David Rivera collects petition signatures for 2016 House run

Down but not out, former Congressman David “Nine Lives” Rivera — who just can’t stay away from polls on Election Day — is living true to his nickname and planning a comeback.

Rivera, who just came off a blistering loss in the Republican congressional primary — coming in fourth place of five — was enjoying the company of voters at Green Glades Elementary Tuesday afternoon, as he collected petition signatures to put him on the ballot for the 2016 House race in district 118.

Oh, he won’t run against incumbent Rep. Frank Artiles (R-Kendall), but just por si las moscas — say Artiles wants to run for something else, like the county seat now occupied by Commissioner Juan Zapata — Rivera wants first dibs at an open seat.

“I’m tanned, I’m rested, I’m ready.” — David Rivera

“I would never run against Frank,” a quite chipper Rivera told Ladra between “customers” who were all too eager to sign on the dotted line. “Frank is a friend. Frank is a brother. And he’s done a great job in the state legislature.

“But if he wants to pursue higher office, whether its the presidency or the U.S. Senate in 2016, then I’m tanned, I’m rested, I’m ready.”

He lives a bit North of Districdt 118, in Doral, but has a house he rents in the district that he says he would move into once he knows he’s running.

Rivera also handed out yellow homemade slate cards with his recommended candidates in English on one side and in Spanish on the other. The usual suspects you’d expect: Rick Scott and Carlos Lopez-Cantera for Guv and LG, the whole GOP administration (Pam Bondi, Jeff Atwater, Adam Putnam) Artiles and Eddy Gonzalez for property appraiser. Oh, and no on medical marijuana.

No surprises there. He just wants to stay relevant.

But the purpose of Tuesday’s field trip to several polling places along the Coral Way corridor was to gather as many petition signatures as he could.

State House district 118 is completely within the congressional District 26 that Rivera represented for two terms until Congressman Joe Garcia took it from him under the cloud of an FBI investigation into a financed plantidate (which is still ongoing) and in an Obama year. He placed fourth in the Aug. 26 primary, but one could argue that he wasn’t really trying.

That’s because Rivera suspended his campaign midstream, claiming it was because of some judicial order on redistricting, and even back then he hinted at just this very move, when he said he would instead “launch” a campaign for state House.

He’s one foot in and one foot out again with this one, repeating often to Ladra that it all depends on Artiles’ moving up or out. “It doesn’t mean I’m running,” Rivera said, but then chased after yet another voter for a signature. He needs about 2,000 to get on the ballot. Ladra thinks he’ll get them easy. After all, he got 1,907 Miami-Dade voters to pick him in the Republican congressional primary, and he wasn’t even trying.

Irma Roque, 72, was impatient as she waited for someone else to sign the form. “And me? When can I sign?” Voter after voter, people signed Rivera’s petition and promised to help him. One woman, 61, went to her car, then came back and asked if she could take petitions back to her friends. Rivera gave her a fat stack and a kiss on the cheek.

And it wasn’t just the little old Cuban ladies who love him that rushed to sign.

“Of course,” said one young couple who chatted with Rivera for a while, asking about mutual friends, as they took turns signing. “I’d give you three but she’s not born yet,” said a very pregnant Katherine Villazon.

The people who love Rivera love him for his hard stance on Cuba, and because he’s just the niño lindo darling of the exile community. But he also has track record of making things happen for Miami-Dade during his eight years in Tallahassee. He was instrumental in bring the medical school to FIU and much of the infrastructure improvements we see now, like viaduct in Doral, the interchange being built at the cross of SR 826 and 836 and the Port of Miami tunnel.

“All of that happened when I was on the appropriations committee,” Rivera told me. “I called it my VIP project — viaduct, infrastructure, port tunnel.”

Rivera’s still not out from under that cloud, though. The FBI investigation that saw Democrat candidate Justin Lenar Sternad and campaign consultant Ana Sol Alliegro tried and convicted on campaign finance violations — because Sternad said Alliegro and Rivera financed his race — is still hanging over his head. You’d think that by now the U.S. Attorney’s office would file charges already or get off the pot.

“That doesn’t concern me,” Rivera told Ladra, adding that he has never been approached by any authorities, investigators or prosecutors. “It’s all politics. It’s high level, nasty politics, but it’s politics nonetheless.”

Politics being something Rivera can’t stay away from. He’d make so much more money as a Tallahassee lobbyist, since he knows everybody there and they all — or many of them — owe him favors.

But he can’t stay away from the polls on Election Day.

David Rivera, Frank Artiles

David Rivera collects petition signatures for 2016 House run added by Ladra on November 4, 2014
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