Looks like former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — suspended by the governor after his September arrest on public corruption charges like money laundering and bribery — knows he’s not going to win re-election in District 1. That’s why he’s wasting money on a campaign against the Broward State Attorney who is prosecuting his case.
“This is the shameless liar who attacks and defames our Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla,” read the mail pieces that arrived this week in Broward voters’ mailboxes with a photo of “the leftist” Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor Jr., who, by the way, was given this case by the Republican governor after Miam-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle recused herself.
The Spanish-language piece is paid for by Diaz de la Portilla’s political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County. It has no real value to his reelection. Broward voters cannot vote in the Miami election. Even the Hispanic voters.
So the only value is personal gratification in a very frustrating time.
Unless he is trying to actually threaten Pryor ala “keep prosecuting me and you will have a hard re-election.” This is ADLP. He used to have a movie poster of The Godfather hanging in his dining room.
And he has the money to burn — about $650,000 left in the bank as of the last report through the end of September. The most recent contributions include $100,000 from Truth is the Daughter of Time, the PAC managed by former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff — who only reported a single $175,000 contribution from a billboard company in the last quarter — and $60,000 from Billy and Barbara Hardemon, the lobbyist aunt and uncle of Miami-Dade Commissioner Keon Hardemon.
Even though he seems to have hit a freeze in contributions after he was arrested Sept. 14 on charges that include abusing his political action committee and violating campaign finance laws — in fact, the only transactions after the arrest are two donations he had to return — he has saved money by running a four-year old ad on TV and weaponizing his mom for a creepy radio piece narrated by a surrogate.
It’s typical for Cuban American politicos to feature their parents in campaign advertising. A letter from mom about her public servant son or a mailer with the candidate’s proud papa are political campaign staples in Miami. After all, that’s the generation that votes regularly.
But ADLP takes it up a notch with an ad that has a woman, not his mother, speak for Mami.
“In the name of a mother who cannot speak, her health and sadness impedes it,” the woman’s voice starts, “I speak for Fabiola Diaz de la Portilla, the mother of Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla. A liberal prosecutor is attacking him, the same as they’re doing to our beloved ex president Donald Trump.
“She doesn’t stop crying, because she knows her son’s integrity and decency,” the woman says. “This is immoral. This is unforgivable.”
Yeah, many people cry because they know ADLP’s lack of integrity and decency. I’d cry, too, if he were my son.
Read related: Renier Diaz de la Portilla got immunity in corruption case vs brother Alex
“She asks that you help her son, Alex Diaz de la Portilla. Reject these lies against him,” the ad goes on and then threatens the wrath of God.
“Hurting someone without reason, that is something that God punishes,” the voice says.
Huh? What? Hurting someone without reason? Without reason?
Thing is, this is ADLP. He is the type to weaponize his mom. How do we know that’s really what she thinks? He has scripted her letters before. How do we know she is not mortified by his arrest for taking at least $245,000 for hotel stays and campaign contributions, food and, of course, drinks, in exchange for his help ushering zoning changes and giving a public park to a private school.
Maybe that’s why someone else is speaking for her. Did she refuse? It would have pit her between two sons, Alex and his baby brother Renier Diaz de la Portilla, the former state rep and Miami-Dade School Board member who got immunity to testify against his brother in the public corruption case, much of which happens during and for both Baby DLP’s county commission and judicial campaigns.
Miami commissioner campaigns vs (threatens) public corruption prosecutor added by Ladra on
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