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Updated: 8-9-18 at 3:19 PM EST (Campbell responds)
–Senator Daphne Campbell has been accused of illegally sending mailers to Republican voters in an attempt to trick them into voting for her, a Democrat.
–Campbell says that it is her opponent Jason Pizzo who is behind the ploy.
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Miami has a long and rich history of politicians playing dirty tricks on each other.
And signs are pointing to another example of that in 2018.
William Stuttgen is a registered Republican who lives in the Belle Meade area of Miami.
He’s retired and really dislikes his State Senator- Daphne Campbell.
He even has a campaign sign for Campbell’s opponent, Jason Pizzo in his front yard.
So when he received a letter in the mail last week that apparently came from a group of local Republicans that endorsed Campbell in the District 38 primary on August 28th, he was incensed.
Since no Republican or Independent registered to run in the general election in November, all voters in the district will be able to vote in the Democratic Primary.
Whoever wins in three weeks will be the district’s next State Senator.
And Stuttgen thinks that Campbell is using a classic dirty trick to get unsuspecting Republicans to vote for her.
“Someone got a list of the registered Republicans,” Stuttgen said in an interview at his home with RISE NEWS. “Pizzo didn’t do this. This is a Campbell thing.”
The chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party Juan Cuba said that they will be investigating whether Campbell is behind the flyer, as first reported by the Miami New Times:
The @MiamiDadeDems steering committee will be investigating/ sending @SenCampbellD38 a letter inquiring whether her campaign is involved with this mailer, & asking her to renounce this illegal tactic.
— Juan Cuba (@juancuba) August 7, 2018
Stuttgen said that the flyer was mailed to his house and had a stamp on it.
But it had no return address.
The name of the organization that claimed to pay for the flyer- “your Republican Neighbor” is not a registered political group in Florida and it is not clear where the money for the mailing came from.
It is also not clear how many people received the mailer.
Pizzo told RISE NEWS that his campaign has received another flyer from a voter in Miami Beach.
A Pizzo-supporting dark money group called FloridaStrong also said that have received a flyer from a voter who lives in Miami Beach that came from the same “your Republican Neighbor” group.
RISE NEWS canvassed six random houses on the street that Stuttgen lives on in Belle Meade.
None of the people we spoke to, including a registered Republican had received the flyer as of Sunday.
“Given my opponent’s unethical practices, there should be little doubt that she and her campaign coordinated this slate card,” Pizzo told RISE NEWS.
In a wide ranging phone interview that lasted nearly 45 minutes, Campbell denied the claims that she was behind the flyer.
She said that it was Pizzo who paid for the flyers to go out.
“He made it. It’s Christian Ulvert,” Campbell said of Pizzo’s political advisor. “I don’t have no money to do a slate. It’s them doing it. They’re so stupid.”
“Jason Pizzo can not take me down because I’m a people person,” Campbell said. “I’ve done so much for the communities I serve.
“Pizza wants developers from New Jersey to get rid of Haitians from Little Haiti,” Campbell said. “This is an attack on a black woman. I pray to God that August 28th that he gets his results. I leave Jason in God’s hands.”
On the campaign trail, Campbell has claimed that Pizzo is a secret Republican who wants to buy the election.
“I’m a proud Democrat,” Campbell said at a recent event in North Miami.
While Stuttgen is a Republican, he said that he is moderate on social issues.
Campbell is a pro life, anti-gay marriage Democrat who has been consistently supported by one of Florida’s most conservative religious groups, the Christian Family Coalition.
“She thinks people vote party line and they don’t look at the names,” Stuttgen said. “This is lunacy.
Campbell has a long history of controversy and borderline criminal behavior.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, RISE NEWS uncovered that Campbell had used her personal connection to an FPL lobbyist to try to get power turned on at the house of her “mother” before her other constituents.
Stuttgen said that if Pizzo loses to Campbell, he will be leaving Miami for good.
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IMF Official: Miami Is The True “Hub” Of Latin America
What’s News In This Story?
This interview is part of the “Tomorrow Lives Here” Conversation Series presented by Miami Business School.
WATCH:
–Alejandro Werner, the Director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called Miami the “hub” of Latin America during a recent interview in Coral Gables.
–”Miami is a bit of a hub for Latin America and for us that’s very important because it is a place where you come and you really address the broad regional interests,” Werner said in the interview. “In contrast to what you find when you go to twenty big capitals in Latin America- after two minutes of talking about the region, you fall back into the country.”
–Werner spoke to Miami Business School Dean John Quelch about the current state of the various economies in the Western Hemisphere and how Miami is positioned in the global market.
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This Republican Congressman Just Admitted On Live TV That Harsh Voter ID Laws Will Help His Party
Many Democrats have called foul on tough Voter ID laws passed in the past few years by Republican state legislatures. And now it seems like they might be on to something.
One of the toughest new ID laws was passed in Wisconsin, and a GOP Congressman said in a live TV interview on Tuesday night that he believed that the law will help his party win the state during the general election.
Glenn Grothman (R-WS) told TMJ4’s Charles Benson that he thought the new law would help the Republicans win the state for the first time since 1984. It was a pretty blunt answer, and probably one of the most truthful one’s about the law so far.
WATCH:
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For Women To Be Truly Empowered, We Have To Do More Than Just Tweet
By Carolina de la Fuente
Women make 79 cents to a man’s dollar every time they are paid. To many, 21 cents is chump change, but for women all around the country, these 21 cents speak volumes about the state of gender equality.
I recently participated in a research project at my college and it helped me understand feminism a little bit better and I’d like to share my newfound insight with you.
But first, a quick statement on terms: Feminism isn’t about women alone, it’s about equality of the sexes.
In this project, I specifically focused on women in the field of communications, but this information can be relevant to any woman in any field. There’s a greater picture here.
In 2013, TIME magazine stated “For three decades more women than men have graduated from college, but that academic dominance has not led to corresponding business or political success.”
There is a sort of stereotype embedded in society that tells us that women are “the softer sex” and that men are the leaders.
Sometimes, we are naturally partaking in this narrative and we don’t even notice it. The mere fact that women make up only 5 percent of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies makes this a very big concern of mine.
So how can we fix this? Calling ourselves feminists and tweeting things like “MY P*SSY, MY CHOICE” can only go so far. Though, there is some valid rationale behind that concept.
The most important thing we have to do is empower women.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, said in a 60 Minutes interview: “Women play it too safe. They must aim high and fight the instinct to hold back.”
It’s a matter of identity. We have to reiterate the narrative that it’s okay for a woman to be outspoken and assertive without having to be perceived as a “bitch.”
Women need to identify and become comfortable with all their aspirations and not let this stereotype come in the way or shy them down.
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Mindy Marques, the Executive Editor and Vice President of the Miami Herald, reinforced this notion in a recent talk she made at Florida International University.
“As women, we tend to dwell on our weaknesses, and men I think focus more on their strengths,” Marques said. “We often bring that self-criticism to the workplace as well, and so we’re dissecting our abilities; second-guessing ourselves.”
Photo Credit: Charlotte Cooper/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Besides issues of identity, there is a whole system that also needs to be tapped into in order to change this disproportionate number of women leaders.
In this case, it is leadership training that could be the big fix.
In order for women to become empowered, we must train them and provide them with resourceful skills to go out on their jobs and be able to ask for that pay raise, or speak up about an unpopular opinion in that business meeting.
Kathy Fitzpatrick, Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Communication at American University, suggests colleges should implement a standard curriculum for leadership training in communications.
“We can learn a lot from schools of business and other schools who have taken a lead in attempting to identify the core content and objective of leadership training,” Fitzpatrick said in a recent speech at FIU.
Leadership training is a crucial skill that needs to be held as a priority in this field whether it be through curriculum reform or mentorship programs.
As fun as it is to angry-tweet when you want to feel empowered, it’s important to understand the root of the problem and the solutions we can present to our institutions.
And it is even more important to remember that a big chunk of the responsibility is on the woman herself, to feel empowered and to continue empowering.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Ian Clark/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)