Miami Herald - August 15, 2004
Nicole White, nwhite@herald.com

The effort to unseat Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen essentially comes down to this: a battle cry to defeat the woman who opponents say has ignored the needs of U.S House District 18 to campaign tirelessly for President Bush.

Democratic candidates Dave Patlak of Miami Beach and Samuel Sheldon of Pinecrest both say that belief was at the core of their respective decisions to seek to represent the district that stretches from Miami Beach to Key West.

Patlak and Sheldon are competing in the Democratic primary on Aug. 31 for the nomination to run against Ros-Lehtinen, an eight-term incumbent heavily favored to keep her seat.

NOT BEING SERVED

"I just had enough," said Patlak, 49, a retired U.S Coast Guard officer, who touts his 25-year experience in the agency and his knowledge of the nation's waterways.

"It sickens me to hear Ileana get on the radio to urge voters to stay the course for four more years when the people of her district aren't being served," he said.

Sheldon, 28, a University of Virginia Law School graduate and a political neophyte who admits to having "underestimated the amount of work this campaign would take," said he is offended by the congresswoman's routine defense of the Bush administration.

"I see Bush as a problem on many levels and Ileana as an enabler who has to go," Sheldon said.

Whoever wins the primary will have to do more than deliver firecracker rhetoric to topple the popular incumbent.

Ros-Lehtinen has retained her congressional seat in seven elections with only token opposition, and she is a veritable "institution in Miami-Dade politics," said Miami-based pollster Sergio Bendixen.

Ros-Lehtinen's 1989 victory in a special election to replace beloved congressman Claude Pepper after his death represented the "the beginning of a chapter in Cuban-American politics," Bendixen said. "It was one of the great victories of Cuban Americans. She'll be very difficult to defeat."

In addition to shaking that legacy, whoever wins the primary must also overcome Ros-Lehtinen's near $2 million campaign war chest. Patlak and Sheldon have so far raised a combined $30,800.

As the incumbent, Ros-Lehtinen, whom The Herald could not reach for comment for this report, also enjoys the ability to remind her constituents of her accomplishments. She does this via newsletters and mailers that emphasize her role in securing funding to help clean the Miami River and her role in helping to introduce the Early Treatment for HIV Act "to allow states to expand their medicaid programs to cover HIV positive individuals before they become disabled."

The two Democrats are taking different approaches. Sheldon has sent no direct mail and will not campaign door-to-door. He'll embark instead on an Internet campaign blitz.

Patlak, on the other hand, has been more old-school, going door-to-door, even hurricane warnings Thursday night in Marathon.

He has seized on the chance to woo Cuban-American voters who aren't happy with Ros-Lehtinen's support for President Bush's tough new Cuba travel policy.

The new policy cuts remittances to $100 a month and travel to the island by Cuban Americans from once a year to once in three years.

Patlak's campaign postcards, signed by 150 Cuban Americans, declared the new policy "Un-American, unjust and inhumane."

He has also responded to Ros-Lehtinen's claims that the foundation run by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's wife may have indirectly helped the Cuban government link to the Internet more than a decade ago. Democrats dismissed the accusation against Teresa Heinz Kerry as an absurd smear.

Patlak called it "the worst kind of negative campaigning I've seen in years."

THE REAL CHALLENGE

While Patlak's strategy -- admittedly designed to woo Hispanic voters who make up 56 percent of the district's more than 285,000 registered voters -- could very well earn him the Democratic nomination, he would face an uphill battle against Ros-Lehtinen, Bendixen said.

"Patlak seems like an earnest person, but he's going to have to work hard, and he's going to have to do much, much more to win this race," he said.

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