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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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