Democrats aim at tough incumbent Ros-Lehtinen

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Aug. 15, 2004

Democrats aim at tough incumbent Ros-Lehtinen

The Democrats who will square off in an Aug. 31 primary in U.S. House District 18 are taking shots at incumbent Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and her support for President Bush.

BY NICOLE WHITE

[e-mail]


The effort to unseat Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen essentially comes down to this: a battle cry to defeat the woman who opponents say has ignored the needs of U.S House District 18 to campaign tirelessly for President Bush.

Democratic candidates Dave Patlak of Miami Beach and Samuel Sheldon of Pinecrest both say that belief was at the core of their respective decisions to seek to represent the district that stretches from Miami Beach to Key West.

''I just had enough,'' said Patlak, 49, a retired U.S Coast Guard officer, who touts his 25-year experience in the agency and his knowledge of the nation's waterways.''It sickens me to hear Ileana get on the radio to urge voters to stay the course for four more years when the people of her district aren't being served,'' he said.
(snip)

Ros-Lehtinen has retained her congressional seat in seven elections with only token opposition, and she is a veritable ''institution in Miami-Dade politics,'' said Miami-based pollster Sergio Bendixen.Ros-Lehtinen's 1989 victory in a special election to replace beloved congressman Claude Pepper after his death represented the ''the beginning of a chapter in Cuban-American politics,'' Bendixen said. ``It was one of the great victories of Cuban Americans. She'll be very difficult to defeat.''
(snip)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/9403848.htm
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Ros-Lehtinen

[flordehinojos]

1. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen believes in democracy no more than Bush does.

She stands with the Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balarts on the side of restoring some sort of right wing, Batista-like dictatorship to Cuba. Her father was some officer, or official, I am not sure which of the Batista government as was the father or uncle of the Diaz-Balarts.

While pursuing her doctoral degree (I believe it was in early childhood education) from the University of Miami, she stood on the side of stealing Elian Gonzalez from his father's embrace at a time when the boy needed his father's embrace so he could begin to grieve the death of his mother and his own ordeal as happened when the boy's tears were finally loosened as his father stood next to him in the plane that had returned him to his father.

In the mindset of many Cuban-Americans the democratic party and the party's support for many government programs benefiting families in need equal communism.

For the Batistianos in Miami who fled Cuba in l959 it was an already communist Fidel Castro who ousted Batista on Dec. 31, l958. (Fidel Castro did not declare his allegiance to the Communist Party until after his trip to the United Nations in l960? when Eisenhower refused to meet with him and Kruschev took him in his arms); other Cuban-Americans who were not Batista sympathizers left Cuba as communism began to take the oxygen out of their livelihood, freedom of expression and civil liberties. The irony is that there was no freedom of expression under the Batista regime, that many Cubans were being assassinated by the Batista forces for their opposition to the Batista regime and that there was no form of democratic government under the Batista regime in Cuba. Corporatism fared well there and just a few, elite Cubans did well economically.

Many Cuban-Americans upon coming to this country were dependent on the very government programs established by democratic presidents like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter.

As some of the assistance programs to needy family began to be eliminated by the Republican leadership of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott during the Clinton administration Ros-Letinen was always careful to blame a generic 'WASHINGTON' rather than Gingrich or Lott.

It was an ironic double-whammy. While Cuban-Americans paired government support programs with communism and would never vote for politicians who advocated programs that supported the needy, many who were dependent on those programs came to rely on them without, evidently, making the connection between who advocated for the programs and who did not, and then were led to believe by Ros-Lehtinen that the Clintonites (read democrats) had taken the programs which offered them needed help away from them.

So the democrats were to be feared because of the programs they promoted and they were to be seen as the enemy of the people because they took away programs that helped people

Under the umbrella of the Bushes the hopes of many Cuban-Americans are being stoked by the likes of Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart that Cuba will be free, i.e., rid of Fidel Castro. Their fears about the evil democrats are also constantly being flamed by said Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart brothers whose love for power is on even keel with that of the Bushes.

:headbang:

[Wabbajack]

2. Are hyphanated last names

a Cuban thing or is it a coincidence?

[flordehinojos]

3. Not generally a Cuban thing.

:7

[Judi Lynn]

4. They are truly devious and twisted. You really nailed them.

In reference to the fathers of Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balarts, I read several years ago that Ileana and Lincoln got it arranged so that their fathers, who, just as you said, had been conspicuous officials in the Batista government, got their own air time on U.S. taxpayer-supported (but completely programmed and controlled and staffed by Cuban "exiles" with only one or two exceptions) Radio Marti, where they held a weekly gibber-fest, which was transmitted directly to Cuba, so they were truly "gone but not forgotten." Can you imagine how thrilled Cuban citizens must have been hearing those two Batista old farts yapping on and on to each other, time after time? Unbelievable.




Lincoln!

Mario!


Cubans have called her the "she-wolf." Are they just envious of her freedoms?

[flordehinojos]

5. Oh, I knew they fought like the dickens to keep Radio Marti on the air

I didn't know that it was their fathers the ones who were yakking away back to Cuba on the Radio Marti airwaves.
And ...( are you serious or just pulling my leg, as they say?) I can't imagine any Cuban being thrilled on listening to them... all the Batista old farts were probably in Miami by then and those Cubans in Miami who disagreed with Fidel Castro were probably also in disagreement with the old Batista regime and dreaming about establishing their own form of democratic government in Cuba, which, for sure will be squashed by Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts if they ever get to set foot in Cuba again. O8)

[Judi Lynn]

6. Yep, I was kidding about Cuban citizens really wanting to hear from

the two self-important old bags of hot air.

I have heard that Lincoln Diaz-Balart actually has started imagining himself as the most likely new President of Cuba if the U.S. succeeds in a regime change.

I have heard so many times that Cubans will fight to their dying breath to keep their independence.

By the way, that stupid taxpayers' black hole, Radio Marti, which will consume $27,000,000.00, combined with TV Marti this year, should be booted out of here as soon as possible. Most Americans don't know we're paying for it, and the reasons for running that progapanda radio are bogus.

Cubans can receive both American radio signals and tv signals on their own from South Florida. There are posters right here at D.U. who have listened to them many times themselves while IN CUBA, one of them, from Canada, mentioned listening to Miami stations on her portable radio, outside. It's not like Cubans can't get any news from the States. That's just a lie the CANF people tell to get that $27,000,000.00 paid out without question each year! That's so pathetic, and actually shifty,sneaky, and fraudulent.

[flordehinojos]

7. Do you think the Bushes will kill Radio Marti if any of them are up for

any sort of elections any time? I wonder how much the Ros-Lehtinens, the Diaz-Balarts and the Mas-Canosas are getting from the Radio Marti deal? They are probably lining their pockets with lots of silver dollars. Wasn't Radio Marti a "gift" given to them during the Reagan/Bush administration? I wonder if Perez-Castellon, former right hand for Mas-Canosa Sr., rabid CANF supporter, now turned CANF basher gets or got any of that Radio Marti money.

God save Cuba if Diaz-Balart gets to set foot inside the island.

[Vogon_Glory]

8. The Other Side of the Radio Marti Coin

The other side of the Radio Marti coin is that people living in Cuba who do choose to listen to Radio Marti CAN be made aware of the right-wing views of exiles like the Diaz--Balart brothers and Ros-Lehtinen.

Considering the "blowback" factor, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Island Cubans, unlike all too many of us lazy, complacent mainland "Anglo" voters, know how to read between the lines and can make the sorts of political judgments and inferences regarding political leaders and spokesmen that too many of our own self-styled "conservative" and "independent" voters can't. The island Cubans, unlike those duped by Gingrich, Lott, and Dubya, are quite aware of the exiled kleptocrats' agenda and the Radio Marti broadcasts remind them that it is still a factor in US--Cuba relations.

The reason I support freedom of speech is not just so I can be allowed to express my own political views in public, but also because it gives my political opponents the ability to make horse's asses of themselves in public without giving them a phony martyr's crown of "persecution" because their antics are unnoticed.

[donsu]

9. Ros-Lehtinen should be in prison

nt

[readmylips]

10. I hate that bitch...witch..

Never understood her last name, but I believe her husband is of German background. I think Ros stands for Spanish name Rosario. I know a Cuban guy whose last name was Rodriguez and changed it to Rodz, when he became a citizen. Hyphenated names are a Spanish tradition, except her last name would be Rosario de Lehtinen. In US Spanish people use the hyphenation for the word 'de.'

[kskiska]

11. I think I remember reading

that Ros-Lehtinen has never even been to Cuba.