Two of the big profile candidates in the upcoming Miami Beach elections say that that other candidates, including their main challengers, are running anti-Hispanic campaigns against them.
Mayor Matti Bower, a native Cuban who is running for commission, and Commissioner Michael Gongora, who his her hand-picked half-Cuban successor in the mayoral race, both told Ladra last week that they felt there was a definite and intentional anti-Hispanic theme going on in the mayoral campaign of Philip Levine and his allies.
“Why do you think I’m running,” Bower asked me.
Well, silly me, I thought that after 14 years of this you couldn’t let go of the power and prestige — let alone the perks, like taxpayer paid trips to Europe — that elected office gives ya.
But she said it was because she “won’t let them do this.” And by this, apparently, she means take out the Hispanics on the dais. She suggests that is what Levine’s “Take Back Miami Beach” campaign is about.
“Take back from what? That’s what I want to know,” she told me, standing next to the nodding, grinning Gongora, who was completely in agreement.
“Take it back from people who are incompetent and bigots and racists,” said political consultant David Custin, who is working on a full slate of campaigns, which includes Levine’s and one candidate in each commission race. Ladra spoke to him over the phone but she swears she could practically see his face turning red as he spoke.
“They’re disgusting. Matti Bower and Michael Gongora are running an anti-Jewish, anti-non-Hispanic campaign and they’re a bunch of bigots who give Hispanics a bad name,” said Custin, who ironically speaks better Spanish than Bower. Levine would be a fairer competition. Reportedly a functioning bilingual, the self-funded candidate has a Spanish-language ad you can watch on YouTube. Which Ladra assumes he wouldn’t do in an anti-Hispanic campaign.
Levine and Gongora are considered the frontrunners in the mayoral bout, which has three other candidates Ladra is not even going to waste time and space on right now because nobody else is paying attention. Bower was running in an open seat against lawyer Michael Grieco, because, again, the third candidate is just filler.
But Grieco switched Thursday to run against Commissioner Jorge Exposito, who didn’t have an opponent because, again, you can’t count Dave Crystal. That move would have left the former mayor alone against someone named Joshua Dunkelstein, who, again, I’m going to ignore for now. But a third candidate appeared Friday: civic gadfly Joy Malakoff filed Friday afternoon to run against Bower. Which, it seems for now, is almost like Bower has a clear shot at victory.
Grieco says his move was not done to give the only certain Hispanic some competition. And it was not because he was scared of Bower’s numbers — though a little birdie told me that a poll showed the mayor, as unpopular as she might be in some places, would whoop him among high propensity voters. And he did admit her name recognition is enviable.
“I’m unaware of any numbers. My move is in now way responsive to any polls because I didn’t see any,” Grieco told Ladra in a telephone interview Friday afternoon.”The reasons I switched is that nobody wanted to talk about the issues. And that’s why I wanted to run in the first place.”
Grieco said that when he would knock on doors after Bower jumped into the race — and he’s knocked on between 4,000 and 5,000 so far — that people just wanted to talk about her. Whether they love her or hate her — and he says there are more of the latter — that’s all people wanted to focus on. And he doesn’t want to be the anti-Matti candidate, he said. He wants to talk about flooding and traffic and public transportation. He doesn’t want to talk about her, he said.
He’s also somewhat insulted that anyone would insinuate he was involved in an anti-Hispanic campaign.
“I find anybody that brings race or ethnicity into this campaign is being wholly offensive,” Grieco told me. “That means they are not talking about the issues. That’s trying to create an issue that’s not there.”
Coincidentally, however, Custin is working for the similarly-messaged Grieco campaign, too. And for Malkoff. And Elsa Urquiza in another open seat against Sherry Kaplan Roberts, Micky Steinberg (wife of former State Rep. Richard “Sexter” Steinberg) and some guy named Mohammed Rafiqul Islam, who really is wasting his time in Miami Beach with a name like that. Now, I’m raising a card. But it’s an obvious one. And Ladra is just saying what everybody else is thinking.
Wait, Urquiza. Isn’t that Puerto Rican? Cuban? Dominican? A Latina running with the anti-Hispanic slate? Why, the candidate was even elected “Hispanic Resident of the Year” by the Miami Beach Hispanic Board. Either that is one helluva token or possible proof that there is nothing in that pudding.
And Ladra, una perra sata cubana, thinks Custin, another Cuban American, must be doing a good job if the mayor has to resort to the race card. I don’t think Bower is racist, David. I think she may be running a little scared. I mean, can you imagine if she loses? She’s not pulling out the race card. She’s pulling out all her cards.
Still, that means there is even more reason to be worried about the possibility of not having any Hispanics on the seven-member commission in an increasingly Hispanic city.
So give Urquiza a little more of your time maybe?
Anti-Hispanic race card pulled out in Miami Beach elections added by Ladra on
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