Cindy Lerner will say anything to get elected Miami-Dade Commissioner.
The former Pinecrest mayor has gone so far as to have two completely opposite campaign messages, depending on who she’s talking to — and in what language. In English, former School Board Member Raquel Regalado is the super Republican with an agenda as extreme as Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell Lindsay Graham and Rick Scott. In Spanish, however, Regalado is too down with Democrats.
Which is it, Cindy?
Hispanic voters get an offensive Spanish-language radio spot, with two fast-talking Latinas chismeando and exaggeratedly rolling their Rrrrs as they tell mostly Cuban Republican voters that Rrrrrraquelita is a “chameleon.”
The use of the “ita” or “ito” moniquer is a frequent tactic in Spanish to diminish someone — as in Manolito Reyes, Carlitos Curbelo, Annettesita Taddeo, etc. Because it’s usually a child’s name. But Regalado has actually always been “Raquelita” because she is named after her now dead mother, Cindy. Epic fail.
“This Rrrrrrraquelita has spent her entire career supporting liberal Democrats and now that it is convenient, she has suddenly become a Republican… but only because it’s convenient,” one of the women says in the 60-second spot.
Read related: Video montage reminds District 7 voters of Cindy Lerner’s temper, rudeness
Meanwhile, English-speaking voters got a mailer Saturday with Regalado in a Handmaid’s Tale Halloween costume, from the Hulu series about an ultra right wing dystopian future where women have subservient roles (anyone who knows Rrrrrraquelita knows that subservient isn’t her style).
“Commission candidate Raquel Regalado likes to pretend her agenda is less extreme than it really is,” the mailer says, with head shots of the loathed Republicans beneath her. “Don’t let her get away with it.”
Voters shouldn’t let Lerner get away with that kind of doublespeak and misinformation. Is that what we can expect if she’s elected? No thank you.
It’s an outright lie that Regalado is part of the “Republican agenda.” The mailer says she would deny all gun safety laws, but she fought on the school board to keep guns out of schools and got on the NRA’s hit list. It says she denies climate change, but she was among the first to talk about the need for countywide septic to sewer conversion more than four years ago. It says she would deny LGBTQ rights, but she pushed for gender neutral bathrooms at public schools before it was “cool” to do so.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Damian Pardo, a founding member of SAVE (Safeguarding American Values for Everyone) who is now chairman of 4Ward Miami, which organizes the Gay8 Festival on Calle Ocho.
“I’ve been on her [radio] show several times and from protection against discrimination to trans rights, she is on point every time,” Pardo said. “We wouldn’t even have Gay8 if it wasn’t for Raquel Regalado. She helped us.
“She’s always been an ally,” he added. “To suggest she is against LGBT rights is very disingenuous, as per the course of Miami-Dade politics these days.”
The only thing that is true on the mailer, and what the whole bogus extremist theory is based on, is that Regalado got the endorsement of the controversial Christian Family Coalition, an ass backwards organization that spews hate on the LGBTQ community, among other sins. But she never sought their endorsement. They are trying to stay relevant. And since Lerner had the early backing of “liberal” groups like Planned Parenthood and Ruth’s List, they likely felt like they had to endorse the other person. Whoever that was.
The truth is Regalado is a well-known moderate who caught hellfire for supporting Alex Sink for governor against Scott while she was a school board member in 2010. She also endorsed and fund-raised for Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, one of the state’s strongest Democrats, possibly a future guv or congressman. Don’t we need more moderate Republicans like that?
“We worked very closely on education policies and I didn’t see her as hyper partisan,” said Rodriguez, who was in the Florida House when Regalado was on the school board, and who has endorsed Lerner.
“I knew she was a Republican. She knew I was a Democrat. But when it came to the interests of not just education but, more precisely, Miami-Dade public schools, it doesn’t matter,” J-Rod added.
Lerner, on the other hand, is not a moderate. She bleeds blue. Which may work in state office or Congress but not locally. How is she going to get state dollars for local projects if she is constantly bashing the GOP leadership?
Read related: Who to vote for in three Miami-Dade County Commission races and why
This is supposed to be a non partisan race because even those issues — gun reform, climate change — have to be handled how all the local residents wants them handled, not how the parties wants them handled.
“She tries hard to present herself as a moderate. She isn’t,” Lerner texted Ladra in response to a question about the competing messages. “She’s on the slate with Donald Trump and takes Republican dark money. And she’s endorsed by CFC, a known LGBT hate group.”
That doesn’t explain why, however, the message is different in Spanish, where voters are told she is not Republican enough. Ladra asked.
“I don’t think they are different messages. She pretends to be moderate when she’s certainly not. One is delivered in a conversation, that’s the difference — so that’s a thought, I’ll do the same message in English delivered as a conversation,” Lerner wrote.
Maybe Lerner forgot that Ladra habla Espanol. Because they are certainly not the same message. And I dare Lerner to produce an English-language radio spot that says Regalado is a soft Republican who supports Democrat candidates. Double dare.
She won’t though. Because it doesn’t serve her disingenuous and deliberately misleading messages.
Miami-Dade candidate Cindy Lerner lies with competing campaign messages added by Ladra on
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