Who’s running the dirtiest race in Miami-Dade? The commission candidate who’s ethnic-baiting | Opinion
Who’s running the dirtiest race in Miami-Dade?
A ghost from Miami’s divisive past: one of the infamous Diaz de la Portilla brothers, known for seeking public office and lobbying on behalf of clients with business before government entities.
This time, little brother Renier, a former School Board member and one-term state representative, is coming after incumbent Eileen Higgins in the Miami-Dade Commission District 5 race.
A member of what’s been dubbed “one of Miami’s political dynasties” and a lawyer with high name recognition shouldn’t have to stoop so low. But Diaz de la Portilla is resorting to a despicable campaign strategy: ethnic-baiting.
He’s not alone.
In two other tight races between Cuban Americans and Anglos, the ethnic card is also being played alongside red-baiting.
Maria Elvira Salazar vs. Donna Shalala for Congress.
Esteban Bovo vs. Daniella Levine Cava for county mayor.
But Diaz de la Portilla is the most blatant offender.
District 5 includes gentrifying and diverse Little Havana and surrounding neighborhoods, liberal-leaning Miami Beach and the wealthy islands, downtown Miami, and swaths of the Brickell Avenue area.
About 63 percent of registered voters are Hispanic but, unlike GOP stalwart Diaz de la Portilla, more are Democrats (37 percent) than Republican (26 percent).
‘Vote Hispanic’
Out of five campaign fliers Diaz de la Portilla’s campaign dumped on voters in a single day alone, three delivered the message — in Spanish — that he should be elected because he’s the Hispanic candidate in the race.
“Raised in Miami with our values,” one flier said, “one of ours.”
“After decades of fighting for representation, rights and voice, we cannot cede power to people from the outside like Eileen Higgins,” said another.
Higgins is a Spanish-speaking Ohio native who adopted for her last campaign the nickname Little Havana residents gave her, most of the time with affection: “La Gringa.”
Diaz de la Portilla — whose brother Alex is a Miami commissioner whom Higgins beat for this same commission seat in 2018 — states in bold letters in one of his most inflammatory fliers: “A Hispanic district should have a Hispanic commissioner.”
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It’s a disgusting throwback to the 1980s when Cuban Americans, newcomers to American political life, struggled to get elected — and made ethnic appeals in an effort to connect with newly minted voters.
The practice shouldn’t have a place in modern-day Miami-Dade, where Cubans are the majority Hispanic group and have vast amounts of economic and political power. We can no longer claim to be voiceless or unrepresented.
Pushing ethnic divide
Partisan politics, too, are behind the appeal to drive a wedge between Anglo and Hispanic voters in the community, in what’s supposed to be a non-partisan race.
Unlike most other commissioners, Democrat Higgins rides public transportation and points out “the stark inequalities” and “the prosperity gap” in her district.
A fierce advocate for business owners affected by the long-running Flagler Street rebuilding project, she also stood up for contract workers at Miami International Airport, testifying in Congress about inhumane working conditions and substandard pay.
For the crime of caring about working-class people, Diaz de la Portilla also has cast Higgins as a Communist sympathizer in ads appearing in Spanish-language television.
One ad used during the primary election featured a doctored photo of Higgins wearing a Che Guevara-style beret bearing the label “la compañera,” the comrade.
On her end, “La Gringa” adopted the “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” adage.
She struck back with an ad of her own accusing de la Portilla of being “supported by special interests tied to China and Communist Nicolás Maduro” in Venezuela, which he denied.
It’s as if the race were taking place in Latin America instead of Miami.
Similar rhetoric is being spewed in the mayoral race, cast by Bovo and his supporters as a referendum on the preposterous tenet that, under Democrats, the United States will turn into a Cuba-Venezuela-style socialist nation.
And, in a congressional rematch against incumbent Shalala — who has been stridently anti-Maduro and anti-Bernie Sanders — Salazar, a former journalist, peddles in a widely seen television ad that she arrived in Miami with $5 in her pocket.
Yet, she was born right here in Miami in 1961.
It’s a gratuitous lie to appeal to Cuban Americans.
Many voters aren’t amused.
“I find it offensive that a politician would try to appeal to ethnic-baiting,” said Marta Laura Zayas, a Cuban-American teacher who lives in Little Havana. “They are saying to me that because I am Hispanic, I am not sophisticated enough to discern who the better candidate is based on issues. And it tells me that they believe I am racist. I was taught to appreciate and recognize my roots so that I knew where I came from, and at the same time, to be grateful and respectful of the United States so that I knew where I was going.”
She added: “As a community we should not allow politicians to degrade Hispanics with ads such as these. This type of ad reflects the poor values of those politicians and gives us more reason not to vote for them.”
No, this isn’t our parents’ gullible Miami, where politicians could easily stoke the wound of loss — and win.
Or, where discrimination led us, indeed, to vote Hispanic.
Playing the ethnic card in Miami-Dade these days is what candidates do when they don’t have much of anything else to offer voters.
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
