Ex-Scott fundraiser's explosive email warned of trouble with Hispanic voters
TALLAHASSEE -- Before he abruptly resigned as a top fund-raiser for Gov. Rick Scott, health care executive Mike Fernandez complained to top Scott advisers about a “homogeneous” team of campaign advisers who don’t understand the culture of Hispanic voters he needs to win re-election.
Fernandez’s politically explosive complaints were in an email he sent last month that foreshadowed his abrupt resignation last Thursday as co-finance chairman of Scott’s re-election effort. A billionaire owner of and investor in health care plans, Fernandez remains a strong Scott supporter, and hosted a $25,000-per-couple fund-raiser at his Coral Gables mansion Monday that featured 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
But the aftershocks of Fernandez’s resignation are a major distraction for Scott’s campaign and underscore a key part of the Democrats’ opposition strategy: that Republicans can’t relate to Hispanic voters. The most explosive part of Fernandez’s Feb. 20 email was his claim, first reported in the Miami Herald, that two Scott campaign aides imitated a Mexican accent.
When Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera said Monday there was “no validity” to the Herald report, it prompted Republicans sympathetic to Fernandez to release a copy of the email, which in broader terms reveals Fernandez’s uneasiness with the direction of Scott’s campaign.
Fernandez’s email indicates that he never heard the comments he complained about. A business partner named “Luis” apparently did on the way to a Chipolte Grill, a Mexican restaurant.
“It’s culturally insensitive for him to hear a senior staff members [sic] mimicking a Mexican accent on the way to Chipotle. It shows that the team does not understand the culture YOU need to win,” Fernandez wrote on his iPad.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/25/4017667/email-foreshadows-exit-of-mike.html#storylink=cpy
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What is the point of helping total asshats win an election, Mr. Fernandez?
