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 Our Troops, Reality, Iraq

Naked Politics:

To Petraeus she said: "I trust your reporting and that of our troops on the ground regarding the levels of sectarian violence, over those compiled by individuals and entities who wish to discredit the information to justify an immediate withdrawal," said Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "For all who have served and died defending what our nation holds dear, I hope we too, raise to the occasion and not let them down by precipitously withdrawing from the fight before the mission is completed."

What mission? Why is it that no Republican can define the mission in Iraq? They say it is to "win." But that doesn't mean anything, either. Why are our troops dying, Ileana?

Taddeo On Property Insurance

Congressional Candidate Annette Taddeo has a blog.

If you live east of US1 - or just about anywhere in south Florida for that matter - you probably got your windstorm insurance bill from Citizen's recently. I got mine yesterday.

All I can say is: Wow!

It's no wonder so many of our neighbors feel like they can't keep their heads above water (no pun intended).

Thankfully, we haven't even been threatened by a major storm in two years and yet our premiums keep going up and up. To make matters worse, if you've lived in South Florida through any storm you know we can get hit with surcharges as well.

Something has to change.

There's more...

Good to see congressional candidates blogging and actually saying something. Let Annette know you appreciate it and maybe we can encourage more candidates to actually speak to the people.

Ileana Hates the Environment

The League of Conservation Voters recently released scorecards for Congress. How did Ileana do? Poorly:

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (REP), 30%

Not only did all of the Democrats do better than all of the Republicans, With one exception, all of the Democrats did more than twice as good as all the Republicans. And most of the Democrats voted in favor of the environment more than four times as frequently as most of the Republicans.

I wonder how many of these Republicans own property that will be beachfront property when most of Florida is under water because of global warming? I'm just saying...

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.

The Economist takes note of our three Congressional races

It took Castro’s resignation, but the august British weekly The Economist has taken approving note of our three congressional challengers here in South Florida. We figured we could get national attention in the United States with three strong candidates, but it’s heartening to receive attention from the European press when the election is still eight months away.

Here's what they said about us:

Three districts in south Florida have long been the dominion of hardline Cuban-American Republicans. For the first time since 1992, the Democrats are mounting a strong challenge in the persons of Raúl Martínez, a feisty former mayor of Hialeah, and Joe García, a former spokesman for the Cuban-American National Foundation. They support the embargo but are campaigning against the travel crackdown and stressing non-Cuban issues. (A third Democrat, Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-American businesswomen, has also entered the race, but is a political unknown.)

Annette Taddeo's bid for District 18 is now open

I had hoped to pump out a couple quick links to good coverage Sunday of our congressional races, but for some reason the Miami Herald and Channel 10 aren’t cooperating, though both revealed that Annette Taddeo is challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for the U.S. House in District 18.

No links available to the news:
--Channel 10’s “This week in South Florida” program covered Taddeo, along with a live interview with Raul Martinez, challenging for District 21 against Lincoln Diaz-Balart; and a reprise of the Thursday coverage of Joe Garcia’s launch of his run for District 25 against Mario Diaz-Balart.
--Miami-Herald’s story “Ros-Lehtinen Challenged” at the top of the front page of the metro section. As far as I can tell, this was the first time Annette Taddeo was identified in the Herald as intending to run for the District 18 seat in the U.S. House.

Maybe links will come later, and I’ll change this post.

But meanwhile, there is some digital coverage available.

Andres Oppenheimer’s Herald column in the main news section reminds us of another reason to vote against John McWar with the headline: “McCain’s advice Miami-bred.” Yes, our friends the Diaz-Balarts and Ros-Lehtinen, along with Sen. Mel Martinez, are influential advisers on McCain’s thinking about our hemisphere.

Count me as agreeing heartily with Oppenheimer’s opinion that McCain “would face an uphill battle to convince the world that he represents change and would bring a breath of fresh air to Washington.” His advisers are toeing a line drawn 40 years ago.

And over on the Reuters wire Miami correspondent Tom Brown has a long piece asking whether the Republicans are “losing grip” on our local Cuban vote. Well, yes, I’d say. And the Reuters report seems pretty much in agreement. Here’s its kicker (that’s news lingo for the last words in a story):

"Unless they (Republicans) address the issues that are important to this community they may be in for, unfortunately, a rude awakening," said Jorge Mas Santos, head of the once powerful but now lower-key Cuban American National Foundation.

Me, I would have left out the word unfortunately.