Local GOP leader ruffles feathers with Ted Cruz nod

“I think given his future public involvement in that campaign, he should resign,” said Miami-Dade GOP chairman Nelson Diaz, who is probably just itching to endorse his pal and former boss, Marco Rubio. Diaz was his chief legislative aide when Rubio was House speaker and floats Rubio’s name on his website bio. The lobbyist boasts of the relationship in his bio on the Southern Strategy Group website.

But does he have a “Florida is Marco Rubio Country” sign on his front yard? Has he written a check to the campaign? No. “If I do, people like you would say it’s an endorsement from the party chair,” Diaz told Ladra. And he’s right. People like me would.

“It would be inappropriate for a party leader to get publicly involved in a contested primary,” Diaz said. And trust me, I’ve tried. It seems to me a no-brainer that he would support his longtime friend. But he has repeatedly refused to go on the record for any candidate.

Both Diaz and Liliana Ros, the Miami-Dade state committee woman, said that the party actually encourages members to get involved in the campaign of their choice. Other members who are involved in different campaigns — including Camp Cruz — agreed that there has been no backlash from participating in phone banks or supporting the non local candidates.

“We’re not the Communist Party. You can help whoever you want to help,” Ros said. “Except a Democrat, of course.”

But she also said she reminded Roman when he asked if she had Cruz campaign contact information that he wasn’t allowed to use his title or publicly assist on Republican over another. She said she warned him twice.

While there is some confusion over whether or not he intended for the Herald to use his title there is no reason to believe that the newspaper would not. It is the Herald’s obligation to provide as much relevant information as possible. And that’s pretty relevant. Damn the torpedos. In fact, Ladra doesn’t know why the Herald removed the title in their online edition.

Ros — who also refuses repeatedly to tell me who she supports and insists she is still undecided (yeah, right) — is one of those who doesn’t believe that the letter was written by Roman. There are a number of Republicans who believe he was used by the Cruz campaign to try to embarrass Rubio and Jeb!

Roman wrote, for instance, that it was “prime time Miami learned more” about Cruz, when the Miami-Dade GOP had the then just-elected senator over for the Lincoln Day Dinner 18 months ago. He wrote about an environment that pressures folks to get behind one of the local candidates, but Ros said that there are many people within the party working with different campaigns and that she provided Roman weeks ago with the contact information for the Cruz campaign.

Read related story: Ted Cruz stars in big GOP Lincoln Day Dinner fundraiser

Ladra has a problem with the rules because, first, they are not very friendly to our First Amendment rights and, secondly, what good is an endorsement of a Republican candidate that has already been nominated. It’s almost like dating the last man on Earth. You either do or you go it alone.

But I do think that this was some very creative and smart political campaign move. Especially when Cruz and Rubio seem like they are going to be the only two establishment candidates with any real chance left in the early primaries, which start Feb. 1.

In about a day, the story about the Cruz coup was all over the place. “Ted Cruz scored a key endorsement right in heart of Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush country Saturday,” wrote someone in the Washington Examiner. “A GOP leader in the Miami-Dade community has bucked conventional wisdom by endorsing a Republican presidential candidate that isn’t Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio,” reads Politico.

Ros, too, feels that Roman was used by the campaign and should resign. “It’s too bad. He’s a brilliant guy.”

Others also described Roman, a former Burger King executive, as a super smart guy, fresh and energetic. But they followed that up with words like impulsive and divisive and rogue. He does not color inside the lines, one longtime member said.

This is the same Manny Roman who orchestrated a coup of the Miami-Dade Party by Ron Paul supporters in 2012, and their candidate nearly beat Diaz for the chairmanship. Roman may have been named vice chair then — in a truce that was set up to fix the division — except he wrote the resolution against the public financing for the Dolphins Stadium that year and — against the wishes of almost half the voting members — named Rep. Eddy Gonzalez (R-Hialeah) and Eric Fresen (R-Coral Gables) as the ill-advised sponsors of the bills, turning establishment votes off when it cam time to make him VC.

By the way, those two are probably smiling right now.

“There was no need to name names,” the longtime member said.

“It’s one thing to color outside the lines but another entirely to just go to town with jumbo sized crayons.”