First day of early voting = Candidate Catwalk

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Early voting starts today. Do you know where your candidates are?

The fat ballot means that there will likely be a slew of local and state candidates with teams of sign wavers at the busiest of the polling places. In Miami-Dade, there are the big three that outperform the rest time and time again. The historic Coral Gables library, a beautiful building I grew up in and around; the West Dade Regional Library on Coral Way, the two-story behemoth built for a bubbling suburbia; and, my personal favorite for the sheer drama, JFK Library on West 49th Street in Hialeah.

Hopefully, Ladra can take a walk by all three. I’ve been promised protection at JFK, so don’t worry.

The countywide candidates will likely want to play butterfly like me, hopping from flower to flower. Especially the main event: The mayoral race between Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commission Chairman Joe Martinez. Ladra expects Gimenez to spend more time in Coral Gables, his home base from when he represented district 7 on the commission, and Martinez to hang out more at the West Dade Regional. But maybe that is counter-intuitive and their time is more valuable elsewhere. In either case, they will likely hit all three at some point.

Others that will be on an early voting tour tomorrow will be most of the judicial candidates (more on that later) and Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia, who might have a hard time keeping up with the energetic challenger, former State Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, who was termed out of the house and needs a new job. If I’m lucky, I may also see cameos by Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle — if she comes out of her house at all, following the fiasco with the AB fraud and her potential conflict of interest — and her challenger, the handsome and fiery attorney Rod Vereen.

But state and county commission candidates will stick to the high-performing precinct or precincts in their district. Let’s start with my old stomping grounds from last Halloween — it’s scarier than a cemetery: JFK Library, which is a great place to post live updates from when you can get the wifi. Hialeah’s main polling place is not only normally the busiest, but it often takes on a circus atmosphere on the first and last days of early voting. Last year, there was a guy in costume like former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina with a Pinocchio’s nose — which grew every time he talked — and a guy dressed as Uncle Sam asking Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez to pay taxes on those obscene loans he collected interest, no, I mean principal on. (I had forgotten about that. I guess Gimenez forgot about that little detail, too, huh?)

Anyway, JFK may be either more fun or more subdued than usual since some of the local pols who are somewhat implicated in that whole Hialeah AB fraud scandal may not want to make too many public appearances and tempt the TV cameras (while some of their critics may have a run away with it). Still, there are a bunch of somewhat contested races and JFK can get a couple thousand voters in one day, so it’s hard to completely ignore. We will be looking for:

• State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, who really should have a breeze against non-candidate Mykel “Miguel” Balboa, an employee and, apparently, puppet of Absentee Ballot Queen and certified nutjob Sasha Tirador (I mean, really, what in the world does she think she’s doing?). Gonzalez sued Tirador on Friday, accusing her of libel and slander, stemming from some robocall and TV ad (as if they aren’t all libelous and slanderous)  calling her “odious” and uncivilized. He forgot evil and unstable.
• State Rep. Jose Oliva and the other non-candidate that Sasha pit against him, none other than her mother, Ileana Abay. See? I told you. She’s about to implode. Don’t stand too close, Mykel.
• Miami-Dade School Board Member and former State Rep. Renier Diaz de la Portilla, who is in less of a dogfight now that the Hialeah boletera is tied to his opponent, school administrator Manny Diaz, Jr. But they’re sort of everyday blasé. What would be kinda cool is if they brought their respective posses: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who had cafecito — y aguacate y croqueticas — with Diaz de la Portilla and a throng of fans at Chico’s in Hialeah Friday (more on that later) to bat for Baby DLP or Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who graces Diaz’s mailers alongside all the Hialeah hoodlums — but that was before his sign on the balcony of boletera Daisy Cabreraindicated she may have been collecting ABs for Diaz, too. I don’t know about anybody else, but Ladra would pay good money to see a Marco/Jeb throwdown.

  

The Coral Gables library may see a couple of other race horses stop by:

• Baby DLP’s brother, former Alex Diaz de la Portilla in a race for House seat 112 against former Rep. Gus Barreiro. Oh, who am I kidding? Dean DLP is not going to mingle with the peons at polling places. He’ll be in some smoky room, getting phone calls from the field, shushing people, pacing back and forth, chain smoking and claiming a crushing victory every five minutes, leaving Barreiro to sweat it out by himself. The DLPs never let anyone see them sweat.
• Barreiro might run into his half brother, Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, whose district overlaps the state house district and who is in a much tighter fight, Ladra thinks, with former State Rep. Luis Garcia, who was going to run for Congress but went for the county dais instead at the behest of billionaire car king and wannabe emperor Norman Braman (more on that later).
• The fresh meat from the Democratic primary in 112: Alex Dominguez and Jose Javier Rodriguez, one of whom (read: Rodriguez) will be a lucky, lucky boy and get to go into the runoff against Dean DLP, which is like a free university education in politics and good schooling for the next time they run for something, because neither one stands a chance this time.
• State Rep. Erik Fressen — the Canada or Switzerland of the war between the DLPs and the bulk of the bullish Miami-Dade delegation (more to come, I swear; just let me catch up) — and the mosquito in his face, Amory Bodin, who won’t win but has made enough of a buzz to do more damage next time. Watch for the Democrat in this race for 114 to also be out handing out palm cards, even though he’s unopposed in the primary. Ross Hancock, who will announce next week a $1,000 reward for information on absentee ballot fraud — God bless him and Ladra’s tail is wagging again — might want to take advantage of a bipartisan base due to the other races to get his name out a little more.

Moving westward, we have the West Dade Regional library, the home base of at least one bitter battle or two:

• State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan and Jose Felix “One More Pepe” Diazwill have to find opposite corners on the driveway to the West Dade Regional or there will be shouting. This has been an ugly race marked with negative attack mailers calling Rivas a non-Cuban and counter-attacks calling Diaz a Cuban queen.

  

• Speaking of queens, State Rep. Carlos Trujillo and radio personality and former military man “Suddenly Capt.” Paul Crespo have also traded barbs, most notably Trujillo’s tagging of Crespo as Mr. Fast and Furious for the DUI and speeding ticket he got last year right around the time he had qualified to run against U.S. Congressman King David “Nine Lives” Rivera in the Republican primary. Yeah, that would lead me to drink, too. There’s a reason King David has no challenger this time in the primary.
• Speaking of Mr. Nine Lives, we may also get to see the Democratic frontrunners in that Congressional race: former Public Service Commission Chairman and Cuban-American National Foundation disassembler Joe Garcia, who is hoping the third time is the charm (more on that later), and little, fiesty Annette Taddeo 2.0 Gloria Romero Roses, who was hand-picked by DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is not on Ladra’s radar…yet.

  

• State Rep. Michael Bileca — with his wife, likely, for the Spanish speakers — who is being slightly challenged by schoolteacher Eugene “Geno” Perez, who made this race interesting when he switched to this smaller, less costly, more manageable — and, demographically, more winnable — race from his initial bid against School Board Member Carlos Curbelo, who has since helped fund a PAC for Perez’s campaign guru, Emiliano “The Dark Horse” Antunez, who gave himself that nickname. Not one of mine.

As for the races outside those big three precincts, there is one other place Ladra would take a walk by if she could: The West Kendall library, where I might find State Rep. Juan Zapata and Miami-Dade Police officer Manny Machado, who are vying to fill the seat vacated by Chairman Martinez in district 11. Machado might not come out, though, since he is banking mostly on absentees from his campaign lead, AB Queen Sasha.

Who else might not come out at all? State Reps. Jeanette Nuñez and Frank Artiles, who don’t have much of a reason to risk the rainy day since they don’t have much of a challenge to their respective seats — such a shame, because that has given Artiles plenty of time to get involved in the commission race in district 11 (more on that later).

Ladra asks forgiveness from all the Democrat candidates in the northern and southern edges of the 305 for not knowing more about their races and not caring really at all. This is Political Cortadito, not Political Tea or Political Milkshake. Notice how the Dems I do follow have Zs or accents in their names? It may not be politically correct, but that’s not the title of this page either, is it?

Go get your own blogger. Or give Ladra a reason to come sniffing around. Make café.