Democrat Sees Ros-Lehtinen's Retirement as Mixed Blessing

MIAMI BEACH — Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez was attending a baby shower on Sunday when she happened to glance at her mobile phone. “I had like 50 text messages and 40 missed calls,” she told Patch. “I said ‘oh my goodness.’”

That’s when the news first broke that veteran Miami Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress and a national political figure, would not seek re-election in 2018. (Sign up for our free Daily Newsletters and Breaking News Alerts for the Miami Beach Patch.)

Rosen Gonzalez had just kicked off what could objectively be described as a longshot-campaign to unseat the Republican and was still a month away from her first campaign event. But suddenly, the single mother was not nearly the longshot that she was when she woke up on Sunday.

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“Oh my Gosh. My phone has not stopped,” she told Patch. “I’ve gotten thousands of messages and phone calls and I realize I need to expand my campaign, organize my volunteers get in gear. People want to volunteer. They’re donating to my campaign, people that I don’t even know. The outpouring of support is overwhelming and I’m very, very grateful.”

In some respects, though, it was easier to face Ros-Lehtinen, who describes herself as a moderate in a district that overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton in the last presidential election but had returned Ros-Lehtinen to Washington time after time since first electing her in 1989.

“She was a moderate but a lot of her votes were bad votes. She didn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose. That right there is appalling. I could have run a campaign on that alone,” observed the Democrat. “She voted to defund Planned Parenthood.”

Rosen Gonzalez believes that the long-serving congresswoman had taken notice of a shift among her constituency and was finding it more and more difficult to balance the wishes of Miami-Dade voters with the conservative right within her own Republican Party.

“I think that she looked at the numbers and she was really caught in a rock and a hard place between Donald Trump and a very democratic district,” according to Rosen Gonzalez. “She was going to be forced to vote democratic which means her own base would have become more and more angry with her and she would have been alienated. I think she realized that there was no place for her to go on either side.”

Now, Rosen Gonzalez anticipates that the larger political fight will be among Democrats vying for a chance to take on the Republican candidate who emerges from the primary process.

“I think that beating Ileana was going to be easier than going up against my democratic counterparts because in many cases we’re all ideologically aligned,” she explained.

Rosen Gonzalez also noted that the Republican Ros-Lehtinen appeared tired at recent political appearances.

“If she was able to run again she’d be running,” said Rosen Gonzalez. “People don’t just retire like that. She would have to run a tremendous campaign and she would probably get a Republican opponent in the primary because she’s been whiffle-waffling on the votes. Where it’s been important she’s been voting democratic and then she goes back and sneaks all these conservative votes.”

Rosen Gonzalez is now preparing for a “long list” of possible Democratic opponents, who are rumored to include State Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez of Miami and State Representative David Richardson of Miami Beach.

“It’s a day for me to stand up and say to District 27 that I want them to support me because the same kind of courage that I showed when I filed against Ileana and had certain doors slammed in my face ... that’s the same kind of courage I’m going to show on the floor of Congress in Washington, D.C. and that’s important,” Rosen Gonzalez asserted.

“I would like to remind all of the democratic voters in District 27 that I was one of the people who stood up. I didn’t care if she was in the race, if she wasn’t in the race. I had the courage to take a stand and that’s the kind of courage that I’m going to show the voters of District 27. That’s the kind of courage that Washington, D.C. needs, especially when South Florida is facing such infrastructure and climate problems.”

Photo courtesy of Kristen Rosen Gonzalez