Daily Headlines: February 12, 2010

* U.S.: Is the resignation of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart along with the planned departures of other Republican congressmen an ominous sign for the GOP?

* Central America: According to a Los Angeles Times investigation police often retracted promises of residency to undocumented immigrants who served as valuable informants.

* Mexico: Western Union reached a $94 million settlement with four U.S. border states in a dispute over laundering money to Mexico.

* Argentina: Beef farmers and the Argentine government are butting heads again, this time over who’s to blame for high meat prices.

Image – South Florida Sun-Sentinel (“Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart”)l
Online Sources- Washington Post, The Latin Americanist, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, UPI

Lincoln Diaz-Balart Will Not Seek Re-election

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Cuban-American representative of the heavily Cuban 21st district in South Florida, announced today that he will not seek re-election later this year.

Diaz-Balart, a stalwart of the anti-Castro resistance and father of the legislated Cuban embargo said in a statement:

"I am convinced that in the upcoming chapter of the struggle, I can be more useful to the inevitable change that will soon come to Cuba, to Cuba's freedom, as a private citizen."

Generally this means that he's either really passionate about what he can do in post-Castro Cuba (and probably thinks post-Castro Cuba is a very near-term proposition), or there's an impending scandal.

Although I live in D.C., I'm an eternal optimist, so I reckon it's the former.

The video below, although of a Cuban-American, has nothing at all to do with Rep. Diaz-Balart or his decision to not seek re-election. It certainly is funny though.

Online Source: Washington Post
Video Sources: YouTube

Cuban-American Reps. win in Florida

The Republican Party lost big on Election Day aside from the presidential race; the Democrats majority in the House of Representatives was strengthened and they are close to having a filibuster-proof Senate. Yet after suffering their “worst electoral drubbing in more than three decades” one of the few victories for the GOP occurred in Florida.

A trio of Cuban-American politicos- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Mario Diaz-Balart- faced difficult battles against Democratic opponents. At times the campaigns got heated with ugly accusations and for a while it seemed iffy that the three representatives would all be reelected.

The Latino electorate in Florida may’ve leaned towards the Democrats in the presidential race yet Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers (image) held on to their seats:

With nearly all of the votes counted in Miami-Dade, and all of the precincts reporting in Collier County, Mario Diaz-Balart emerged with a 52 to 48 percent victory…

Lincoln Diaz-Balart scored a remarkably large double-digit win over former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez to win his ninth term on Capitol Hill...

Ros-Lehtinen cruised to her 11th term with 58 percent of the vote to vanquish her challenger, Colombian-American businesswoman Annette Taddeo…

''It had all the makings of me going down,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. ``If I can make it in this election, I can make it in any election.''

Image- Time
Sources- The Latin Americanist, MarketWatch, Los Angeles Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, miamiherald.com

SoFla congressional races heat up

Aside from the U.S. presidency, several legislative seats are up for grabs and will be decided on November 4th. An increasingly heated race has developed in Southern Florida where the Latino electorate will be a decisive factor.

Republican Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart has been in Congress since 1992 and has easily won reelection, sometimes uncontested. Yet he faces a strong challenge from another Cuban-born politico- former Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez.

The campaign between both Latinos has gotten ugly with allegations and insinuations flying between both campaigns. For instance, Diaz-Balart’s campaign recently aired a TV ad implying that Martinez was involved in the 1980s drug trade. Martinez, meanwhile, accused his GOP rival of being connected to a Puerto Rican bribery scandal.

Diaz-Balart is not the only legislator of Cuban background facing a tough campaign from Latino challengers. His brother, Mario, is running neck-and-neck with Joe Garcia while Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is facing tough competition from Colombian-American businesswoman Annette Taddeo.

Why is the trio of staunch anti-Castro Republicans in danger of losing their seats? As Time magazine mentioned in an August article:

Florida Democrats are drawing new strength from a growing number of non-Cuban Latinos…(Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s) 18th District is still 65% Latino, but it is less than 30% Cuban today. That has emboldened Democrats like her challenger…whose constituents worry less about Havana than about immigration, health care and U.S. indifference toward the rest of Latin America.

Still, a likely decisive issue in these races involves Cuba. In 2004, as a gift to conservatives, President Bush tightened restrictions on travel and remittances to the island…The move backfired: most Miami Cubans oppose the new rules, according to an FIU poll, and they have been particularly unpopular among younger Cuban Americans…What would have worked in 1985 to deepen GOP support had the opposite effect in today's more diverse Miami. Says Garcia, sipping a café cubano in Little Havana: "Bush succeeded in dividing what was once a monolithic vote for his party."

Image- Miami New Times (From the upper left corner clockwise: Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Raul Martinez, Joe Garcia, Mario Diaz-Balart)
Sources- Time, miamiherald.com, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Swing States Project, local10.com