Local Republicans said they were all too happy to see Democratic nobodies challenge six state House incumbent Republicans 
and one apparent successor in the Miami-Dade Democratic Party’s “No More Free Rides” campaign — a move that many have characterized as a publicity stunt that may have backfired.
“They gave me a gift,” said Miami-Dade Republican Party Chairman Nelson Diaz, who believes that the Fat Chance Full House Challenge (my words, not his) won’t cause Democrats to run out and vote for unknown wannabes with no name recognition and no experience who they can portray as party puppets, but will cause the Republican base to run out and defend their representatives — and more.
“Annette Taddeo just got Rick Scott re-elected,” Diaz told Ladra, referring to the chairwoman of the Dade Dems and being maybe a little overly optimistic in the light of numerous polls that say otherwise. But we get the drift. This certainly does not help former Gov. Charlie Crist take the mansion back.
“Democrats are not going to come out and vote for someone who has no chance of winning, but our Republicans are going to be motivated,” Diaz said. “Yes, she ruined the summer and fall plans for a lot of legislators. But now, I’ve got 10 different absentee ballot machines in place, at least seven new phone banks I didn’t have before.”
Taddeo says uh-uh.
“The Republican reasoning is totally backwards,” she told Ladra Friday. “Overall, the GOP voters who would vote for Scott are already going to vote in a midterm year. And even that assumes that down-ballot races motivate turnout. Most people would agree it works the other way around.”
She laughed off accusations that she was doing this publicity stunt to raise her stock in order to run for office in the future.
“There would be much easier ways to build my own brand,” Taddeo told me, right after she landed in D.C. for the Democratic National Committee’s Executive Committee meeting. “Are they going to say that is a publicity stunt, too?
“If I wanted a publicity stunt, I would drape the Venezuelan flag over myself while having an arepa in Doral,” she quipped, no doubt referring to Scott’s SOS Venezuela photo opp at El Arepazo in February with Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Sen. Marco Rubio.
“That would be much easier than coordinating seven simultaneous House races in all the Republican districts.”
Related post: Oooops! Dems add Jeanette Nuñez to incumbent challenge
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