Debbie Wasserman Schultz Watch

Debbie and Ileana share a certain vision of personal power politics

Florida may be a crazy and wild state but this year it has some of the best congressional candidates running anywhere in the country. So far Blue America has endorsed two of them, Alan Grayson (Orlando) and Joe Garcia (Miami-Dade). But other stellar Democrats in competitive races include Annette Taddeo (Miami-Dade), Samm Simpson (Pinellas County), Doug Tudor (Lakeland, Winter Haven), Clint Curtis (Titusville, Winter Park), maybe even some others. What a happy hunting ground for Democrats. The DCCC should be working over time, right? Well... problem with the DCCC down there is that the chief hound dog is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a hopelessly corrupt hack and Rahm Emanuel wanna-be.

Wasserman Schultz, the sorry chairperson of the DCCC's very compromised Red to Blue program, virtually endorsed 3 extreme right South Florida Republican incumbents-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart-- with the clear intention of sabotaging the campaigns of the three Democrats running against them-- Annette Taddeo, Raul Martinez, and Joe Garcia-- and making it impossible for them to get serious institutional money in Florida. She angered enough people, who pressured the DCCC, so that she finally made nice with Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia. She is still doing everything in her power to undercut Annette Taddeo, the challenger in the least Republican-leaning of the 3 districts.

And today we hear that Wasserman Schultz, whose extremely shady PAC, DWS: Democrats Win Seat, has handed out around a quarter million dollars so far this cycle, donated $2,500 to Martinez. I had to laugh. I mean Emanuel, Hoyer and Wasserman Shultz, three of the most corrupt in the Democratic leadership-- all destined to remind people that Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham were just typical politicians, not just corrupt Republicans-- all found a political soul mate in South Florida-- not the progressive Taddeo or Garcia, but the former mayor of Hialeah, Martinez. Why Martinez? He was indicted on 7 counts of extortion and 8 counts of racketeering while he was mayor. Wikipedia:

The indictment led to Raul Martinez's suspension from office and trial. In July 1991, Martinez was convicted for six counts of conspiracy, extortion and racketeering and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Martinez appealed the decision and the appellate judges ordered a new trial in 1994, citing” flawed jury instructions and blatant jury misconduct.” The mayor's second trial ended March 26, 1996 in a hung jury. And the third trial, which began April 22, 1996, resulted in an acquittal (Not Guilty) on one count of extortion and deadlocked on five remaining counts (by a vote of 11 to 1 in favor of an acquittal).

Leave it to DWS, Emanuel and Hoyer to sniff out a kindred spirit!

Back to DWS PAC. Which of the great progressive Floridian candidates has she donated to? None. Aside from Martinez, here's the list of the Florida candidates she's shared the wealth with:

Christine Jennings, a conservative former Republican banker- $2,000
Ron Klein, a solid moderate- $4,000
Suzanne Kosmas, a wealthy pro-war conservative- $4,378
Tim Mahoney, an actual Republican passing himself off as a Democrat- $7,500

Wasserman Schultz has aspirations to be a U.S. Senator. Now that is a really sickening thought!


UPDATE: ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF FLORIDA'S SUNNY POLITICS...

At least the Florida Democratic Party-- and this is a change-- now realizes the opportunities for major congressional pickups in their state. I just got an e-mail from them boasting about how Democrats in the Miami-Dade area are outraising the reactionary GOP incumbents:

Miami Republican incumbents fared particularly poorly, being out raised by all three Democratic challengers. Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez raised more than $600,000, compared to Lincoln Diaz-Balart's $481,558. Annette Taddeo raised $321,000, as opposed to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's $300,929, and Joe Garcia raised $513,049 against Mario Diaz-Balart's $392,103.

...Adam Putnam, a top member of the Republican leadership, admitted that his fellow House Republican Ric Keller is vulnerable, and the numbers agree: Keller was out-raised by the combined total of his opponents by nearly $70,000.

Oh-- and they've out-registered Republicans by more than 100,000 voters in the last 6 months and plan to more than double that by election time.