The Power Trio

Congressional Candidates Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo Blast It for the Gray Panthers

By John Hood

Joe Garcia (left), Annette Taddeo, and Raul Martinez. Photo by John Hood

As events go, this was about as far from a rock show as you can get. First, it took place at the un-rocking hour of 9:30 a.m. Second, it was held in a church. And third, it was produced by senior citizens’ activist group the Gray Panthers, hardly the sort of souls one equates with mayhem and volume.

Nevertheless, Saturday morning’s gathering of “Intergenerational Activists for Positive Social Change” was as resounding as rock ’n’ roll itself — and almost as fervent.

See, ever since the days of Alan Freed’s “Moondog” coronation show, rock ’n’ roll has been breaking down barriers, bringing to light injustice and calling to arms all those who still believe in a world where opportunity belongs to everyone — in short, fighting the good fight. And when it comes to getting down and doing just that, there are perhaps no scrappier candidates for Congress than the power trio currently canvassing all over South Florida.

I mean, of course, Annette Taddeo, Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, who are vying to represent what’s surely the majority of our peninsula’s tip: Taddeo and District 18, which stretches from Miami-Dade’s southern suburbs all the way to the Keys; Martinez and District 21, which includes his beloved Hialeah; and Garcia and District 25, which comprises much of Miami-Dade, as well as the entire Everglades.

If they were a band, this three-piece would sell out arenas, so it’s no surprise that on this day the turnout was just about standing room only. Each candidate is running on issues very near and dear to the Gray Panthers’ hearts, as well as their wallets — health care, prescription drug costs, housing — and each came out blasting the incumbents for a reckless disregard of the people and their needs.

Naturally, their opponents weren’t on hand to answer back, despite being repeatedly offered a chance to do so. According to Gray Panthers Miami-Dade Chapter board member and event organizer Jack Topel, today’s proceedings were “originally slated to be a debate, but there were scheduling conflicts, so we decided on forums. The Republicans — for whom we’ve set aside Oct. 18th — still haven’t replied.”

Too bad too, ’cause if they had, they would’ve met a gaggle of good folk consistently committed to cause. Then again, neither Ileana Ros-Lehtinen nor the Diaz-Balart brothers, Lincoln and Mario, has thus far accepted an invitation to debate anyone, unless you count Lincoln’s acceptance of an invitation from CBS, which was never even extended in the first place.

No matter, the Democrats showed and they showed strong. Joltin’ Joe Garcia, the natural who, given a podium, could command a crowd for days, opened the proceedings with a vow to take that which Mario had gerrymandered into being, and turn it into something representing a district, rather than a fiefdom. Taddeo, as determined as she is poised and informed, followed up by lambasting Ros-Lehtinen for, among other things, rubber-stamping Bush’s efforts to end the S-CHIP program. And then Martinez, who in person seems like the kinda man you’d want to take in a ball game with, concluded by warning everyone to be on the lookout for an element of fear to be injected into the coming election, adding a crack about the newfound respect hoisted upon former mayors since a certain someone was given the VP nod, even though he has represented condos with a larger population than the entire city of Wasilla.

Finally, the candidates took the stage together and answered a litany of previously submitted questions that ran the gamut of Gray Panther concerns — from the ever-increasing cost of health care to the ever-precarious state of our environment — and each answered with the agility you’d expect from three for whom fielding inquiries from constituents is not merely an obligation, but a privilege, and an honor.

Mostly though, there, amid the immaculately kept grounds of the Unitarian Universalist Church, under a roof that was designed to represent both Florida’s indigenous palmetto scrub palm and the cluster of big tent meeting places for which the congregation is known, three very serious candidates for Congress struck the kinda power chords that have inspired legions of people, from every age, era and walk of life, to get off their asses and do something. And if that’s not rock ‘n’ roll, nothing is.

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