The Miami Herald reported Sunday that S. FL. GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL18) admitted to spamming thousands of public school teachers with a campaign e-mail. This long-time Bush-Era Republican is currently locked in a close race with Red to Blue/Orange to Blue star Annette Taddeo. After losing the endorsement of the local teachers union, the Republican incumbent saw nothing wrong with using a public school employee e-mail system to peddle political material. After all, reported the Herald, Ros-Lehtinen paid somebody "$63.33 to obtain the e-mail addresses of tens of thousands of Miami-Dade teachers and district employees."
''It's all public record,'' said Miami-Dade Schools spokesman John Schuster, who, btw, can be reached at (305) 995-1103.
Herald reporters Michael Vasquez & Patricia Mazzei incorrectly reported nothing prohibits outside personnel from sending district employees political e-mails. In fact, district policy explicitly states "Use of the network for product advertisement, commercial activities, political campaigning or solicitation is prohibited."
One might ask, If a public employee system does not permit ads, commercials, campaigning or solicitations, then who is allowed to profit from the sale of teacher e-mail addresses?
Ros-Lehtinen could have apologized.
She could have taken responsibility for demonstrating poor judgment.
Instead, her campaign retorted, "When the names were provided through the public domain, available to everyone, there was no indication given that we could not use them to send them information.''
This is, as shown above, less than entirely factual.
Caught behaving badly, Ros-Lehtinen chose to play dumb. This is a brand of arrogance only seen in a politician who feels she is untouchable, unbeatable and unaccountable. Unfortunately we have seen these same behaviors in far too many other Bush-Era Republicans.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for Congress Campaign at (305) 460-3245. You can also e-mail her at contact@ros-lehtinenforcongress.com.
ILEANA UPDATE - Ros-Lehtinen Unethical Again!
Last night, I posted 50 Annette Taddeo signs in my Miami neighborhood. I canvassed major streets and intersections and used only public median strips. By morning rush hour ALL 50 SIGNS had been pulled up!
If the Ros-Lehtinen campaign removed the Taddeo Signs from public venues, then she violated the Miami-Dade County Election Commission Ethical campaign practices ordinance which explicitly states:
c) Willfully injure, deface or damage or cause to be injured, defaced or damaged by any means any campaign poster, sign, leaflet, handbill, literature or other campaign material of another candidate.
Dirty and desperate politics is alive and well in Miami. But not to worry - I'll be back out tonight putting up more signs!