Isn't It Time To Say Goodbye To Republican And Conservative Representation In Miami-Dade?

Perhaps you've seen a slew of endorsements for Miami-Dade Democrat Annette Taddeo in the past few days. Today it was J-Street. Yesterday it was theSEIU in the morning and Hector Caraballo, president of the Miami-Dade Cuban American Democrats in the afternoon. The day before it was Maurice Ferré, the first Hispanic mayor of Miami and Raul Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah. The Teamsters Union before that and all sorts of politicians-- the good, the bad and the really, really, really ugly (Steve Israel). All the activity is certainly meant to ward off a primary challenge by former Congressman Joe Garcia, a colleague-turned-bad, especially now that rich kid Andres Korge-- I guess he can go back to calling himself Andrew now-- has decided not to run.

Garcia was elected to Congress, against corrupt Republican Rubio-buddy David Rivera in 2012. FL-26 at the time was emerging as a blue district. In 2008 Obama had won there narrowly, 133,875 (50%) to 131,630 (49%) but 4 years later Obama beat Romney 141,776 (53%) to 123,313 (46%), a very significant swing that helped Garcia displace the scandal-ridden Rivera. He took the district 135,694 (54%) to 108,820 (43%), running as an avowed progressive. Blue America endorsed him.

But once Garcia got into Congress, he abandoned any pretense of progressive politics, joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and started voting consistently with the worst, most right-wing elements of the Democratic Party. Like fellow corrupt New Dem Patrick Murphy, he voted again and again and again for the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked with conservaDems like Murphy and the GOP to delay and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. He was quickly a total disappointment to his supporters and soon got involved with his own series of his own ugly scandals. In 2014, the FL-26 voters dumped him unceremoniously for Republican Carlos Curbelo. He also supports warrantless spying on American citizens and opposed the Amash amendment to prevent that. Garcia's horrible voting record and scandals depressed Democratic turnout and although he outspent Curbelo gigantically-- $3,787,930 to $2,347,633-- of his 135,694 voters from 2012, only 78,306 bothered to come vote for him in 2014, allowing Curbelo to beat him 51 to 49% in an even bluer district than it had been 2 years earlier.

He has been a thorn in President Obama's side, whining about the thaw in Cuban-American relations and working with Republicans to undercut his agenda. When we named him one of the 10 worst freshmen in 2013, we noted his vote with the GOP to freeze the pay for federal employees, a vote to soften the blow of the sequester for the Pentagon while leaving all the other victims in the lurch, a GOP initiative to prevent the federal government from giving states greater flexibility when complying with a welfare program’s work requirements, a vote against the Senate budget bill, a vote for CISPA, a domestic spying bill, a vote to cut food stamps drastically, and votes for HR 1613 and HR 2231, two bills written by Oil lobbyists that amounted to big giveaways for offshore drilling businesses.

No one wants to see him back in Congress. Let's hope all those endorsements Annette is racking up make him change his mind about running.


UPDATE: Joe Garcia Is Running

Corrupt New Dem Joe Garcia, defeated in 2014 and rejected by his congressional colleagues, has decided to run again. What a mess! Curbelo must be dancing in the streets.