.Raul Martinez to run against Lincoln Díaz-Balart
Raul Martinez, the charismatic but controversial former Hialeah mayor, is returning to politics to challenge one of the most powerful Republicans in the Cuban-American community: U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart.
Martinez's expected announcement Tuesday in front of Hialeah City Hall pits two South Florida political titans -- both admired by large numbers of Cuban Americans.
The campaign almost certainly will be deeply acrimonious with charges of corruption, and challenges of who's tougher on Cuba. Martinez, 58, a Democrat, is the most serious challenger Republican Díaz-Balart, 53, has faced in his 15 years as U.S. congressman.
For Martinez, the campaign will also be a chance to redeem himself -- running a race he has groomed himself for since the late 1980s when his hopes of replacing the legendary Claude Pepper were dashed after federal prosecutors opened a corruption investigation of the then-Hialeah mayor's dealings with developers.
The probe led to a conviction, appeal, reversal by an appellate court and two subsequent mistrials.
Martinez never spent a day in prison and the case was ultimately dropped. He remained mayor until 2005 when he stepped down ostensibly to devote more time to family and business.
The political bug never stopped eating away at him, though.
'Once you're in politics there's always that little `bichito' [little bug] inside,'' he told The Miami Herald in a recent interview.
Martinez said he's a Cuban-American Democrat -- a minority in Miami-Dade -- because he's part of the centrist wing of the party. ``I was a Democrat because I believed in housing. ... I believed in helping the disadvantaged. ... Yes, you have to have a strong defense. Yes, you have to have a strong immigration policy, all of that. But you gotta be more humanistic.''
Up for grabs in the sprawling district are a growing number of independent-minded voters unaffiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties.
The 21st congressional district runs from Miramar in Broward through Miami Lakes and Hialeah south to Kendall in Miami-Dade and is overwhelmingly Hispanic. It has a majority of registered Republicans: 124,744 versus 101,267 Democrats. But those numbers reflect a drop of 4,558 registered Republicans and a slight gain of 111 Democrats since 2006. The number of unaffiliated voters has grown to 71,208.
Jeffrey Garcia, a Democratic Party political consultant said the numbers suggest that Díaz-Balart's district is becoming less Republican.
Díaz-Balart has told The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald that Martinez's return is part of a ploy by Fidel Castro sympathizers to lift or weaken the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. Martinez insists he is not interested in changing the four-decades' old embargo against Cuba, though he wants to ease the restrictions the Bush administration set on family travel to Cuba and on remittances.
''He's muddying the waters,'' Martinez said. ``What is he afraid of?''
Polls show that Cuban Americans are split on the 2004 travel limits, which restrict visits of Cuban Americans to once every three years to see a parent, child or spouse on the communist island. Previously, Cuban Americans could travel to Cuba once a year to see aunts, uncles or cousins -- now no longer allowed.
Díaz-Balart, campaigning Monday with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said voters must keep Martinez's record in mind when casting their ballot.
''I stand on my record and it's an extensive record of effective representation of our community,'' Díaz-Balart told The Miami Herald. ``He has a record, also. I think he's unfit to be trusted with public office and his record shows that. ... I've always treated the voters with respect. His record is not only of corruption but also vulgarity.''
For Díaz-Balart, Martinez would be his first serious challenge since he was elected to Congress in 1992.
''It's an opportunity for Lincoln to show weakness or flex his muscle. The challenge for Raul would be, is he able to get any support outside of Hialeah?'' said political science professor Darío Moreno, director of FIU's Metropolitan Center, a think-tank.
Moreno has done polling in the past for Díaz-Balart and is perceived by Martinez as an ally of the Republican incumbent.
Moreno said his prior polling showed Díaz-Balart has an advantage over Martinez and that the former mayor does not ''travel well'' outside Hialeah.
But Martinez said a private poll shared with him recently showed he could win by a significant margin.
Martinez has never lost an election since first running for the Hialeah council in 1977. Díaz-Balart ran in 1982 as a Democrat for a Florida House seat and lost to a Republican. He has won every race since being elected to the Florida Legislature in 1986 as a Republican.
By the time Miami Congressman Claude Pepper fell ill with terminal cancer at the age of 88 in 1989, Martinez had set his sights on his congressional seat only to see federal authorities disclose he was being investigated for corruption.
A grand jury indicted Martinez in 1990 on charges of extortion and racketeering. Federal authorities alleged that, as mayor, Martinez abused his authority by extorting from developers more than $1 million in cash and property in exchange for zoning favors.
Martinez, who was suspended from office within hours of the indictment, denied the charges and later claimed the case was politically motivated.
He said he was investigated and indicted to enable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to win the seat.
Martinez cited no specific evidence, but noted that the U.S. Attorney in Miami at the time, Dexter Lehtinen, was Ros-Lehtinen's husband.
Neither Lehtinen nor Ros-Lehtinen responded to Herald phone calls for comment.
In the past, Dexter Lehtinen has denied the allegation, but many Martinez supporters are convinced he manipulated the case to help his wife -- and the Republican Party -- claim Pepper's seat. Martinez dropped out of the race and Ros-Lehtinen became the first Cuban-American member of Congress in 1989.
Martinez met with top Democratic Party officials in Washington last fall, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic Caucus and architect of the strategy that helped Democrats win control of the House in 2006.
Martinez declined to say who conducted the polls and did not release poll data. But a close friend, Jorge de Cárdenas, said the poll showed Martinez ''played favorably'' with Hispanic and non-Hispanic voters in the district, and that 15 percent were undecided.
One of the best known Cuban American politicians, Martinez belongs to the old guard of South Florida's Democratic Party -- a pioneer in local politics who blazed a trail for other Cuban Americans in city and county politics.
Martinez's pluses, he says, are his record as councilman and then mayor of Hialeah for almost three decades.
In recent interviews, Martinez and Díaz-Balart cited accomplishments.
Martinez spoke of affordable housing programs, an improved Hialeah downtown, better streets and other public works.
''I would focus on public works programs, providing more money for water quality and water abundance in our community, housing, health insurance -- to work with both Democrats and Republicans to bring about a health insurance program that everybody would have access to,'' Martinez said.
Díaz-Balart cited efforts to tighten the Cuba embargo, restore Social Security benefits and food stamps to legal immigrants, grant residence to Central American immigrants and secure $100 million for construction of a new headquarters for U.S. Southern Command.
Martinez told The Miami Herald that, if elected, he will not work with Ros-Lehtinen -- not because of sour grapes about his past legal wrangles but because of their different political philosophies.
''I want to be progressive,'' he said. ``I want to be able to work with the majority of members of Congress that are progressive-minded and I don't see her that way.''
MianiHerald
It's official, Raul just announced on the TV program "A Mano Limpia"
We here at TFW support the Martinez candidacy.
Congratulation Raul Martinez
Martinez's expected announcement Tuesday in front of Hialeah City Hall pits two South Florida political titans -- both admired by large numbers of Cuban Americans.
The campaign almost certainly will be deeply acrimonious with charges of corruption, and challenges of who's tougher on Cuba. Martinez, 58, a Democrat, is the most serious challenger Republican Díaz-Balart, 53, has faced in his 15 years as U.S. congressman.
For Martinez, the campaign will also be a chance to redeem himself -- running a race he has groomed himself for since the late 1980s when his hopes of replacing the legendary Claude Pepper were dashed after federal prosecutors opened a corruption investigation of the then-Hialeah mayor's dealings with developers.
The probe led to a conviction, appeal, reversal by an appellate court and two subsequent mistrials.
Martinez never spent a day in prison and the case was ultimately dropped. He remained mayor until 2005 when he stepped down ostensibly to devote more time to family and business.
The political bug never stopped eating away at him, though.
'Once you're in politics there's always that little `bichito' [little bug] inside,'' he told The Miami Herald in a recent interview.
Martinez said he's a Cuban-American Democrat -- a minority in Miami-Dade -- because he's part of the centrist wing of the party. ``I was a Democrat because I believed in housing. ... I believed in helping the disadvantaged. ... Yes, you have to have a strong defense. Yes, you have to have a strong immigration policy, all of that. But you gotta be more humanistic.''
Up for grabs in the sprawling district are a growing number of independent-minded voters unaffiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties.
The 21st congressional district runs from Miramar in Broward through Miami Lakes and Hialeah south to Kendall in Miami-Dade and is overwhelmingly Hispanic. It has a majority of registered Republicans: 124,744 versus 101,267 Democrats. But those numbers reflect a drop of 4,558 registered Republicans and a slight gain of 111 Democrats since 2006. The number of unaffiliated voters has grown to 71,208.
Jeffrey Garcia, a Democratic Party political consultant said the numbers suggest that Díaz-Balart's district is becoming less Republican.
Díaz-Balart has told The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald that Martinez's return is part of a ploy by Fidel Castro sympathizers to lift or weaken the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. Martinez insists he is not interested in changing the four-decades' old embargo against Cuba, though he wants to ease the restrictions the Bush administration set on family travel to Cuba and on remittances.
''He's muddying the waters,'' Martinez said. ``What is he afraid of?''
Polls show that Cuban Americans are split on the 2004 travel limits, which restrict visits of Cuban Americans to once every three years to see a parent, child or spouse on the communist island. Previously, Cuban Americans could travel to Cuba once a year to see aunts, uncles or cousins -- now no longer allowed.
Díaz-Balart, campaigning Monday with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said voters must keep Martinez's record in mind when casting their ballot.
''I stand on my record and it's an extensive record of effective representation of our community,'' Díaz-Balart told The Miami Herald. ``He has a record, also. I think he's unfit to be trusted with public office and his record shows that. ... I've always treated the voters with respect. His record is not only of corruption but also vulgarity.''
For Díaz-Balart, Martinez would be his first serious challenge since he was elected to Congress in 1992.
''It's an opportunity for Lincoln to show weakness or flex his muscle. The challenge for Raul would be, is he able to get any support outside of Hialeah?'' said political science professor Darío Moreno, director of FIU's Metropolitan Center, a think-tank.
Moreno has done polling in the past for Díaz-Balart and is perceived by Martinez as an ally of the Republican incumbent.
Moreno said his prior polling showed Díaz-Balart has an advantage over Martinez and that the former mayor does not ''travel well'' outside Hialeah.
But Martinez said a private poll shared with him recently showed he could win by a significant margin.
Martinez has never lost an election since first running for the Hialeah council in 1977. Díaz-Balart ran in 1982 as a Democrat for a Florida House seat and lost to a Republican. He has won every race since being elected to the Florida Legislature in 1986 as a Republican.
By the time Miami Congressman Claude Pepper fell ill with terminal cancer at the age of 88 in 1989, Martinez had set his sights on his congressional seat only to see federal authorities disclose he was being investigated for corruption.
A grand jury indicted Martinez in 1990 on charges of extortion and racketeering. Federal authorities alleged that, as mayor, Martinez abused his authority by extorting from developers more than $1 million in cash and property in exchange for zoning favors.
Martinez, who was suspended from office within hours of the indictment, denied the charges and later claimed the case was politically motivated.
He said he was investigated and indicted to enable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to win the seat.
Martinez cited no specific evidence, but noted that the U.S. Attorney in Miami at the time, Dexter Lehtinen, was Ros-Lehtinen's husband.
Neither Lehtinen nor Ros-Lehtinen responded to Herald phone calls for comment.
In the past, Dexter Lehtinen has denied the allegation, but many Martinez supporters are convinced he manipulated the case to help his wife -- and the Republican Party -- claim Pepper's seat. Martinez dropped out of the race and Ros-Lehtinen became the first Cuban-American member of Congress in 1989.
Martinez met with top Democratic Party officials in Washington last fall, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic Caucus and architect of the strategy that helped Democrats win control of the House in 2006.
Martinez declined to say who conducted the polls and did not release poll data. But a close friend, Jorge de Cárdenas, said the poll showed Martinez ''played favorably'' with Hispanic and non-Hispanic voters in the district, and that 15 percent were undecided.
One of the best known Cuban American politicians, Martinez belongs to the old guard of South Florida's Democratic Party -- a pioneer in local politics who blazed a trail for other Cuban Americans in city and county politics.
Martinez's pluses, he says, are his record as councilman and then mayor of Hialeah for almost three decades.
In recent interviews, Martinez and Díaz-Balart cited accomplishments.
Martinez spoke of affordable housing programs, an improved Hialeah downtown, better streets and other public works.
''I would focus on public works programs, providing more money for water quality and water abundance in our community, housing, health insurance -- to work with both Democrats and Republicans to bring about a health insurance program that everybody would have access to,'' Martinez said.
Díaz-Balart cited efforts to tighten the Cuba embargo, restore Social Security benefits and food stamps to legal immigrants, grant residence to Central American immigrants and secure $100 million for construction of a new headquarters for U.S. Southern Command.
Martinez told The Miami Herald that, if elected, he will not work with Ros-Lehtinen -- not because of sour grapes about his past legal wrangles but because of their different political philosophies.
''I want to be progressive,'' he said. ``I want to be able to work with the majority of members of Congress that are progressive-minded and I don't see her that way.''
MianiHerald
It's official, Raul just announced on the TV program "A Mano Limpia"
We here at TFW support the Martinez candidacy.
Congratulation Raul Martinez
posted by madtom at 9:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home