There comes a time when it’s no longer enough to sit on the sidelines and just report what you know and hope people see the wizard behind the curtain for the failed traveling salesman he is. 
There comes a time when you have to put your blood and sweat and guts where your big mouth is.
Ladra has decided that time is now. I have officially joined the Raquel Regalado campaign for mayor as a communications and media consultant to help her get her positive message of change, accountability and transparency across to residents and voters.
These are all things that I’ve advocated from this site for years. But get ready for the other side to shout “No fair!” Because they will.
They will say that I am biased and that I shouldn’t work for Regalado and write about the race at the same time. Those same haters — many paid consultants on the other side (scared, are we?) — will conjure an imaginary conflict of interest. So here is the truth.
I already like Raquel Regalado as a candidate for mayor. There is no conflict there. 
Everybody knows I’ve soured on Carlos Gimenez. He has gone from being Ladra’s “Golden Boy” in 2011 to being a major disappointment in every possible way. Not just because he likely benefited from the absentee ballot fraud caught in Hialeah in 2012 — and then dismantled the police unit that investigates those kinds of shenanigans — but also because he has become an arrogant, my-way-or-the-highway tyrant who wants to give pieces of the county away to private entities and has his priorities backwards. He represents the special interests and lobbyists and members of his friends and family plan, not the average resident Joe Voter.
More importantly, I know that we cannot afford another four years of Carlos Gimenez. Another term will hurt this county much more than he already has in the last five years, which have really been marked by nothing special but a bunch of “better than the last” inside deals. He has already balanced the last two budgets on the backs of future revenues. Wait till we see the bill due in 2017 (more on that later). The next four years will be marked by significant development and transportation projects and whoever is making the decisions will have an impact on us for decades to come. I don’t want it to be Gimenez.
I think that Anybody But Carlos would make a better representative mayor for our community. Where’s the conflict in helping a smart, articulate and passionate woman with fresh ideas and total transparency fight the monster incumbent that he’s become? There is none.
And, by the way, it seems silly to have to point it out but Political Cortadito has always been biased and I’m okay with that. This space is for political commentary and analysis, not straight news. 
Journalism has a long history of advocacy or opinionated editorials and columns. That’s what this is. And no news organization has been compensating me for my hard work these past five years. There’s a difference between my work at the Miami Herald and my passion project. I do this because I want to, not because I have to. Sure, it is based in journalistic integrity cultivated over my 20+ years in the profession, where I’ve earned investigative awards and breaking news awards and community service awards. That’s why Political Cortadito is different from other activist blogs and has won its own, multiple awards.
Because while I use humor and sarcasm to make a point, said commentary and analyses are based on data, interviews with credible, longtime sources, historical knowledge, experience and, my personal favorite, documents. Ladra just happens to know where to find these elements and how to connect the dots that sometimes get lost in the major media stories. And, yes, in the process, I am often led to an informed opinion that I am only too happy to share with others.
Everybody knows Ladra doesn’t love Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, for example. Do an archive search and see. 
He is a self-confessed loan shark and a proven liar who has bought votes with pancakes, intimidated elderly residents of public housing and committed absentee ballot fraud. Am I expected to ignore all that every time I write about him? Sorry, no can do. That’s why he has me illegally expelled from public events and illegally followed by Hialeah Police, which he uses as his G4. I’ve never worked for someone challenging him — although Hernandez claimed I worked for Raul Martinez in 2011 — but I certainly could without compromising my integrity.
Same could be said of Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine, who abuses his power to censor or retaliate against those who disagree or disapprove of him and shook down vendors and contractors for contributions to his pal’s shady PAC last year. But I didn’t work for his opposition because they never hired me, not because it would make me uncomfortable.
And everybody knows how I feel about Congressman Carlos Curbelo. We 
were friends once, but then he started to question my ethics after I raised concerns about his lobbying firm being in his wife’s name to hide his client list. Since his wife is not an elected official, the clients of her lobby firm — the one in which her husband works, but not her — do not have to be disclosed. Instead of fixing it when I brought it to his attention — he could have put the company back in his name and disclosed the clients — he took to try to discredit me. I wasn’t working for anyone when I published that, but I certainly offered to work for Joe Garcia after the primary. (They lost because they didn’t listen to me). I already knew I didn’t want Curbelo to be elected. It was perfectly natural. And I am willing to work for someone who runs against him this year. Just not Annette Taddeo, but only because she can’t win.
Sorry, Annette. It’s not personal. It is always about the greater good.
And that brings me back to Raquel, because that is what she represents.
Ladra is afraid that if Gimenez is elected again — and especially now that he’s faced with term limits — there will be no stopping the insider deals using county resources to benefit his friends and family and campaign donors. Libraries will not be safe. Firefighters and cops will not be safe. 
Parks will not be safe. Only megamalls, soccer stars and millionaire developers need apply to the Gimenez future.
In fact, it would be irresponsible for me not to speak up and try to communicate in every manner possible to the voters what a disaster Carlos Gimenez has been as Miami-Dade County’s Mayor for the past four years. And how scary the next four years could be.
That’s why it’s only natural that I should lend my considerable talents to Regalado during this important campaign. This is more important than the presidential election (although I would work for Marco Rubio, too, if they’ll have me) And it could be the most important county race in decades.
Let the haters hate. They can post their anonymous rants. But I will not respond to every hyper critical character assassination thrown my way because I chose to pick a side that conflicts with the gravy train known as “Los amigos de Carlos.”
This disclosure and explanation is really for the blog’s loyal readers and supporters, who deserve to hear it directly from me before it comes out in the next campaign finance report. Because this will all be transparent. Both I and Raquel Regalado insist on transparency, which is one of the reasons we are simpatico. I will engage with readers who have questions or concerns regarding this post, but only those who choose to identify themselves with their true identity. I don’t have time for paid trolls.
And I will continue to post about whatever Ladra thinks need to be barked about, including county coverage on issues or the connected dots largely ignored by mainstream media.
But not if I can get the mainstream media to cover them first. After all, that’s now part of my job.
It’s official: Ladra is all in with Team Raquel for mayor added by Ladra on
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