As we wrote back in October, Democrats have been aiming to recruit three solid challengers to dislodge the heavily-entrenched trio of Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-21 and FL-25, respectively) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18).
The first heavy hitter, former Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez, threw his hat into the ring against Lincoln Diaz-Balart yesterday.
Are two more challengers on the way? Local NBC6 political reporter Nick Bogert reports that the Democrats will field a full slate against the Miami-area incumbents:
Democrats hope to take on all three long-time Cuban-American congressional Republicans, Bogert said.
Miami-Dade County party chair Joe Garcia said he will challenge Mario Diaz-Balart, and businesswoman Annette Taddeo will take on Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Democrats may even set up political action committees to pay for advertisements attacking all three Republican incumbents, Bogert said. He said to expect Republicans to spend a lot to defend those seats.
Garcia, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party and former Cuban-American National Foundation executive director, is the real deal, and should be an excellent candidate.
This is the first I’ve heard of Annette Taddeo, but her official biography is impressive.
Get ready for some south Florida barn-burners.
especially with Young not retiring.
I just wish my district had a shot of doing something other than re-electing our moronic Rep. Putnam. He’s young and dangerous that one.
rather than trying to beat just one of them, or just one of them per cycle.
I assume this is because if a Dem ran against one, he’d essentially be running against the combined powers of all three, cause they’d all three unite to defeat him — pool their money, pull their strings, campaign together, act as surrogate attack dogs, etc? Whereas if you run three challengers at once, you spread them thinner?
I assume that’s the only or main reason behind this line of thought, but if there’s another rationale, I’d be interested to hear it.
Anyway, I’m very excited to see us challenging here. This is exactly the kind of strategy we ought to have — these are the kind of seats that I think we should challenge, where a Rothenberg might say we shouldn’t bother.
in all of these districts. These districts are trending our way. Just look at the drop in the Bush vote in all of them from 2000 to 2004. Even as Bush increased his percentage in the state from 48% to 52%, yet he fell from 57% to 54% in FL-18, and 58% to 57% in FL-21. I looked through Taddeo’s information and it looks like she would be a solid fit for FL-18.