And then there were 16 candidates in CD 27 race to replace retiring Ileana

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And then there were 16 candidates in CD 27 race to replace retiring Ileana
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We are going to need a  couple of clown cars this summer for the debates in both primaries for Congressional District 27.

Add Spanish language journalist Maria Elena Salazar (Republican) and Donna Shalala (Democrat) to the other 15 candidates from both parties that have made known their intentions to run for the seat vacated by the retirement of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who has understandably grown tired of having to defend her party.

Both women announced their candidacy in recent days, adding to an already interesting mix that includes another journalist, two state legislators, two city commissioners from two different cities, a former city commissioner, a county commissioner, an alien abduction survivor, a Latin Grammy winner and a one-time nominee to federal court.

Here, let’s list them alphabetically so nobody gets offended. Everybody’s website is also linked (only one couldn’t be found):

The Republican half of the ballot is almost as long and — save for the one candidate who was abducted by aliens and the daughter of a Cuban American musical idol — not as exciting and, so far, pretty much a done deal:

  • Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro (the clear frontrunner in the GOP primary)
  • Angie Chirino, child welfare activist, Latin Grammy winner and daughter of Willy Chirino (the dark horse?)
  • Former Doral Commissioner and alien abduction survivor Bettina Rodriguez-Aguilera
  • Gabe Ferrer, a retired real estate developer running on an anti-Cuban embargo platform (fat chance)
  • Maria Peiro, who actually got almost 12 percent against Ileana two years ago
  • Spanish language TV journalist Maria Elvira Salazar
  • Gina Sosa-Suarez, a real estate agent and filmmaker

Maybe that second list doesn’t matter. Because the common thinking has the seat flipping to blue. Hillary Clinton won this district by a whopping 16 points and Ros-Lehtinen kept getting elected by swing voters like Ladra who are likely to go against the GOP no matter what this time to spite the president.

Related: Two new open seats spur political pinata question: 40 or 27?

Ladra likes a lot of these people. Russell has been a good and necessary voice on the Miami city commission. Except for last week’s vote on the marshal program at the appropriations committee, Richardson has been a solid representative at the state making bipartisan fashionable. Besides marrying the perfect girl, J-Rod has been a good Senator whose voice in Tallahassee is vital.

But this is my district and I am backing Kristen Rosen Gonzalez. I officially joined her team as a paid communications consultant. Nothing changes. I’ve always been a big fan, since the first time Rosen even contemplated running, which was two years before she won her seat in 2015, and I have given her free and mostly unsolicited advice on occasion.

Why? What is it about her? She’s the real deal, a public servant who truly represents the people who elected her. She s passionate about the right things. She calls things as she sees them. She’s a fighter. She announced her plan to run against Ileana, not to fill the vacancy, so she has guts. She’s not a professional politician. She’s an educator who wants to amplify our voices. She doesn’t think she knows better than everybody else. She is there to be a vehicle for us. She gets that, which you would think would be common but is actually quite rare. She believes in representative government and transparency and accountability and mirrors most of my policy positions — she is a moderate and very much, actually, like Ileana in so many ways — so it’s not a conflict of interests.

Related: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to challenge Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

I’m also very honest about supporting qualified, good female candidates the few times we get the opportunity and I think Rosen Gonzalez has the best chance at beating Bruno Barreiro, er, I mean the Republican who gets the nomination. Yeah, that’s right, I don’t believe the inside polls that show the elitist ex president of a private university is on top. That’s preposterous (more on that later).

Shalala is a better talker, that’s for sure. Rosen Gonzalez is not the most polished or sophisticated candidate — which is one of the things I like so much about her. No tiene pelos en la luenga. But she could use help getting her message across against people who are much slicker and who are trained for the media and have multiple media consultants helping them. That’s where I come in.

That doesn’t mean that she’s paid for anything on this blog. She has not and never will. She knows that. We discussed it and I was very clear. In fact, she will read this post along with you all for the first time when it’s out and, I suspect, be somewhat surprised. She might not like the nice things I have to say about other candidates. Too bad. She knows I like them — just not for this seat right now for whatever reason — and she knows that this is not included in my services. What is? Content creation and writing for online and other communications. That’s it. Like always.

Oh, and my free advice on anything else is still free.

Will I keep writing about the race? Absolutely. Why not? My kinship with Kristen doesn’t make anything in this post false and it is something I would have written whether I was on her team or not. And as long as nobody else will cover the race the way Ladra does, nobody can stop me from writing Political Cortadito — that includes the client cause there may be times they prefer I don’t write about something, even if it’s not about their own race. Too bad. It would be easy for someone to shut Ladra up about a race or an issue by hiring me or having someone hire me then, wouldn’t it? That won’t happen. Ever. And if the clients are okay with that, everybody else should be, too.

That said, Ladra is pretty sure that some of these candidates will drop out of the race before the qualifying deadline on May 4. Already, attorney Scott Fuhrman on the Democrat’s side, and former Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado, a Republican, withdrew their candidacy (or, rather, moved to other races).

Who else might fly this cramped coop? Well, look for the people with the least money in their campaign accounts. On the Republican side, Rodriguez-Aguilera (photo left), Ferrer and Peiro have each raised less than $20,000. On the Democratic side, Hepburn is the only one with less than six figures, at just over $20K. The Democrats are raising money at a far faster clip than the Republicans. Did Ladra warn you this seat would go blue? Dunn, who hasn’t posted anything on Facebook since December, hasn’t opened a campaign account.

Among the viable Dems, my Kristen is actually on the bottom of the money tree (again, one of the things I like about her is that she is a scrappy underdog). But she has more than County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, who has more than 10 times the next Republican. David Richardson is leading the Dems with just over $1 million, indicating that this primary is going to be pricey.

Related: David Richardson sets sights on Sen, Gwen Margolis’ seat

Then there’s the chance that some of the electeds will back out after a new bill this session that closed the “Charlie Crist” loophole in the state “resign-to-run” law provides relief for federal office seekers (more on that later). But Rodríguez, who is in the middle of his freshman term, has said that he’s staying in it. And my girl Kristen says we’ll sue to stay on the ballot if they don’t grandfather her in and that we’re in it either way.

So that leaves Russell and Barreiro. Bruno may have his nomination in the bag — though Salazar could be his only threat — but not the general, and he may decide not to risk his last two years on the county commission because he is not termed out til 2020. Ken Russell could decide that Miami still needs him too much, especially now that they have newly elected Joe Carollo to mess things up. Ken, the people need you.

Richardson, who said goodbye to the House last week, was once going to run for Gwen Margolis‘ seat and could opt to wait for that to become open any minute now.

Or they might not leave at all: The more names on the ballot the better chances each candidate has. There is no runoff in a federal primary, so that means that someone in an 10-person race could arguably win with just over 10 percent of the vote.

Qualifying is in May so we’ll know for sure how big the clown car needs to be in two months.

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