Posted on 07/09/2013 4:22:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo threw his hat in the ring as a Republican candidate for Florida’s 26th Congressional District Tuesday.
His family in tow, Curbelo made the announcement in his backyard in west Miami-Dade.
The 26th Congressional District – which stretches from western Miami-Dade County across to Florida’s west coast and includes the Florida Keys – is currently represented by Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia, who handily defeated then-Republican congressman David Rivera last November.
It was a slugfest campaign with charges of phony candidates and ballot rigging. Now, Garcia is plagued with an investigation of a former top aide who authorities allege attempted to secure absentee ballots.
"People are deeply disappointed at the torrent of scandals that constantly emanate from Washington. From the IRS abusing its power to an embarrassing absentee ballot scandal led by the incumbent's campaign in our own district,” Curbelo said.
Curbelo, 33, cited his success as a Miami-Dade School Board member. He has represented District 7 since 2010. He talked about how the board has gotten down to business after turbulent times.
"To see how the school board has come together, and we have people from both parties and different ideologies,” Curbelo said.
Garcia has amassed an impressive war chest hand in the early going before the November 2014 election. His campaign says it has raised $1 million in six months.
Curbelo charges that Garcia is obsessed with running for office.
"We need people less concerned with the next election and more concerned about addressing some of the big issues,” Curbelo said.
Curbelo faces at least two competitors for the Republican nomination. With that in mind, the Garcia campaign provided its response to Curbelo’s announcement Tuesday.
"Our focus is serving our constituents by working on real immigration reform and getting our economy moving. There will be time for campaigning and politics once the other side picks a candidate,” said Raul Martinez Jr., Garcia’s district director and campaign advisor, in a statement. “Congressman Garcia is honored by the incredible support and having raised a million dollars in just six months."
After Rubio this does not get me too excited.
“After Rubio this does not get me too excited.”
Maybe Curbelo is a squish, and maybe he’ll do Univisión’s bidding, but I’d like to learn a bit more about him instead of assuming that he’ll be as disappointing as Rubio has been on the immigration issue.
I hope you’re right about him. I am just saying that I am not going to put all my eggs in this basket till I know him better. I trusted the words of Rubio before he was elected and he voted the same way the Democrat that he ran against would have on immigration. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a single issue voter but I was very disappointed in Rubio on that issue.
Yeah, I’m holding off judgment as well on Curbelo and the other Republicans seeking the FL-26. And I’m not to sanguine on any of them being border-security hawks, not because they’re Cuban-Americans and we got burned by Rubio (and by Mel Martinez before him), but because the FL-26 was carried by Obama by 53.1%-46.4% over Romney (by way of comparison, Obama only carried FL as a whole by 50%-49%), so we’ll likely get candidates who support the Schumer-Rubio bill. Frankly, if the GOP nominee is as conservative as Rubio on every other issue (and Rubio has been excellent except on immigration), then we should consider ourselves lucky.
It’s good more candidates are looking into challenging Garcia, but quite a few Republicans have announced already, and most of them are hispanic (I don’t know if they’re Cuban-American though) Politics1 has Carlos Curbelo, Ed MacDougall, Joe Martinez, and Jose Peixoto all exploring a run on the GOP side, with Jose Felix Diaz, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, and Rene Garcia as potential candidates. It would be interesting if we had a Garcia vs. Garcia matchup (http://voterenegarcia.com/)
Given the makeup of the district, I agree we’d probably be lucky just to have a Rubio clone in this district, let alone someone who is across the board conservative and anti-amnesty. But I’ll say the same thing I said with Martinez and Rubio: we should look at our options CAREFULLY and vet the candidates before jumping to endorse someone the moment they announced. That’s really come back to burn Florida conservatives, whether the candidate is hispanic or not (conservative groups beating down the door to endorse Katherine Harris’ ill-advised Senate bid was an epic disaster, for example)
Garcia vs Garcia would be a hoot. No name recognition advantage. Advertising would be interesting.
There's been similar races, like Rich Sexton running against Jim Saxton in NJ. And, of course, Jim Durkin against Dick Durbin here in Illinois. I'm surprised politicians with extremely common last names like Smith or Johnson don't end up facing a same-name opponent election.
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