You have to hand it to Annette Taddeo. She is nothing if not persistent.
New U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who ousted Democrat Joe Garcia in November, had barely finished hanging the pictures in his office before House Democrats set out recruiting for his replacement in 2016. And apparently, they like the look of Florida's 2014 failed candidate for lieutenant governor.
Certainly Taddeo has been looking for a job since she and Charlie Crist headlined the Democrats' losing state ticket in November.
According to a story in The Hill newspaper, Taddeo met Wednesday with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Luj of New Mexico, DCCC Recruitment Chairman Denny Heck of Washington, Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Beccera of California and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
Sounds like a serious audition, doesn't it?
The attraction for the national Dems is obvious enough. Taddeo has a reputation as a tireless, if not prodigious fundraiser with her own money base and name recognition in the Miami area. She is Colombian-born in a district that is 60 percent Hispanic.
Crist and Taddeo lost in November, yes, but they did carry the district in question, the 26th, with 52 percent of the vote. Because Democrats do better in Florida in presidential-election years, you can't blame the nationals for looking at Taddeo as a bright prospect in a state where winning bets have been hard to come by.
But Taddeo has her down side.
Like Charlie Crist, she is ambitious. But unlike Crist, the former chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Democrats has never won an election. Three times she jumped into the ring and each time her opponent scored a knockout.
She ran for Congress in 2008 against U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and lost. Nevertheless, the Crist team boasted, In 2008, she was the Democratic nominee for Congress in South Florida's 18th District, receiving more votes than any other Democrat who's run in that district." But wait a minute: Taddeo managed to get 41 percent in a good year for Democrats. Barack Obama pulled 51 percent in that district in the same election.
She ran for county commission in District 8 and lost in the primary, coming in third behind former Homestead Mayor Lynda Bell and former Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn.
And now she lost with Crist. The most telling fact in the Crist-Taddeo loss is that she failed to do the one thing a lieutenant governor pick is supposed to do -- enhance the ticket to bring in a cluster of voters. OK, the Republicans didn't win Miami-Dade County, Crist and Taddeo did. But, as political writer Jeff Henderson said here in Sunshine State News, "... She was supposed to boost Crist in South Florida. That simply did not happen as Democratic turnout simply sputtered in Miami and Broward County. Despite having been the boss of Miami-Dade Democrats, Taddeo failed in her own backyard. Crist made a miscalculation in adding her to the ticket."
Still, immediately after the election, even as Crist disappeared from public view, the buzz among South Florida Dems was all about Taddeo. She couldn't return to her Miami-Dade party-boss job, Dwight Bullard had the job and was dug in. Would she try another run for Congress? Would she get her other wish, a pundit job on MSNBC's "The Ed Show"? You knew she'd developed a taste of life above herself in the political arena, liked it and something was coming.
And whatever you say about Taddeo, she's a trier. She's thinking, "Fourth time lucky."
At least Curbelo gets a re-election jump start in 2016 by knowing right now, in January 2014, who he's likely to face.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
