiracy theory. Fact.

Do Hialeah voters, contemplating their role in pushing George Bush forward have any idea what their former mayor, Raul Martinez, also represents? Do voters have an inkling that Karl Rove, who brought Bush to national politics, is behind Rubio and the mechanics of the Tea Party? County commissioners, I suspect, know perfectly well the financial wherewithal of those who supported the likes of Seijas, Alex Penelas (county mayor – and Democrat-- at the time who managed to be in Spain on important private business during the 2000 recount halted in Miami Dade) and Rubio. Along such lines, one can also interpret the meaning of the recent political fundraiser hosted by US Century Bank insiders like Ramon Rasco for US Senator Bill Nelson; a Democratic paying respect to Republicans who manage county politics like a syndicate or limited liability corporation. Rasco was the lead organizer of the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco, HABDI.

That the local piggy bank, US Century, a Republican stronghold would not even be open for business but for the largesse of US taxpayers (through TARP money anchoring its balance sheet, supported by Democrats) does not occur to Hialeah voters. Raul Martinez would be their man, and Terry Murphy would be back as major domo, consigliere, or calderon as the case may be.

Vanessa Brito and Raul Martinez. By Geniusofdespair

Vanessa Brito - Miami Voice - said she would not rule out an at large County Commission seat. Vanessa forget about it. We won't get that change in the charter. When I left - see post below - Jordan was backpeddaling on term limits saying elections are term limits. What we need Vanessa is another targeted recall. They haven't got the message.

On another front -- Sounds like Raul is running for Natacha's seat. He said he does not like sitting on the sideline and he lives in the district. He was standing with Terry Murphy - Natacha's former chief of staff -- very bad sign (see photo above). Something is up. When I started my video Terry ran away. Maybe Raul is also considering the mayor slot.

Lincoln Diaz-Balart wins... national recognition for one of this cycle's worst ads! By SunshineUnderground

The Huffington Post included this Lincoln Diaz-Balart ad in its list of the
Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads of 2008. HPost declared the ad to be "one of the most over-the-top negative ads of the cycle," as it featured, "a police officer charging that Diaz-Balart's opponent "thinks he's better than all women," has "no humanity whatsoever," is the "most corrupt politician you have ever seen," and even once "beat up on a little tiny kid."

You would think that Raul Martinez to be a fairly easy target for an attack piece, but if this ad proves anything, it's that in political fights, like real ones, swinging too hard can land you on your ass. LDB might win, but it won't be because of his well-produced commercials.

Raul Martinez v Lincoln Diaz-Balart: Who do you support? by SunshineUnderground

No local candidate divides the followers and contributors of this site like Raul Martinez. Observant readers will have noticed that Joe Garcia was endorsed by Eye on Miami, but neither Martinez nor Lincoln Diaz-Balart picked up a nod. Likewise, Democracy For America, a liberal advocacy group founded by Howard Dean, endorsed Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia, but declined to lend support to Martinez.

People in a position to know say Martinez accomplished a lot as mayor, but evidently not enough to quell concerns about his record. (To understand the case against Martinez, visit http://raulmartinez08.com, hold your nose, ignore the stupid graphics and smear tactics, and read the collection of articles assembled at the bottom of the site. Then take a shower and read the Herald's endorsement before making up your mind.)

There is also wide spread skepticism about Martinez's commitment to the environment, the subject of our interview with Martinez a few weeks ago. Lincoln Diaz-Balart does not have the same scandal plagued history and has shown some independence from his party on issues like immigration, but he's also earned a reputation as a one issue guy and when it comes to economic policy, he's an orthodox conservative.

So who are you voting for and why? Do you think this web site should have backed one of the two candidates? Put your opinions in the comments section. I'd ask campaign staffers to refrain from posting, but I'd probably be asking the impossible.

The Jerry Springer debate: Lincoln Diaz-Balart v Raul Martinez. By SunshineUnderground

Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Raul Martinez just finished debating and I don’t know what to make of it.

What began as a civil discussion quickly disintegrated into accusations, with each candidate interrupting the other. I don’t think either of them looked good. Neither did the moderator. I think I would have changed the channel if I didn’t plan to write about it. Then again, it did have a certain reality-show appeal, like when two roommates on the 'Real Word" start screaming at each other, or any Jerry Springer show ever made (thankfully, without the nudity).

I’d say LDB comes across with more gravitas and was never fazed, but Martinez’s line about LDB saying one thing in Spanish and another in English was also effective. Who won? You tell me.

As far as all the ads between the debates, the RNC one with a wheel of fortune theme attacking Martinez as corrupt was the most memorable.

Eye Scoop: U.S. Rep. Candidate Raul Martinez Revealed In Interview! by Sunshine Underground

"Too much influence is given to people that contribute to campaigns. And basically, campaigns have become so expensive that you have no choice but to do it, otherwise you'll be off the air. We need to also ask the TV stations not to double the price of advertising during campaign season. People don't talk about that. An ad that I would have paid a $1,000 two weeks ago, now I'm paying $2,000. These are things that are not known because the media doesn't put it out" - Raul Martinez

Raul Martinez dominates a room, and it's not just because of his height. "El Grande" as he is known, has a low, powerful voice, an easygoing manner, and a Clintonesque talent for weaving policy and personal narrative, minus some of the polish. That was my impression when I saw the former Hialeah mayor speak to a group of students at Barry University on Friday night, and I had the chance to catch him afterwards for an interview. Our readers know about his past, his achievements and the scandals, so I tried to direct the questions to a few topics that have been the focus of this blog - development, the financial crisis and environmental protection. Martinez's opponent, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, has a standing invitation to address some of these questions as well, but for now, here is the Martinez interview.

EyeonMiami: What have you done for the Everglades, and what would you do if elected?

Raul Martinez: As mayor of the city you don't have much to do with the Everglades, because that's handled by the state, but I have tried every which way to make sure that we protect the environment in the city. We have replanted trees. We had a problem in the city with Cuban-Americans where if the trees did not bear fruit, they would cut them down. So we had to replant the city, and if I tell you that I probably planted over 50, 60 thousand trees while I was mayor, I probably am running short. You know, we tried to do as much as we could, but you got to remember that the city of Hialeah was a poor city and we could not do as much as people would have wanted us to do. Twenty eight years ago, when I first became mayor the only thing that I could do was to get the recycling program, and we continue to have the recycling program. As of today, the city of Hialeah is the leading city in recycling. Even though it costs the city a lot of money to recycle, we're doing it.

EonM: Your mentioned that the Everglades is more of a state and federal issue - what state and federal regulations do you support to protect wetlands from development?

RM: I think we need to develop a line that people understand and know, “this is the line, we're not going to cross it,” and I'll give you an example. In the city of Hialeah, when I was mayor, we annexed land, and that land was what they called a C&D, a construction debris dump. We needed to move the line to the west so we could clean that land, clean the whole C&D, and eventually build warehouses. There was not going to be any people in there but we needed to create jobs.

We need to make sure that we take care of the environment, but at the same time, we need to make sure we are creating jobs by cleaning the environment. We need to start looking for cleaner fuels. We need to work with FAU to see if we can use the gulf current to create electricity. We need to work with car manufactures, even if we have to subsidize them for awhile, to make cars that burn cleaner fuels.

EonM: By "line," you mean the Urban Development Boundary. Do you support it?

RM: I support the urban development boundary, but in this particular case, the boundary was not a straight boundary, this area had been left out, and I felt that this area could be included and it would not be hurting the environment, on the contrary, what were going to do was clean the whole place, and eventually, within 5, 10 years, all of that debris that was buried there, would be taken out.

I'm sure that your readers, your bloggers, have been bombarded with advertising that has been very negative of me. First of all, I want to tell you that none of that is true, and if they go into channel 10's website, and they go into the fact check on the advertising, they will see that none of what is being said is true. What they've done is run the sleaziest, dirtiest campaign against me, because the person that is holding that seat is afraid that we exposed him for what he is and it's unfortunate, that he being an attorney, would put together those kind of negative ads against my person.

EonM: What responsibility do you think developers and builders have for the current financial/real estate crisis?

RM: They have a lot. Especially the bankers, because the bankers had so much greed, and they didn't care what and how, they just wanted to make that they would lend the money to do as many units as they could, they didn't care what these people were doing and how they were doing it.

We have an amendment in Florida right now that says waterfront properties should stay taxed based on their use. So you take the case of the Miami River. A lot of those owners are having to sell their properties and not keep it as a restaurant or boatyard because developers are making the cost of the land so expensive that when they do the market comparison the property taxes are huge.

But definitely, the bankers and the builders [bear responsibility] because of the greed, the only word you can use to describe what has happen with this economy is greed.

EonM: What regulations do you think need to be in place to prevent a crisis like this from happening again?

I think we need to start putting regulations back on the books. Prohibiting those leverage buyouts, all the leveraging that has been done. We have gone through this before. We went through it with the banking crisis and they created the RTC and 20 some odd years later, we're at the same thing... we shouldn't be having to do this. We need to make sure that we have enough regulations on the books to prohibit people from gouging, making more interest than they should, and hopefully make development more responsible.

EonM: In the last 10 years, what do you think has gone wrong as far as development, and real estate development in South Florida?

RM: It's not all about the developers - I think there is a myriad of other problems that we have had. Government has been lax on regulation. The state government has been lax. Too much influential is given to people that contribute to campaigns. And basically, campaigns have become so expensive that you have no choice but to do it, otherwise you'll be off the air. We need to also ask the TV stations not to double the price of advertising during campaign season. People don't talk about that. An ad that I would have paid a $1,000 two weeks ago, now I'm paying $2,000. These are things that are not known because the media doesn't put it out.

EonM: Those are valuable points, but again, what has gone wrong with the actual land development in Florida in the last 10 years?

RM: Well, one of things is that we have developed, but we have not created the infrastructure, the transportation infrastructure that needed to be created. We now have development in areas that don't have the public transportation that we needed. We started with the Metrorail and we never finished it, we never made a commitment to finish the Metrorail and we're struggling now to do the lines that need to be done. And then people need to say, look, you can't continue with the NIMBY, you can't continue the "Not in my backyard." If we need to bring a rapid transit line or if we need to bring bus lines, people are going to have to accept it.

Garcia Stands Alone. SunshineUnderground

The financial crisis has put "issues", or the economy back at center stage, but in a way that is awkward for Democrats. Joe Garcia was the only local candidate to go on the record supporting the bailout package, though he did call it "flawed".

This was, in my mind, the responsible position to take, and I think it compares well with the craven populism of someone like Raul Martinez or the ideological conservatism of the Diaz-Balarts. But, oh, the irony! The same rigid, anti-regulation, laissez-faire, and largely Republican ideology that helped cause this crisis is now being wrapped up in populism by those same Republicans and used against Democrats and moderates who are trying to clean the mess up. Yes, the same people who brought you "No regulations" have now released "No government interference in the problem caused by the lack of regulation."

You could credit the Republicans who voted against the bailout for being principled conservatives, but the record says otherwise. As Daniel Gross put it in Slate yesterday, referring to the Republicans who killed the bill “having approved an expansion of Medicare, massive increases in all sorts of spending, and huge tax cuts that led to the addition of trillions of dollars in public debt, this is a strange moment to stand on principle.”

And joining them were a certain kind of left-winger, people like: Michael Moore who see everything and anything in terms of class. Make no mistake though, the numbers speak for themselves – lack of Republican support caused the bailout to fail.

It ultimately failed, of course, because it was deeply unpopular. "Bail me out first!" seems to be the settlement I hear on the local news, but the government could send everyone a check tomorrow and the economy would still collapse if the credit market dried up, and no one could get favorable rates on a mortgage or a car loan, and small businesses couldn't get loans period.

So Garcia may pay for taking a principled stand. I can see the attack ad now, featuring a female narrator saying "fat cats" with a sneer. That's just idle speculation and I hope I'm wrong, just like I hope the Garcia-Diaz-Balart debate actually happens, so we can, for once, see two candidates get into an exchange over policy and economic ideology.

Two Miami Dade Democrats Who Stink. By Geniusofdespair

It was reported yesterday in the Miami Herald that the Miami-Dade Democratic party is mad at Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek “who have decided not to publicly support the Democratic challengers to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.

Meek and Schultz say they are “sitting the races out because of long-standing personal and professional ties to to the GOP incumbents.”

So what Kendrick Meek and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are assuming by their actions: That all three Democratic challengers are going to lose.

I wouldn’t be too sure of that. I think Raul Martinez could win and he is a grudge holder. And, Joe Garcia has a shot as well. Jennifer Lebovich reported in the story: “County Democrats say they may have their best shot in years to unseat at least one of the three.” I agree.

I think this is a bad decision by both Meek and Wasserman-Schultz. If I were the Miami Dade Democratic brass, I would be livid too. Democrats need those seats for the good of National issues. Maybe Ileana is good on Miami River issues, but how will she vote on more global issues that effect the whole country?

And, Debbie: If Ileana is your mentor, there is something very wrong in Washington.

Type the rest of the post here

Miami Herald Article on Raul Martinez vs. Lincoln Diaz Balart: Cuba "14", United States "0". By Geniusofdespair

My Cuban-American friends that came out against my illustration yesterday: Read the Miami Herald today. I did a word check. Cuba was mentioned 14 times, the United States was mentioned zero times and Florida 4 times. Pathetic, considering they are not running for office in Cuba.

And, it only took them one day to mount their negative campaigns and to start fighting about the Cuban Embargo. Do you really think I shouldn't make fun of these guys? Do you think they are caricatures, perverting public service which insult us all? Please ask for more of your candidates.

The hairs on Castro's beard, by gimleteye

I couldn't tell you if Lincoln Diaz Balart has a platform beyond Castro. Why diversify, when the returns have been so dependable?

I wonder if the new economy-- unveiled in today's stock market-- might prod Miami and Hialeah voters to ask more of Congress or candidates than whether they take sugar grown in the Everglades in their cafe at Versailles.

Raul Martinez cites affordable housing to the Herald as his achievement in Hialeah, a political fortress built by developers who live in Coral Gables and Pinecrest. I remember Martinez busting through the Urban Development Boundary at the county commission, sitting side by side with Republican lobbyists like Sergio Pino and developer Armando Codina.

Probably the campaign will settle on the purity of the candidate's hatred of Castro.

Wouldn't it be entertaining if Hialeah voters said, "You know what, Castro is done. He is a sick old man who can't even spell the word, fury. If you want to be my Congressman, tell me how you are going to fix the mess of south Florida: scars and scabs, c-thru condos and a housing market crash, after decades of sprawl that wrecked the Everglades and Florida Bay."

A few months ago, the Miami Dade Democratic Party sent out a broadcast email praising Raul Martinez as a new progressive. In this morning's Herald, Martinez calls himself a centrist Democrat.

If the glove doesn't fit, you must re-fit.

Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez will take on U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart

According to the Miami Herald, the duel is on! Two powerful men will be campaigning against each other for Congressional seat 21. Lincoln Diaz-Balart is the incumbent and Former Hialeah Mayor, Raul Martinez is the Democratic challenger.

It won't be pretty, sparks will fly, so I got this idea on how to get the aggression out. Instead of debating let's have a conga drum play-off. I saw Little Ricky Ricardo do it once with his dad. It was awesome.

This should be an election we will all remember. I can't wait. Looks like Harry Emilio Gottlieb is also watching this one (see his illustration below):