Democratic leadership wants Annette Taddeo out of the way and just like that, she moves over. The former head of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee and former candidate for almost everything else is no longer running for state committeewoman.
Being a state committeewoman -- or man -- is a prerequisite to being chosen as party chair. Taddeo had made it plain just a few weeks ago that she really, really wanted Allison Tant's job. She had filled out the paperwork, she was ready to go.
On Tuesday, some 200 Democratic activists in Miami-Dade will elect a new chair, state committeeman and committeewoman.
What and who changed Taddeo's mind?
As it happens, the same people operating in the shadows to advance multi-millionaire Coconut Grove developer Stephen Bittel to the party chairmanship.
Sources close to the Florida Democratic Party's brain trust told Sunshine State News on Monday that chief engineers of this new-leadership conspiracy are Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston and Allison Tant herself, who announced after a disastrous general election she won't run for party chair again. Sen. Bill Nelson weighed in, too.
But Taddeo isn't the only one this group is working to "get gone." There's also former state Sen. Dwight Bullard. Bullard has had his eye on the party's vice chair position. Unfortunately for Wasserman Schultz, Tant, et al., the difference between Bullard and Taddeo is, Bullard won't stand down because someone tells him to.
He has to be maneuvered out of the way.
Explained one of the sources, "Stephen Bittel has been paying Juan Cuba's salary as executive director of the Miami-Dade DEC ever since Annette left to run for lieutenant governor in 2014."
Cuba decided at the last minute to run as chair of the DEC, the source said. Now, if Cuba wins, he can resign and appoint Bittel to his position. Under the rules, that would give Bittel a clear pathway to run for FDP chair.
And it would be the end of the line for Bullard. He would be squeezed out. Also in the rules is a requirement that if a male wins the party chair position, then the vice chair must be a female.
Bullard would be out before he can ask in.
"Brilliant treachery, if you think about it. This was the game plan all along," the source told me. "It's why someone convinced Dwight to run for vice chair instead of re-election as chair.
Bittel, meanwhile, co-chair of the party’s national finance committee, is portrayed as overbearing, abrasive -- and someone the staff sought to avoid.
WikiLeaked emails just before the Democratic National Convention described the DNC finance team planning a small high-dollar donor meeting with President Obama in May. They commiserated over having to deal with Bittel and plotted how to keep him away from the president.
“Bittel said this morning he was coming so just plan on it, but he doesn’t sit next to POTUS!” National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan wrote to one of his deputies, Alexandra Shapiro.
Wasserman Schultz is a longtime friend of the real estate developer.
Another source told me, "Bittel would be an extension of DWS and Allison Tant. At a time when the party needs change, he would be more of the same, which is what the establishment wants: the status quo for the consultants and the people who keep the money in the same hands."
Leslie Wimes, who watches the party leadership saga play out from a greater distance, said, "The lengths that these people will go to in order to protect what they consider 'theirs' is astounding. If Stephen Bittel buys -- no, steals -- this FDP Chair position, because that is what he and the establishment will be doing, Bill Nelson and other Democrats running statewide in 2018 in Florida will be the ones to suffer."
Wimes, who lives in Palm Beach County and is founder of the Democratic African American Women Caucus, warned, "What (Bittel's) money can't do is make people go to the polls. Trust and believe, Clinton's loss in Florida will be minor compared to a Bill Nelson loss and it will track back to these specific shenanigans. We've had enough of this type of chicanery. Bittel was in Denver talking about his run for FDP chair, when he isn't even eligible, so he knows he is planning underhanded things.
"When you start out up to no good, you end up with no good," she said.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
