Gap Narrlows in US House Race

Press Release

Gap narrlows in US House race

By Robert Silk Citizen Staff

On Oct. 8, after a candidates' forum sponsored by the Miami Chamber of Commerce, Annette Taddeo issued a press release attacking U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen as a Bush rubberstamp who supports privatizing Social Security.

"Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sold out seniors for Wall Street cash," said Taddeo, who is challenging Ros-Lehtinen for the congressional seat. "Just imagine if Congress had blindly followed George Bush in the same way that Ros-Lehtinen did."

Two days later, Ros-Lehtinen's staff issued a press release of its own. But the tone and topic were very different.

"Congress-woman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a senior member of the Florida Congressional delegation, will be the keynote speaker during tomorrow's Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce awards and installation dinner," the release said. "Ros-Lehtinen will also present a check for $45,000 to the chairman of the Key Largo Wastewater Treatment District, Gary Bauman, for its wastewater program."

Such has been the case in the race between the two women vying to be the representative in Washington for the Florida Keys and a substantial swath of Miami-Dade County for the next two years.

Democratic challenger Taddeo, a decided underdog, has sought to engage Ros-Lehtinen, hitting her on issues ranging from her vote for the $700 billion economic bailout early this month, to her support for the Iraq War, to her opposition of a bill that would have expanded children's health care.

Meanwhile, Republican Ros-Lehtinen, a 10-term incumbent, largely has ignored her opponent.

"I don't get into a 'he said, she said,'" Lehtinen said in an interview late last month. "Whatever my opponent says is what my opponent says."

Ros-Lehtinen instead has directed her campaign toward her work on behalf of residents of the Keys and the rest of Florida's 18th Congressional District. And while it is not technically campaigning, she also has amped up her presence at nonpartisan events around the area in recent weeks -- attending a roundtable in Summerland Key about Monroe County's controversial effort to eliminate downstairs enclosures; delivering a speech about human rights at St. Thomas University in Miami; hosting a conference call between local fishermen angry about a new winter ban on grouper fishing and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez; and traveling with Holocaust survivors from Miami Beach to an educational program at Coral Shores High School.

Whether in spite or because of the contrasting strategies, the incumbent maintains a solid advantage both financially and in the polls as the race reaches its final days. As of Sept. 30, Ros-Lehtinen had raised $1.5 million during this campaign cycle compared with $916,000 for Taddeo. Taddeo's figure includes $350,000 she loaned herself. More significantly, Ros-Lehtinen still had $1.1 million on hand, while Taddeo had just $110,000 left.

But Taddeo still has cause for hope. A poll released on Oct. 21 showed that she has made substantial headway on her more well-known opponent. The poll, commissioned by the Taddeo campaign and conducted by Lake Research Partners, showed Ros-Lehtinen ahead 48 percent to 41 percent, much closer than surveys released earlier in the month that had the incumbent between 13 and 25 points ahead. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percent.

The candidates

Ros-Lehtinen, 56, was elected to Congress in 1989 in a special election caused by the death of her predecessor, Claude Pepper. She became the Keys representative in 2003 after the district was reconfigured.

A native of Havana, her family moved to Miami when she was 8, shortly after Fidel Castro rose to power.

In the late 1970s, Ros-Lehtinen founded Eastern Academy, a private elementary school in Hialeah. She was elected to the Florida House in 1982 and the Florida Senate in 1986. While in the Legislature she married a colleague, Dexter Lehtinen, now a prominent South Florida attorney. A Catholic, she has two daughters and two stepchildren.

With her election to the House of Representatives in 1989, Ros-Lehtinen became the first Hispanic woman in Congress. She is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Taddeo, 41, has a very different background. Making her first run for public office, she has spent the bulk of her career building up LanguageSpeak, the Hialeah-based translation and language services company that she founded in the early 1990s.

A former chairwoman of the Coalition of the Dade County Chambers of Commerce, she also served on the board of the influential Beacon Council, created in 1986 to assist Miami-Dade County with economic development projects. Opening entrepreneurial doors for women is a key part of Taddeo's platform.

Taddeo was born in Colombia and was sent by her parents to Alabama when she was 17, shortly after her American father was kidnapped by FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

She moved to South Florida in 1992 after her parents' home was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew. Taddeo met her husband, psychologist Eric Goldstein, at a fundraiser for 2000 presidential candidate Bill Bradley. A converted Jew, she has a daughter and two stepdaughters.

Both Taddeo and Ros-Lehtinen live in Pinecrest.

The issues

Throughout the campaign, Taddeo has tried to seize upon public discontent by painting Ros-Lehtinen as an unflinching supporter of George Bush.

Ros-Lehtinen in turn has championed her constituent services. She takes credit for securing more than $35 million in federal funds for the Keys dating back to 2002. The funds have been designated for everything from wastewater to the Key West Naval Air Station, to a distance-learning program for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

According to a Washington Post analysis, Ros-Lehtinen voted with the Republican Party 85 percent of the time over the past two years. GovTrack.com, a nonpartisan Web site that monitors congressional voting records, ranks her as a moderate Republican.

On the campaign trail, Taddeo often recites that 85 percent figure. She said she entered the campaign after Ros-Lehtinen voted to sustain the president's veto of a bill that would have expanded the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as S-CHIP.

Ros-Lehtinen said she supports improving S-CHIP, but she opposed that bill because it would not have cracked down on states, including Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey, that have extended benefits to ineligible adults.

Taddeo also has been critical of Ros-Lehtinen for her steady support of the war in Iraq, and her opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.

"Her stands on a lot of issues are not in line with the community," Taddeo said during an interview in September.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, Taddeo has blamed her incumbent opponent for supporting deregulation. The two candidates also differ on other key issues, such as Cuba and taxes. Both support the Cuban embargo, but Taddeo is opposed to strict travel restrictions championed by Ros-Lehtinen.

Taddeo supports increasing taxes on the top 2 percent of American families as well as middle-class tax relief. Ros-Lehtinen, who voted for the Bush administration tax cuts of 2001, also supports tax breaks for the middle class, but she avoided directly answering a question about tax increases for the wealthy during an interview last month.

Nevertheless, Ros-Lehtinen has broken with her own party on issues of importance to the district. For example, she has been a consistent opponent of drilling off Florida's coast, and a strong supporter of gay rights. Votes like those, as well her support of other initiatives in the district, are at the heart of the Ros-Lehtinen campaign.

Campaign literature touts her work on behalf of the Marathon airport, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the local National Weather Service.

A campaign brochure mentions a windstorm insurance bill she sponsored and her vote in favor of a bill that would establish a national catastrophe fund. Though neither bill has become law, Ros-Lehtinen said she's going to keep trying.

"I am on the lookout and I am working hard to one day get them passed. That's my goal," she said.

On the matter of wastewater, the Keys' biggest federal funding need, Congress has appropriated $8.7 million since Ros-Lehtinen began representing the area in 2003.

Taddeo said that's not good enough and that she would do better.

"You've got to make this a priority," she said. "This is a priority for the country. You've got to protect the coral reefs."

Ros-Lehtinen said persuading Congress to dedicate federal dollars to what is generally regarded as a local issue is always going to be a tough battle.

"I will fight hard to get it," she said, "and what Keys residents understand is that the Keys is one of the few places that gets wastewater dollars."

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