Carlos Lopez-Cantera kicks off Senate race right on shedule

Lo prometido es deuda and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera will keep his promise from a month ago to make an announcement for his Senate run Wednesday — and he will do it at 1 p.m. at the Northwest Miami-Dade offices of a politically-connected businesswoman who was charged with tax evasion in the 90s.

Well, at least she’s not paying his travel expenses. Though one might wonder how he’s going to get there.

C-Lo had set the July 15 date at the Lincoln Day Dinner last month, telling a crowd of 700 or so GOP loyalists that he would make a decision by that date. As with most big “announcements,” however, there’s no surprise left. Especially with photos like this of his family holding up a senate campaign sign. Especially after the speech he gave June 20 was caught on a wireless microphone (look for clips in the video he unveils maybe tomorrow). Especially since his SuperPAC has already been raising funds.

Lopez-Cantera, a former State Rep. and Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, will officially kick-off his campaign at All American Containers, the business owned by Remedios and Fausto Diaz Oliver, a very well connected Cuban-American couple who have done quite well since pleading guilty in 1997 to multiple counts of tax evasion and customs fraud. Prosecutors said Fausto and Remedios tried to hide about $456,000 in revenue from a food importing business from the IRS. They also allegedly deflated the price of Spanish goods they imported by almost half – from $5.3 million to $2.8 million.

The Diaz-Olivers originally denied any interest in the importing business, but two years later, Fausto pleaded guilty to one felony count each of tax evasion and customs fraud. Remedios pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of accessory after the fact to tax evasion and customs fraud, and received three years of probation.

Today, the couple are staples in the social magazine pages and very generous donors to Republican campaigns. They have held past fundraising events for Congressman Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

But whoever thought this was a good launch spot for C-Lo was smoking something. Because Lopez-Cantera has been under fire lately — as any about-to-announce candidate might be — for 24 trips to Miami, where he has a young family, and elsewhere for job events that he never shows up to. While he is close to his girls and could possibly have the same kind of commute from D.C., critics are basically calling it an abuse of his power and public tax dollars.

So he certainly doesn’t need this tax evasion headline now.

Or maybe… unless… he does. Hmmm. This could be a brilliant way to divert attention from his much more worrisome travel woes. The Diaz Olivers help didn’t hurt Curbelo. And you can’t blame the poor rich couple for Romney’s demise.

Anyway, this race is getting interestinger by the day. Congressman David Jolly (R-Tampa) basically took some of the wind out of C-Lo’s sails with wide speculation that he, too, is going to run for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Marco Rubio, who is running for president. Jolly is a charsimatic Tea Party darling, like Rubio, who — in a desperate flight from redistricting that will likely make his district far more Democrat — is expected to announce next week.

That would make it a three way ballot with Congressman Ron DeSantis, who was first to announce and has reportedly collected $2 million already.

C-Lo better get a move-on if he wants to break the rumored curse that makes Florida’s lieutenant governors unelectable to anything after.

Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Marco Rubio

Carlos Lopez-Cantera kicks off Senate race right on shedule added by Ladra on July 15, 2015
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