Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is not ready to give up Hialeah quite yet — and may have had a date with the devil to make a dent there.
There is a general sentiment that Commission Chairman Joe Martinez has an edge in the City of Progress because his campaign manager, Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador, has been a Hialeah kingmaker for years and because he got a head start on the yard signs (which might not have been good strategy after all). But while Gimenez had to all but give up Hialeah last year against the city’s former Mayor Julio Robaina to focus on the rest of the county — a smart move that ended up winning the seat — he seems comfortable enough with his lead everywhere else this time to play Golden Boy and strut his stuff in what used to be enemy territory.
Not only did Gimenez — who basically stole the county mayor’s seat from the frontrunning Robaina in a scary squeaky post-recall race last year — open a campaign office Saturday about a mile or so from Robaina’s house on a busy street near the Palmetto Expressway, he did it with some of Julito’s old crew, led by none other than Hialeah Councilwoman Vivian “I’ll Notarize That” Casals-Muñoz, who is the big loser’s former sister-in-law, political protégé and favorite notary public.
There were other electeds there lending Gimenez their support who once had ties to Robaina’s political aspirations, including State Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah) and Doral Mayor JC Bermudez. Miami Lakes Councilman Nelson Hernandez and Florida City Mayor Otis Wallace were also there — as were a slew of judicial candidates, including Otis Wallace’s wife (more on that later).
But this was obviously host Casal-Muñoz’s party in the parking lot of her longtime friend and 
supporter, insurance man Henry Bello, who also owns the building a half a block away where the mayor’s Hialeah campaign office is in the exact same space as Viv’s old campaign office at 1490 W 68th St. No, Ladra is not kidding. It is good. It gets better.
See? I thought this was a galleta sin mano — a sort of in your face to Robaina on his home turf. But Gimenez told me the two one-time arch-enemies had a cordial conversation about three weeks ago at The Biltmore and that there were no hard feelings. He told Ladra this when I asked how significant it was that Casals-Muñoz was endorsing him despite her relationship with Robaina, who I suspected would not support him, despite some pretty persistent rumors.
“I don’t know if he’s going to support me, but I don’t think he’s going to oppose me,” the mayor said.
“How do you know,” I asked him.
“He told me.”
Say whaaaat?
Gimenez said that he and Robaina sat down at The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables — no meal, no drinks, “maybe I had tea,” he said, sort of like telling me to stop being so nosy — near the end of June. “Almost exactly a year after the election. It took us a year to sit down together,” Gimenez told Ladra.
“What did you talk about?”
“We talked about the campaign. He’s focused on a lot of other things,” the mayor said, offering no details but smiling broadly and appreciatively when I asked anyway. At least he finds me entertaining.
“Who called who?”
“I approached him,” Gimenez answered me. “I thought it was the time to to talk. It’s been way too long.”
Time, indeed.
The opening of the office — now Ladra knows Robaina gave Viv his blessing, maybe that’s the reason for the meetin’ — comes less than a month before the primary, in which the mayor may just win his re-election in one fell swoop. But, more importantly, it also comes only days before the absentee ballots — the first batch of which are mailed by the Elections Department on Tuesday — hit the streets in the high-performing, voter-rich city that just happens to have a proportionately higher number
of ABs cast from homes where Garcia and Casals-Muñoz are sort of like celebrities.
Timing may be more like it.
“Hialeah is like the center of politics in Miami-Dade,” the mayor told a TV cameraman before he took the stage and said the same thing in Spanish to the crowd, also full of one-time Robaina friends like senior activist Reina Guanche, perennial candidate Francisco Alvarez and Hialeah Chamber of Commerce President Mandy Llanes. There were a bunch of other people there, but some of them may have come for the free arroz con pollo and the tablecloth weights in shiny red paper with starbursts that the viejitas took home with them, as is customary in any Cuban event with centerpieces.
Notably not there, any of the other Hialeah council members, many of whom are, from time to time, warring with Casals-Muñoz, the only one of the Seguro Que Yes crew who seems to sometimes have some independent thought.
But that may not be the case for long.
“We are going to have a lot more events in Hialeah,” the mayor said in Spanish to a TV cameraman. “And you will see other people come out to support me very soon.”
Ladra couldn’t help but ask, since the mayor’s confidence is making him so forthcoming, if it was possible the other rumor — the one where he gets the endorsement of Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez — could be true. I mean anything is possible.
He had tea with Robaina at the Biltmore, for goodness sake.
The mayor smiled broadly again — he’s been doing that a lot lately — which is like saying yes, apparently.
But “maybe,” is all he would say.
Then he winked at me as he walked away with a broad smile, doling out handshakes and hugs in Hialeah.
Of Carlos Gimenez, Julio Robaina and Hialeah added by Ladra on
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