Things just went from bad to worse for U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia

• Tweet
• Sumo

• Tweet

As if Congressman Joe Garcia wasn’t already in enough trouble.

Facing a well-funded and heated challenge in what national observers call one of the most flippable races in the country, Garcia — who has been smeared with an absentee ballot fraud scandal in his 2012 victory over former Rep. David “Nine Lives” Rivera — doesn’t seem to really be campaigning very much. Not what you’d expect for such a nationally watched contest.

He hasn’t really had much TV advertising, except for that unfortunate video with former Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman before he was arrested on public corruption charges. He doesn’t have one sign up in District 26. He’s MIA in Cuban radio. He can’t dog those allegations of absentee ballot fraud that his chief of staff spent Christmas in jail for.

Read related story: New Joe Garcia video ad features Steven Bateman cameo

Well, okay, Garcia stumped around a little in the primary for Miami-Dade Commissioner elect Daniella Levine Cava, ate some barbecue ribs with folks in Florida City on Labor Day and had his mom make a few phone calls Wednesday night.

That’s not going to win a midterm election where the Republican nominee with a 16,000-registered voters advantage and at least a million dollars has been campaigning for more than a year.

Now, about a month or less before the absentee ballots drop, Garcia’s in bigger trouble: He’s on the front page Thursday of a Miami Herald story about a four-year old investigation into plantidate Roly Arrojo , the alleged ringer that Garcia put into the 2010 Republican primary to steal votes from Rivera, who went on to beat him that year anyway. Arrojo, in other words, is Garcia’s Justin Lenard Sternad, who has been sentenced to seven months for campaign law violations as the alleged plantidate in the 2012 primary — put there by Congressman David Rivera through Ana Alliegro (more on that later).

Coño. It’s like part of a formula or something.

“Federal prosecutors are intensifying their criminal investigation of U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia’s former campaign manager and chief of staff who’s suspected of helping fund a phony tea-party candidate to siphon votes from a Republican rival in 2010,” starts the Herald story that posted online Wednesday night and talks about four subpoenas in the case.

Both Arrojo and Garcia’s former chief of staff, Jeffrey “No Relation” Garcia, have long denied any wrongdoing. But they are old friends and one-time business partners and Arrojo is suddenly going to run against Garcia’s friend and meal ticket? Yeah, riiiiiight. Furthermore, the print shop where Arrojo got his literature had ties to Jeff Garcia and another man who worked for Joe Garcia’s campaign.

Read related story: 5 things to know about the Jeffrey Garcia AB fraud plea deal

This case always looked to Ladra even more solid than the one against Rivera. And Garcia, or his people, are starting to sound like Rivera, too:

“We’ve never been told that he’s the target of any investigation. This is old news,” David O. Markus, a criminal defense attorney hired by Garcia’s campaign, said in a statement to the media.

So Garcia’s done nothing wrong and he hires one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state?

Federal prosecutors, as the Herald noted, spoke to the congressman’s former spokesman, Giancarlo Sopo, who resigned after he was implicated in the absentee ballot investigation, and a 2010 fundraiser who now works with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz about Arrojo’s connection to the Garcia campaign.

Wow. Can you hear that? That’s the sound of cardboard boxes being packed at the Congressman’s office. Because, like I said, Garcia was already in trouble and now, Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo — who has been calling Garcia the “most corrupt politician in Washington” — will have a field day with this.

Garcia, who can’t win on just the Democrats he’s managed to keep interested, has one chance only: Focusing more on Curbelo’s own scandal — how he hides his lobbying clients under his wife’s name and refused to disclose who he does business for, which could present a conflict of interest at the school board and, if voters allow it, in Congress.

Read related story: Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt

I mean, he can’t really campaign on Obamacare. That was passed before he got there. He can’t really campaign on immigration reform. That hasn’t been passed. In fact, he hasn’t gotten one bill passed in two years, has he?

So, it’s not going to be easy. But it’s still a winnable race.

All Garcia has to do is three little things: (1) Challenge the Curbelo client list thing. Hammer that home. Yes, go negative. (2) Stop issuing statements on press releases and actually have the courage to go on radio and TV and (3) Engage and connect with voters lickety split because the only thing they really know about you now, Congressman, is that you eat your earwax, you think communism works and your chief of staff spent Christmas in jail for absentee ballot fraud.

Well, now they’re going to hear all about this new investigation.

And, again, absentee ballots drop in about a month.

  Carlos Curbelo, Congressional district 26, David Rivera, Joe Garcia