Ambitious challengers target three in Congress

Three congressional races in South Florida test a theory: Will Cuban Americans support Democrats?

BY LESLEY CLARK, Miami Herald

Mon, Feb. 25, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Weeks after the 2006 election, two Democratic strategists in Miami began poring over the returns, paying particular interest to a Republican-held state House seat in Miami-Dade that fell to the Democrats.

Precinct, by precinct, they saw evidence that reliably Republican Cuban-American voters had crossed party lines and supported the Democratic candidate the pair had recruited to run. And with those findings, they sensed a more ambitious target: three Republican-held congressional seats in Miami.

'We were like, `Is this a freak of nature or is something happening here?' '' said one of the strategists, Jeff Garcia, referring to Democrat Luis Garcia's state House victory. 'What is it that compelled a bunch of Republicans in Little Havana to vote for a guy who has a `D' next to his name?''

Jeff Garcia and Freddy Balsera began talking with the politically connected, people with money. They looked at the voter registration numbers and the election results in the three congressional districts and began to believe -- as Balsera put it -- ''the time was ripe'' to challenge the incumbents.

During a pre-scheduled trip to Washington, Garcia said they managed to score a brief meeting with Rep. Rahm Emanuel, then-chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which recruits, trains and funds candidates. National Democrats, emboldened by their wins in 2006 -- including ousting 22-year veteran Rep. Clay Shaw of Fort Lauderdale -- were interested in expanding their playing field beyond traditional Democratic strongholds.

The Illinois congressman and former Clinton aide offered encouragement -- and a challenge, Garcia said.

'He told us, `You need to find out if the opportunity is real, do some polling. Then you have to go out and find legitimate candidates. Put that together and then come back and talk to us,' '' Garcia said.

RAISING MONEY

Returning to Miami, Garcia began raising money to test his theories through polls. At the same time, Joe Garcia had assumed the helm of the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party, vowing that local activists would stop the infighting that plagued the party and instead direct their aim at the GOP.

''In the last year as I looked at the circumstances for myself and others, I talked to business leaders and others and they were frustrated, they didn't feel they had a voice in Washington,'' said Garcia, the former hard-charging executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Working at the time with a national Democratic group, NDN, Garcia, too, plowed through statistics: the number of registered Republicans had declined in the three Miami congressional districts, the number of Democrats and independents were on the rise, and inexperienced candidates with zero name recognition and little money had managed to pull 40 percent of the vote in 2006 against Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.

The interest being stirred in South Florida was welcome news in Washington, where Democrats hope unprecedented interest in the presidential race will help them widen their majority in the House and Senate.

Last October, the DCCC paid for Spanish-language radio ads criticizing the Diaz-Balart brothers and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for siding with President Bush's veto of a children's health insurance bill.

The spots were fleeting, but they marked the first time the national party ponied up money to spend in the districts -- a warning shot to Republicans and a signal to Democrats that the party might be willing to spend some money if there were viable candidates.

''We thought those votes were out of touch with the community and we wanted to let people know how their representatives were voting,'' said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who now chairs the DCCC. ``We did believe if we started to show people how their representatives were voting, it might encourage people to start looking for alternatives.''

RESULTS OF POLLS

Jeff Garcia says the polling results were encouraging. Most striking: voters in the district disagreed with the GOP's hard-line stance on sanctions against Cuba. Encouraged, he and Balsera began thinking about candidates. First up: A restless Raul Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah, who was mulling a return to the political stage.

''Once you're in, you never get it out of your system,'' said Martinez, who, frequently at odds with the Diaz-Balarts, decided to challenge Lincoln Diaz-Balart after a full court Garcia/Balsera press.

Joe Garcia followed with a bid to unseat Mario Diaz-Balart.

And Jeff Garcia said conversations with Democrats led him to Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-born business executive with little political experience but an interest in ``new leadership.''

Though the strategists wanted to challenge all three, they said the three candidates are not running in tandem: they are raising money and support independently.

Republicans, though, suggest the three face insurmountable odds in unseating the incumbents. They argue that one of the Democrats' central premises -- that many Cuban-American voters disagree with a hard-line stance against Cuba -- is deeply flawed. All three Democrats say they support the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, but oppose travel restrictions that limit exiles from visiting family on the island to once every three years.

''Every two years they put out this theory that there might be voters out there who support the embargo but are against the family travel restrictions,'' said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC in Washington, D.C., which advocates for sanctions against Cuba and staunchly backs the three Republicans. ''They don't exist. You either support sanctions or you don't. At the end of the day, voters don't get into those complexities,'' he said.

He notes that Luis Garcia, a firefighter, won a race that revolved around state issues, not the embargo or other international issues.

Democrats, though, will seek to run on other issues, already hitting the trio for their votes on healthcare and loyalty to President Bush. And Jeff Garcia suggests nothing ventured, nothing gained.

''We've got the issues on our side, the Democratic Party is better funded, the voters are more enthusiastic, this is absolutely the best time to try,'' Garcia said. ``Before this, there was no active communication between Democrats and Cubans. And if you don't go out there and try and win people's votes you will never, long-term, win them over.''