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Monday, September 13, 2010

Rivera Tries to Tie Garcia to Castro

When so much bad news hits your campaign for Congress, how does a good GOP hopeful respond? By calling his opponent a traitor. The fun was exposed by the Naples Daily News, where much to Rivera's chagrin, someone knows Spanish. Rivera apparently wenton Spanish-language radio and had an otherwise typical interview, but decided to slip in that Garcia was an "esbirros."

Lost? He is the newspaper's translation:

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Republican candidate David Rivera has labeled Democratic opponent Joe Garcia as an esbirros, or henchman, of Fidel Castro’s Communist regime, among other harsh claims made in Spanish in a Sept. 3 radio interview with a radio station in Miami.
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And then he denied saying that. Twice. But who would have thought the newspaper had the ability to get audio, and to translate the justification for Rivera's accusation. He said Rivera destroyed a foundation helping Cubanos. Oh, and he did it to help Castro's government.

More below:
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“He (Garcia) has the support of all of the allies of the Castro regime in this community. All of the owners of Castro’s travel agencies are supporting Joe Garcia. All of the esbirros (and) Fidelistas (Castro sympathizers) that we have in this community are supporting Joe Garcia,” Rivera said in Spanish.
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This is all baseless, of course. Garcia was executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation for four years, and served on its board for 20. He touts that work on his website, where he boasts becoming one of the leading advocates for human rights in Cuba and Latin America.

Frankly, Garcia is far more anti-Castro than I care for, but I accept that South Florida candidates, particularly those coming straight out of the Cuban-American population in Miami, are going to support continued embargoes and the like. Frankly, Garcia and Rivera aren't far apart on Cuba issues. Which, of course, if probably why Rivera is stooping to this level.

We shouldn't be surprised. Rivera has been a disaster as a candidate, plagued by scandal after scandal.

I have detailed the reasons before why I think Garcia can win this race, and why Democrats should pick up on his momentum. But if my sunny optimism admiration for the Democrat doesn't get others revved up, consider directing sheer anger at this sack-of-garbage running on behalf of the Grand Old Party. Don't let someone who lies in Spanish so the media won't catch it end up with a seat in Congress peddling that garbage, or trying to derail any messages he doesn't want out.

2 comments:

  1. Doesn't it seem that even in Florida Castro's 15 minutes of fame should be over? Ben Franklin suggested Cuba as an American state a looong time ago, and both the island and mainland would have been better served if history hadn't kept us separate.
    Have we reached the stage where most Cuban Americans have gotten out of the south Florida pale and speak English more readily than Spanish? If not, we are close. I can't imagine anything that would help Cuba as much as normalization of relations w/ the US.

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  2. I agree, but I think as long as Castro's revolution is a contemporary event for so many residents of the state, it will continue to grip our statewide and South Florida politicians. Not until Castro is gone, and perhaps until those who fled his regime have passed, will we have even normalization of conversations about Cuba. Since people continue to flee the regime even now, that means this could last another few generations.

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