How to be the dopest single-minded seeker of reelection ever: The Ros-Lehtinen Method

How to be the dopest single-minded seeker of reelection ever: The Ros-Lehtinen Method

Are you an elected official in Congress? Congratulations! You are one of the most powerful people in the nation? Would you like to stay in DC? Are you undecided about whether Congress is the happiest place on earth (just kidding, that's Disney)? Take a few pages from the playbook of the Queen of getting reelected, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, to better understand why you want to stay in Congress.

Step 1: Understand David Mayhew's theory in his book The Electoral Connection: If Members of Congress are single-minded seekers of reelection, they will spend buckets of time and resources trying to get reelected.

Step 2: Because you are a single-minded seeker of reelection (no need to be self-conscious--it's actually a good thing), spend buckets of time and resources doing 3 types of activities: advertising, credit-claiming, and position taking.

Step 3: For advertising, do things like appear on Telemundo every day you're at home and tweet about it every time your beautiful face appears on the television.

Step 4: Another thing you can do to advertise is to hype the fact that you have the best cafecito on Capitol Hill and mention the only way they can experience it is to visit your office for a Capitol tour. (For the gringos reading this article, cafecito is a sort of magical Cuban coffee that is only experienced in Cuba, South Florida, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's DC office)

(trust me, you want some of this)

Step 5: Now that people know who you are, feel free to credit claim away. You can best do this by taking credit for things that you personally have done (like establishing a caucus for immigrants serving in Congress), bills that you have cosponsored (like extending Russian sanctions if they refuse to stop cyberattacking America and undermining Ukraine and a completely different bill that safeguards the pets of domestic violence victims), and using your position chairing an important subcommittee to criticize the UN.

Step 6: Getting tired of credit claiming? There's no such thing as too much credit claiming, but don't forget to participate in the third activity Mayhew outlines: position taking. This is when you do fun things like calling people that work for Vladimir Putin "thugs;" praising sanctions of "narcos;" and cosponsoring bills with fun and informative acronyms, like the "SAND" bill. As long as you're your usual opinionated self (in a calculated manner--this isn't a college dorm room where you can just air your grievances--this is the House of Representatives), you will have position taking down pat.

Step 7: Don't forget that some of these activities can cover more than one area of Mayhew's theory. Kill multiple birds with one stone by having your press release eviscerating Donald Trump for rescinding protections against transgender students be picked up by news outlets like NBC, Yahoo News, and Bloomberg. Since you only have so many hours in a day, you have to be efficient, even if that means that NBC doesn't use your glamour shot in their article about you 🙄🙄. 

Taking some (or all) of these pieces of advice into mind will be very helpful in all but assuring your reelection. Take it from a Congresswoman who is the most senior GOP woman in the House--you want to be here for the long haul.

(also, here's a fun advertising link for Rep. Ros-Lehtinen's office) 

14 Reasons Why Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Is a Lock for Reelection: 2K18 Edition

14 Reasons Why Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Is a Lock for Reelection

1. Even though the Cook Partisan Voting Index rated Florida's 27th just an R+2, meaning that the district only very slightly leans Republican (and went for Clinton in 2016), the Cook Political Report determined that for 2018, FL-27 is "likely Republican" under Ros-Lehtinen. This means that when Ros-Lehtinen runs for reelection in 2018, the race will likely not be competitive.
2. As previously stated, Ros-Lehtinen has been the only person to represent Florida's 27th in Congress, and people like sticking with the incumbent.
3. In the 2016 general election, Ros-Lehtinen kicked some butt, winning against the Democrat Scott Fuhrman 54.9% to his 45.1%.
4. Ros-Lehtinen took more than 80% of the Republican primary vote in 2016, so she is basically guaranteed a shot at the general election, no matter what she does, because she is a boss.
5. Also, she is loaded, with a titch more than $700,000 on hand, and that is even after the hardest election she has had in recent memory. With donations from groups like NORPAC (a pro-Israel group) and AT&T (the literal worst cell phone company ever), her money sources will not dry up anytime soon.
6. According to literally everyone, Señora Ros-Lehtinen is a lock for reelection in 2018. Even with the hot mess Donald Trump is, the reelection is so strong in Ros-Lehtinen that you can't even bet on a different outcome. Seriously.
7. On one of the most important issues in her district, education, Ros-Lehtinen has voted time and time again to make education more accessible, doing things like increasing the availability of Pell Grants (which is nice because you don't have to pay those back).

     8.  She is "an institution in the Miami area." You know what else is an institution in the Miami area? 

The University of Miami, home of the 5-time National Championship winners, the Miami Hurricanes.

9.   She didn't vote for Donald Trump, but she is willing to work with him, which is important to her largely Hispanic district because of some barrier? Like a wall? 

10. She called Fidel Castro "a thug" on the House floor, which no doubt garnered her much support from the large community of Cuban refugees that reside in her district.

11.  Ros-Lehtinen is hell-bent on keeping Social Security solvent, which is a huge issue for her district, considering that Florida has been referred to more than once as "God's Waiting Room."

12.  For the 2016 election, she received endorsements from groups as diverse as the AFL-CIO and the Log Cabin Republicans, so she has a large and deep support base.

13. She pushes for Congressional support in the area of Alzheimer's research, which is huge for South Florida because of reason #11 (more old people). 

14. The 'Canes, a set of sports teams that Representative Ros-Lehtinen even tweets her support to, are poised to have another great football season, as they have the 17th best 2017 recruiting class in the nation according to Sports Illustrated (and Clemson sits at #22 even with a national championship #sorrynotsorry). 

The Mighty, Mighty 27th Congressional District of Florida

The Mighty, Mighty 27th Congressional District of Florida

Takeaway: The Florida 27th District > pretty much anything else.

Rationale: 

Florida's 27th District is one of the newest districts in Florida, having been created by the 2010 Census. This baby district was created just in time for the 2012 general elections and has been represented by the baddest broad™ Ileana Ros-Lehtinen ever since.

Geography: 

The district is 344 square miles in size and chock-full of beauty, both natural and man-made. It is home to the beautiful city of Miami (and Kourtney, Khloe, and Kim when they take it) and the similarly beautiful city of Coral Gables, which is fortunate enough to not only have a seriously legit Venetian pool (with WATERFALLS and the standing as the only swimming pool to garner a place on the National Register of Historic Places) but also being the home of the University of Miami Hurricanes. "The U," as it is known, has a storied football program with FIVE national titles (Clemson, please take your two titles and have a seat) and has produced such legends like Ed Reed, Ray Lewis, and the greatest wide receiver to ever play for the Houston Texans, Andre Johnson. 

Demographics:

With 712,083 folks, Florida's 27th is only slightly larger than average for congressional districts per the US Census. The median age of residents in the district is 41.1 years, and the majority of residents of voting age are registered Democrats. Over half of the population is foreign-born, and the racial breakdown is 8.6% Black, 86.2% White (87.6% of that being Hispanic), and 1.6% Asian. The unemployment rate for the district is 6.2%, and the median household income is $42,237 as of 2015. Interestingly enough, even though Ros-Lehtinen won the congressional election with a wide margin, the 27th went for Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election with an almost 3-for-2 ratio. 

Economy:

Some major industries and employers found in Florida's 27th District are the Port of Miami and The U. Regrettably, the Port of Miami is not as valuable as the Port of Houston, but the port is still "the country's primary gateway to Latin America." Other valuable industries in the district are public education, as the Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the major public employer in the region, and healthcare, as Baptist Hospital of Miami is located in the district.

All About Ileana Ros-Lehtinen!

All About Ileana Ros-Lehtinen!

(picture from https://ros-lehtinen.house.gov/about-me/full-biography)

Biography: (all from https://ros-lehtinen.house.gov/about-me/full-biography)

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen represents Florida's 27th District in Congress. She was born on July 15, 1952 in Havana, Cuba, which makes her part of the 1%! (of foreign-born Congressional representatives in the 114th Congress). She emigrated from Cuba to the United States at the age of 8 because of the rise of Fidel Castro, and she settled in the beautiful town of Miami. After attending public schools in Miami, she attended a community college in Miami and Florida International University to earn her associates, bachelors, and masters degree, in 1972, 1975, and 1985, respectively. She later earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Miami in 2004. After becoming a classroom teacher, she went into politics after having the desire to fight for the rights of the students and parents that she had the privilege to teach. Representative Ros-Lehtinen was elected to the Florida State House and Florida State Senate, becoming the first Hispanic woman to be elected to either body. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1989 via a special election and has been serving in Congress ever since, as she was just elected to her 15th term in 2016.

Personal Life: Ros-Lehtinen has been married since 1984 to Dexter Lehtinen, the former US Attorney for the South Florida district, who prosecuted Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. She has 2 children and 2 step-children and is the proud grandmother to four grandchildren. One of her children, Rodrigo, is a transgender rights activist, having transitioned from female to male from 2007-2012. She is also Episcopalian, although she is ethnically Jewish.

Congressional Career: Currently, Representative Ros-Lehtinen is the Chairman Emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. She is also a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (https://ros-lehtinen.house.gov/about-me/committees-and-caucuses). Within that committee, she is on the CIA subcommittee and the Cybersecurity and NSA subcommittee, but most of these committees' proceedings are not published. She is the most senior Republican woman in Congress. Interestingly enough, she was the first Republican to support same-sex marriage, saying that it is important "that families support their children's choices." She has sponsored many bills in Congress, the most recent of them being the US-Jordan Defense Act of 2015. Representative Ros-Lehtinen has received a 0% rating from the ACLU due to her pro-life status and bills such as the Reproductive Rights for Minors bill that she introduced in 2005.