Cry foul: Lincoln Diaz-Balart won't debate Raul Martinez

Sorry, little mistake in the headline. Replace the word foul with fowl, for chicken. That should be the modifier for Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who's not up to the challenge of meeting his challenger in the debate arena.

Close readers of this blog may remember back on Sept. 10 when there was a post reporting at least two debates scheduled between the rubber-stamp incumbent and the Democratic contender for FL-21's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The post quoted from the Miami Herald column by Channel 10's respected political reporter Michael Putney, who was himself to be moderator or co-moderator of two debates between Martinez and L. Diaz-Balart.

Sorry to report now that the Martinez campaign says it's all off. As I suspected back on Sept. 10. Too good to be true. The Diaz-Balarts never have the fortitude to meet a challenger.

Last night I was at a fundraiser for Annette Taddeo, challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18, and a welcome guest was Joe Garcia, who's running against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25. No surprise to hear both Annette and Joe report no luck in enticing their opponents to debate. They may hint at this date or that, only to pull back.

Why do they do this? My guess is that they may fool some few voters who will approvingly remember the little news story saying the Republicans had agreed to debate, but not see the one reporting the debate had been called off.

Thanks to the Raul Martinez campaign for rounding up links to various news stories about the "debates," as follows:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/692549.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/get-ready-to-ru.html

http://www.local10.com/editorials/17503337/detail.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/channel-10-miam.html

Ileana's In Trouble

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is focused on the wrong things. As usual. Now she wants to indict Fidel Castro.

While there is no doubt that Castro has done a lot of horrible things over the years and should be brought to justice, but, really, is this the type of thing our representatives should be focused on? Is this a matter of doing what's best for Floridians or is it simply pointless political posturing? And why is Ros-Lehtinen posturing so much these days? Two words...

Annette Taddeo.

For once, Ros-Lehtinen has a significant challenger and this scares her.

“I think voters are hungry for new leadership and they have a chance to change the Bush-Lehtinen approach, which has obviously failed us," Taddeo recently told the Miami Herald. She's right.

Taddeo argues that while Cuba is an important issue to South Floridians, it isn't the only one, and pointless posturing on Castro won't fix the situation in Iraq, on which Ros-Lehtinen has blindly followed the president, it it won't get health care to the millions of Americans that don't have it, it won't create one new job and it won't bring down gas prices. Ros-Lehtinen can't talk about those issues, though, because she's part of the problem -- she sided with Bush and helped make all of those problems as bad as they are today. So instead of dealing with real issues, Ros-Lehtinen is pandering and posturing. That's a shame at such an important juncture in American history.

Let Ileana know that this is not what Floridians deserve, donate to the Taddeo campaign.

Ileana Hates Raul

...Castro that is. Naked Politics:

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen calls the election a "sham" and said the "so-called" Parliament selecting the regime's "next dictator" was "selected through elections that were a total farce.

"Today's vote is once again a clear testament to the fear that the governing elite have of the ballot box," the Miami Republican said.

While she is right on this one, the faux outrage is a bit much. This shouldn't be a surprise that this was going to happen and one shouldn't act surprised.

Herald: Diaz-Balart may face challenger

It's tempting to rip into the Miami Herald for the headline above. Hey, that's perceptive. But no, let's look at the content.

There’s a sophomoric debating tactic called “the straw man.” The debater attempts to destroy the opponent’s argument by describing it as something different from what it really is, and defeating that (the fallacious straw man) rather than what the opponent actually argues.

We see this in Wednesday’s Miami Herald, back in the local section, where U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) declares that the Democrats want to defeat him and his two cohorts in order to “improve relations with Cuba,” especially to get rid of the embargo.

Oh yeah? What about torture? The war in Iraq? SCHIP? We want someone with political courage to represent us in Washington, not a rubber-stamp. Someone intelligent and wise and future-oriented, not stuck in the past. Someone with true compassion, not the conservative lip-serving compassion. Someone who would complain about “signing statements” that eviscerate legislation. Someone who would save our environment, not pave it over. Yes, let’s have a reasonable Cuba policy, but that’s somewhere down in the lower half of our long list of complaints.

So, Mr. Congressman, your straw man is laid bare. And by the way, you confirmed our suspicions as to how you will campaign: with sophomoric debating tactics. Thank you for telegraphing your punch, which is a sophomoric boxing tactic.

We’ll assume that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) and your brother Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) will be using the same tactics.

Draft Joe Garcia – great idea!

It’s tempting to think that this is emerging now via the “Cuban newspapers” because the mails are so slow between Washington and Havana. Ha ha. Actually, the Cuban Interests section in Washington was hot on the Internet as soon as The Hill published this topic back on Oct. 18, and Havana learned in a microsecond that Joe Garcia was tempted enough to be saying to The Hill he’d run for Congress if the party asked him.

“Ouch!” They said there in Havana. (What’s Espanol for Ouch?) “Bad for us if Joe Garcia takes over in the House of Representatives from one of those shirt-tail relatives of our Leader.” So they probably said in Havana.

And then it took them almost a month to figure out how to say it in their press.

So here’s the way I imagine their triple-twist thinking went:

1. “The Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – don’t forget Mel Martinez! – are so useful to keeping us Communists in power that we can’t imagine life without their neo-con faces in the House and Senate.” [This occupied them for a week.]
2. “But if we came out and said we favor their being re-elected in 2008, the voters there would think it was a trick, and then Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez would run and be elected.” [This took two more weeks of deep thought.]
3. “So we’ll publish a subtle analysis of the Miami political situation in Granma, our party organ, and appear to approve the likely challenges by Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez against the Diaz-Balarts, whom we’ll label as ‘Batista supporters,’ and, Voila! The Diaz-Balarts and their gang will be elected again as the voters react against what we endorse.” [Another week passed working this up.]

Here in peaceful South Florida, we raise our heads from the newspapers and TV screens full of news of police and criminals killing each other, and realize slowly that Cuba is messing around in our politics. Damn! That’s what they’re trying, is it? We’ll show them! Let’s Draft Joe Garcia and show them they can’t discourage us with their triple-twist trick!

Well, this may – or may not – be what happened, but in any case it’s a good idea. The Florida Politics blog has a diary up since last night with that goal – Draft Joe Garcia – and it’s also up on DailyKos with a way to vote and say whether you’d be willing to donate $5 to get him to run. Check it out. All the links are therein.

Next step: the future. Time for change.

For the record, Ros-Lehtinen is mentioned herein

This will take you over to the Miami-Dade Dems blog where our congresswoman from District 18 gets a brief mention. This blog is wondering why she apparently did not take the August trip to Budapest etc., where her Cuba policy gets more backing than at home. Has she lost her taste for joint politics with the Diaz-Balart brothers?

This blog also wonders when Ms. Ros-Lehtinen last held a town hall meeting to hear her constituents' concerns.