Spotted Thursday morning strategizing over breakfast at Green Gables Cafe:
State Rep. Jose Felix “One More Pepe” Diaz and fellow Republican and wannabe representative Daniel Diaz Leyva, the lobbyist running against Democrat State Rep. Jose Javier “J-Rod” Rodriguez in House district 112.
It’s only fair. Danny Boy here worked on Rep. “Pepe” Diaz’s 2010 and 2012 campaigns so it’s only fair that the elected be more engaged than the rest of the GOP establishment backing what they think is their best 2014 chance at flipping that blue seat.
They hunkered around big mugs of coffee or cafe con leche at a table with two other guys Ladra did not recognize talking about this and that. The word fundraiser was uttered.
Diaz Leyva may already be the candidate with the most money. According to campaign finance 
forms filed most recently that show totals through Oct. 10, he had raised $357,500.
That’s a lot of money for a midterm election in a House race that is barely making a blip in the media. For comparison, it is almost $40,000 more than was spent by both J-Rod and former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla in 2012. And they each had primaries! Neither candidate had one this year.
When all is said and done, this mid-term race will have cost more than twice what the House 112 race cost in presidential ’12.
Because Danny Boy is also burning it in record time — with a barrage of direct mailers that arrive nearly every day in voters’ homes, $60,000 worth of TV ad buys, $36,000 worth of Spanish radio time, about $80K on other advertising, and $3,800 on a phone bank earlier this month.
By the time consultant David “@#$%&*!” Custin was through with him, Diaz Leyva only had $60,000 left on Oct. 10.
The $297K he had spent since the middle of this month
was more than all the $284,000 raised by the incumbent, according to J-Rod’s report. Rodriguez spent just over $200K of that, most of it ($150K) on Spanish media and radio and something called “morning media” that Ladra hasn’t seen on reports before.
And rather than one of the usual suspects, he is using the Chicago-bases Snyder Pickerill Media Group to do his ads. They have worked for other legislators, mostly in Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania — but also FORMER State Rep. Maria Sachs of Broward County.
Still, technically, as of Oct. 10, J-Rod was actually leading Diaz Leyva in cash on hand.
But Ladra doesn’t know if that is a good thing; that was three days after absentee ballots were mailed out to Miami-Dade AB voters.
Close to $600K already spent on House 112 race added by Ladra on
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