Maria Elvira Salazar uses socialist scare in rematch vs Donna Shalala

Television journalist Maria Elvira Salazar announced Thursday on twitter and YouTube that she wants a rematch with Congresswoman Donna Shalala, who beat her last November to replace longtime U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who retired more than three decades in office.

Salazar lost to Shalala by 6 points, 52 to 46%, and apparently thinks she can make up the difference by using local fear of communist regimes and the demonization of all Democrats as socialists. Of course, the Dems aren’t helping with progressive darlings like New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Suarez and her good ideas gone bad confusing young, ideological people.

There is actually footage of big, bad, scary AOC in the Florida District 27 ad.

“While some members of her party peddle the same radical, socialist agenda that has ruined the countries from which many of us escaped, Shalala remains disturbingly silent,” Salazar says in the 3-minute video after she does a short history of her life. “Silence in the face of oppression is complicity.

“We must not be silent. We must not remain on the sidelines while many on the left want to implement in this country the failed socialist systems that brought misery, oppression and exile to many of our countries.

“I will not be invisible, I will not remain on the sidelines, and I will not be silent,” Salazar says at the end. “I will fight to preserve and protect the freedom for which my parents were willing to give up everything.”

It’s clear Salazar will try to cast Shalala as a left wing nutcase enabler of “corrupt, banana-republic dictators” — even anti-Semitic — which is ridiculous. With her anti-environmental history and battle with labor unions, the former private university president is practically Republican.

Does that kind of “communista!” campaign still work in Miami? In 2020? It didn’t work in 2018 for Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla in the county commission race or in 2017 for former State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz in the Senate race against Annette Taddeo.

Then again, there are about 280,000 Cubans in the district — and Cubans are high performing voters.

That is likely why Salazar is casting herself as a fierce anti-communist with the credentials to act on our best interests in hemispheric affairs, even though the video also includes footage of Cuban exiles coming here and language that seems she is not in line with Donald Trump‘s immigration policy.

“Coming to terms with leaving behind everything you have worked for your entire life and starting anew with $5 in your pocket is not a big price to pay when freedom is at stake. This is a story of many exiles, including my Cuban parents who came to this great country empty handed 60 years ago,” she says.

“I grew up hearing about the horrors and injustices of the socialist Castro regime, which instilled in me a deep faith in and a desire to pursue the American dream,” Salazar said.

“My career as a journalist has taken me all over the world, in particular Latin America. I have confronted dictators with questions they did not want to hear, and much less, wanted to answer.”

Well, yes, and no. There was that one interview she scored with Fidel Castro where Salazar totally gushed like a flirting teenager with the tyrant. She referred to hi as “comandante” and “un revolucionario por excelencia,” which translates to a revolutionary par excellence.” Like, really? Salazar later said she was caught off guard when he complimented her legs. Ugh. Really? Someone tried to make an issue out of it in the primary, but she won

Then, in 2016, she applauded Barrack Obama‘s opening with Cuba, calling it the right thing to do.

Still, she says her experience covering war and struggle in Central and South America and the classes she took at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University has made her a good choice for Congress.

“Today, I can speak with authority about the problems and solutions for Cuba, for Venezuela and Central America,” Salazar said.

So can almost any Cuban in Miami.

Salazar will have to start fundraising right away, as Shalala has already amassed almost $600,000 for her reelection, which is not guaranteed. While she won by six points, Shalala is not widely beloved. Former Sen. Bill Nelson — who lost his race against former Gov. Rick Scott — won the same District 27 by 12 points, for example, and the Dems failed gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum, also won the district by double digits.

And her campaign has already made a big faux pas: Salazar’s name was spelled wrong on the website address on the video screen. Her name. Someone is getting fired already.

Then, a sharp member of Team Shalala bought that domain — www.mariaelvriasalazar.com (see? the r and the a are transposed) — and put the Congresswoman’s site on there.

Congressional District 27, Donna Shalala, Maria Elvira Salazar

Maria Elvira Salazar uses socialist scare in rematch vs Donna Shalala added by Ladra on August 2, 2019
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