Rubio: Immigration bill guarantees legalization

The ironic thing about 2004 is the Florida GOP ran Martinez thinking he'd replicate 2000 voting patterns help increase turnout so Bush wins Florida, but the opposite happened. Martinez got 49.4% in Florida, and Bush got 52.10%. Bush dragged Martinez over the finish line, and without Bush on the ticket, Martinez would have likely lost.

As for 2000, I still can't figure out how mathematically someone can get "over 80%" of the vote of the demographic group that has the majority population in a country, and win only 46% of the vote overall countywide. That doesn't make sense. I wish elections worked that way in my district and Bobby Rush would end up with 46% district wide while he's getting over 80% of the black vote.

As for 2000, I still can't figure out how mathematically someone can get "over 80%" of the vote of the demographic group that has the majority population in a county, and win only 46% of the vote overall countywide. That doesn't make sense. I wish elections worked that way in my district and Bobby Rush would end up with 46% district wide while he's getting over 80% of the black vote.

>> but it should be noted that she remains 100% pro-life and I believe is still pro-gun. <<

Pro-life is one rare example of an issue she's solidly conservative on, but she is definitely anti-gun:

http://www.rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/assault-weapons-ban-introducedby-five-rinos/

She earned an ACU rating of around 48% or something in 2011. She's become one of the biggest RINOs in the House in recent years and she's basically a pro-life version of Shays/Castle/Kirk type "Republicans" now. It might have been hard to primary her in the 2000s when she was in FL-18 and Key West and other liberal enclaves were in her district, but after the 2012 remap (where he district was made to be MORE Republican than the "average" Florida district) I'd say she's ripe for a primary challenge. If Ileana Ros-Lehtinen ain't a RINO, the word is meaningless.

I'm not surprised to learn Marco Rubio is one of her former interns, either.

Since the RATs are always blabbing about gay marriage being "inevitable" because "the younger generation supports it", I'd probably tap someone like Florida State Senator Anitere Flores to take out Ros-Lehtinen. She's from Miami, Catholic (Ros-Lehtinen is episcopalian), appears to be an actual social conservative who has solid ratings on gun rights and traditional families, and is 36 years old:

Martinez and Bush helped each other win—Mel ensured a high Cuban turnout in Miami and a strong GOP performance among Hispanics in Central Florida (which helped Bush carry the Puerto Rican vote, which in turn helped him carry Osceola County), while Bush increased Evangelical turnout throughout the state and increased the Jewish Republican vote in the Gold Coast, thus helping Martinez. However, Bush ran far ahead of Martinez in old Dixiecrat counties as well as among “Old Florida” voters in the Tampa Bay area and Jacksonville. Had McCollum been the nominee, it is likely the Bush would have gotten clser to 50% than to 52%, and that Castor would have beaten McCotter.

As for your confusion with the math of the 2000 election in Miami-Dade, I’m reposting my explanation. In summary, the group that gave Bush around 83%-84% were Cubans in particular, not Hispanics in general, and Cubans were between 28%-30% of the Miami-Dade electorate. But read the whole thing:

According to the 2000 Census, 57.3% of Miami-Dade residents were Hispanic, and only 28.87% of Miami-Dade residents were Cuban. http://www.miamidade.gov/business/library/reports/data-flash-hispanics-origin.pdf

Given that many Hispanics, including many Cubans, are non-citizens, I would guesstimate that the percentage of Miami-Dade County voters in 2000 who were Hispanic was not much higher than 50%, and the percentage of voters there who were Cuban was around 30%. And since the county not only has a large black population, but also a very liberal white Anglo population (mostly Jewish, who voted overwhelmingly for Gore-Lieberman), I see nothing strange about Bush getting 84% of the Cuban vote while getting only 46% in the county.

I wasn’t aware that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was a gun-grabber.

State Senator Anitere Flores was my preferred candidate for FL-25 in 2010 and FL-26 in 2012 (pretty much the same district, but renumbered). But she didn’t want to challenge Rivera in the primary in either year, and so far hasn’t expressed interest in running against Democrat Joe Garcia in 2014 (I think she’d clear the field if she announced). It would take extraordinary circumstances for Anitere to challenge Ileana in the adjoining district.

As for Ileana’s FL-27 itself, it was made a bit more Republican in redistricting (as was the FL-26), going from 49% for McCain to 51% for McCain. But, as noted, Obama did much better among Cubans in 2012, and Romney only got 46.3% in the FL-27. So it ain’t exactly the Panhandle FL-01.

>>> State Senator Anitere Flores was my preferred candidate for FL-25 in 2010 and FL-26 in 2012 (pretty much the same district, but renumbered). But she didn’t want to challenge Rivera in the primary in either year, and so far hasn’t expressed interest in running against Democrat Joe Garcia in 2014 (I think she’d clear the field if she announced). It would take extraordinary circumstances for Anitere to challenge Ileana in the adjoining district. As for Ileana’s FL-27 itself, it was made a bit more Republican in redistricting (as was the FL-26), going from 49% for McCain to 51% for McCain. But, as noted, Obama did much better among Cubans in 2012, and Romney only got 46.3% in the FL-27. So it ain’t exactly the Panhandle FL-01. <<

Interesting. I'm at a disadvantage because I really don't know what the new FL-25, FL-26, and FL-27 look like. They probably split up Miami like an ink blot in various districts so certain neighborhoods would help whoever they want to elect to that district.

I'm not surprised she didn't challenge Rivera. He wasn't in office long but I don't think any conservatives had issues with his voting record (his personal life was another matter, might have been one of the reasons he lost re-election)

I always think south Florida Republicans could do better than Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers. I'd definitely consider her a RINO who routinely votes with the Dems, albeit a rare example of a strongly pro-life one (perhaps similar to Chris Smith in NJ). Lincoln Diaz-Balart was always tagged as a "conservative" though his voting record was moderate, and his brother Mario was touted as "much more conservative", though one time I looked up "much more conservative" Mario's ACU rating and it was only like 3 points different than Linc's.

I think Mario's in Lincoln's house seat now. How much it looks like Lincoln's district before the 2012 remap, I don't know.

In any case, I think according to the latest remap data, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is now in an R+2 district, Joe Garcia (D) is in an R+4, and Mario Diaz-Balart is an R+6. I'd say replacing all three is doable, but that depends on whether south Florida Republicans have the willpower to find and run credible conservatives against them. Aside from Joe Garcia (who seems to have lucked into winning a GOP friendly seat), I doubt it.

Even if the bulk of Anitere Flores' state senate seat is in FL-25 and FL-26 rather than Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's seat, I think she'd be a strong and credible candidate for FL-27 if she was willing to give it a shot. It would be nice to see a new generation of conservative congressmen there (Garcia is 50, Diaz-Balart is 50, and Ros-Lehtinen is 60), especially if the biggest problem facing the GOP (and the reason why they're losing votes there) is not being able to connect with young voters.

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