David Rivera: Don’t count me out of the race just yet

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While three Republican hopefuls — okay, five, but really only three — are vying for the chance to run against U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia in November, the longtime Congressman that Garcia toppled in 2012 to get there is not necessarily completely out of the picture.

Ladra don’t call him King David “Nine Lives” Rivera for nothing.

Over the past couple of weeks, as the Republican primary contest heats up, four separate and unconnected political insiders, including one longtime campaign staffer, have said they are holding back their potential support for any of the three viable candidates because they don’t know if King David — who raised eyebrows when he showed up at the swearing in of his pal Carlos Lopez-Cantera as lieutenant governor — will want to return to the throne.

Rivera himself told Ladra this week that he didn’t know either.

In a short telephone interview Wednesday night — as he bought cheese to go with red wine because he was picking someone up at the airport (and no, peanut gallery people, it was not Ana Sol Alliegro) — the former Congressman said he was not ruling out another run for his old seat.

Maybe he was buoyed by the poll results released in November by former Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, one of the candidates, showing Martinez was actually ahead of Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos Curbelo, the perceived frontrunner, by 3 points.

Ladra suggests that if either of them do another poll, they include Rivera’s name, just for kicks, and see what happens.

Rivera had told Ladra last year that 2013 was all about making money in “business development consulting” and that he would make up his mind about his political future in 2014. But it’s only February, he said this week.

Qualifying deadline for the race is not until May and, frankly, despite all his image problems in the media, Rivera is the only candidate who can throw his hat in at the last minute and become the instant frontrunner. Especially in a six-man race. Or a four-man race, as it were. Only Cutler Bay Mayor Ed “Mac” MacDougall can light a candle next to these guys, and barely. The other two candidates, whose names I am not even bothering to look up now, are wasting their time.

But maybe they all are if King David decides to retake his crown. He has been low key, but not completely disappeared, dropping in now and then on the local Miami-Dade Republican Party meetings and making this very high-profile visit to Tallahassee to be at C-Lo’s swearing in.

Okay, okay. Ladra can hear all the naysayers already, talking about how David would be dogged by the media and crazy to put himself back out in the cross hairs of any law enforcement authorities, all of whom obviously have a thing for him. Part of me agrees. I have told him that he can maybe have more impact working as a consultant and kingmaker.

But think about it. Rivera, who escaped a 52-count indictment because the statute of limitations expired, is not under any kind of new indictment. Nor does it look like the current investigation into his alleged plantidate in the 2012 Democratic primary is going anywhere. Alliegro, a person of interest in that case, came back to Miami from abroad to speak to authorities — and then they let her go back to Nicaragua. Rivera is best buds with the new LG and local boy done good Sen. Marco Rubio, which is the only reason I can think of for him not to run — to help Rubio become the first Hispanic president of the United States.

And, most importantly, he doesn’t have to get a big majority on such a crowded ballot. A consummate candidate, the politician’s politician just has to get the diehard abuelita super voters who still love him no matter what and always will.

You don’t think David Rivera can get 26% of the vote in his old district? Please. The primary is ol Nine Lives’ for the taking.

The general would still be a challenge, probably. The demographics in what some still call “David’s district” have changed somewhat to favor a Democrat candidate. But it’d also be a real rematch in a new, sans-Obama atmosphere in which Garcia’s image has also been tarnished vis–à–vis an absentee ballot fraud scandal that landed his chief of staff, rightfully or not, in jail.

Ladra loves karma. And there isn’t a political junkie in the world — love Rivera or hate him — that wouldn’t relish this particular rematch.

Run, David. Run.

  Congressional district 26, David Rivera, FL26, Joe Garcia