Congressman Carlos Gimenez will piece out the Everglades for his fam

When it was first reported in September that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was eyeing a run for Congress in District 26, Ladra thought it was a bad dream.

No such luck.

Gimenez, who is termed out this year, is expected to announce this week — perhaps as early as Wednesday — that he will run for the Republican nomination to challenge Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is arguably the hardest working woman in D.C.

Pero por supuesto, people. How else are he and his family, friends and donors going to keep living on the public trough? Can you just imagine the line at his door if Gimenez is, by miracle, elected to Congress?

His lobbyist son, C.J. Gimenez (left in the photo), will help the mayor’s in-laws at Munilla Construction — one of the company’s responsible for the FIU bridge collapse that killed six people — get new highway contracts. The other bad boy son (pictured on the right), Julio Gimenez — whose company once got a no-bid $4 million contract to repair the roof at the Arscht Center and now wants subsidies for a steel mill in South Dade — will get a no-bid concession stand in the Everglades.

Daughter-in-law Barby Rodriguez-Gimenez, hired by the public relations firm with the county contract for the Water and Sewer Department’s non-existing public outreach, would wear dark sunglasses as she gives short press briefings once a week. And Ralph Garcia Toledo, a onetime personal driver for the mayor who became a fundraising chair and now makes $200 an hour taking notes at meetings and filing papers at the Water and Sewer Department, could get a no-show job consulting on the Keystone Pipeline for half a million dollars.

It could happen. Readers might think Ladra is exaggerating. But by Gimenez standards, such outcomes are not at all as absurd as they should be.

What is absurd — and downright scary at the same time — is the idea of Mr. Giveaway Gimenez as a U.S. representative. So absurd that it could either be (A) a pipe dream fed to King Carlos by the same Republican Party clique that convinced Maria Elvira Salazar that she could beat Donna Shalala in District 27; or (B) a shadow campaign to keep Gimenez relevant and in the news and his political machine and family fed until he runs for Miami mayor in 2021.

After all, he has seen how former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who is reportedly going to be his mentor and help him fundraise, has been able to continue spending his political committee contributions on travel and restaurants and more than $4,000 worth of wine — even paying more than $300K to a company formed 31 days earlier by a close friend — all after he left office.

Gimenez wants some of that.

But the GOP is not completely wrong to think he could be a contender. After all, Mucarsel-Powell only won by 2 percent and Gimenez — who runs a good absentee ballot game and has a proven track record for raising millions — has fooled people before. Some of the same people who voted for Debbie in 2018 have voted for Gimenez more than once.

That is why Florida Democrats have already attacked him for the corrupt, pay-to-play, public parasite that he is. In a 90-second video, they remind voters about the time he cut police jobs, closed libraries, defended the detention of children in cages and spoke secretly to Donald Trump about giving him the Crandon Golf Course.

Calling him “Corrupt Carlos” repeatedly and, dimunitively, “el corruptito,” they remind us that he drives around in a taxpayer paid Mercedes and the no-bid deals he gives to donors and friends. Ladra is surprised they didn’t include all his world travel at the county taxpayers’ expense and wonders what foreign countries he would visit on the dime of U.S. taxpayers.

“Once upon a time in Miami a man of power, a man of fame, a politician abused his power to make himself and his family rich. That man’s name is Corrupt Carlos Giménez,” says a woman with a Cuban accent as photos of Gimenez and his wife dancing at a gala appear on screen and salsa plays.

The ad ends with a promise for a volume two called “Family Ties,” which Ladra simply can’t wait for. Betcha it stars his two boys.

Gimenez doesn’t even live in District 26. He is not about to move there from his cozy house in Coconut Grove near the water and sewer office he seems to be using more and more to avoid the commute downtown. But he doesn’t dare run against Shalala in his own district, which is 27. Despite the fact that Republican giant Ileana Ros-Lehtinen held that seat forever, most observers believe it’s a blue district for the foreseeable future.

Not so with 26. Gimenez and the GOP know he has more of a chance in a a bellwether district that is 35 percent Democrat, 31 percent Republican and 34 percent Independent with a history of going back and forth between parties. Voters in FL26 have elected Republican David Rivera and then Democrat Joe Garcia and then Republican Curbelo before Mucarsel-Powell won with just a 2% margin. The GOP thinks it can turn that seat red again and apparently wanted a name, a known entity with proven fundraising ability and some experience manipulating absentee ballots, as shown by his 2012 race.

But there are thousands of voters in Monroe County that don’t know Gimenez.

And he has to get through a primary first, which might prove harder.

There are already two other Republicans in the race. Real Republicans. Because although he has always run in non partisan races, Gimenez actually endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was a publicity stunt. But it’s going to hurt him in the primary against Irina Vilariño — the hard-right Trump-loving Marielita whose family owns a Cuban restaurant chain and who can’t win the general in a district where independents make the decision especially with racist Frank Artiles as her cheerleader — and firefighter paramedic Omar Blanco, who was the union president and is married to a school teacher. Blanco helped restore fire rescue jobs in Miami-Dade, protesting against threatened Gimenez cuts that would result in rolling “brown-outs” at fire stations in 2013, and worked hard last year to get the extended cancer coverage for firefighters bill passed in Tallahassee.

Reached late Tuesday, Blanco said he welcomed the competition.

“I welcome Carlos to the race. We have worked together in the past to promote public safety but we haven’t always seen eye to eye,” Blanco said in a text message.

“My focus is on the residents of District 26 and ensuring our issues are heard in Washington. I am the only candidate who’s family is a reflection of the working class residents of this district. My wife, a public school teacher, and I, as a firefighter/paramedic, actively work to provide for our family, as do many voters that I speak to every day.”

He, too, should start reminding them about all that Corrupt Carlos has done.

Carlos Gimenez, Congressional district 26, Dabbie Mucarsel-Powell

Congressman Carlos Gimenez will piece out the Everglades for his fam added by Ladra on January 15, 2020
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