Bloomberg's Miami office is in the heart of 'Little Havana'

[mia]

Enjoy the vibe while picking up Bloomberg campaign signs.

Manny Diaz opens Mike Bloomberg Miami campaign shop in Little Havana

And the Democratic presidential candidate to open the first office in Miami is — drumroll, please — former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, whose surrogates celebrated the event with a salsa band outside — where else? — in the heart of Little Havana....



Standing in front of a mural of palm trees and the words “Miami will get it done” — a take on the campaign slogan — Diaz said the Little Havana opening was one of 1,300 events across the country Saturday. He gave multiple TV interviews afterwards, in English and Spanish, saying how proud he was that that the first Bloomberg campaign office to open in Miami was in the neighborhood he grew up in and three blocks from where his own first campaign office used to be....



Little Havana is Bloomberg’s third office opening in Florida – the most by any Democratic candidate, so far – following the openings of an office in Orlando and one in St. Petersburg two days apart last week. The campaign has plans to open close to 20 field offices in the state over the next couple of weeks, in advance of the March 17 primary, and there are already more than 100 troops on the ground....

More than a dozen of them were in Little Havana Saturday, wearing Ganamos! t-shirts, at 1756 SW 8th Street, in a gray, smallish L-shaped shopping plaza with an accounting firm, an insurance office and an age defying clinic upstairs. You can do your taxes, sign up for Obamacare, get botox and volunteer all in the same place. You can’g get your nails done, tho. The Glam Style Bar next door to the campaign office is out of business. So that space is available, Biden people....



http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2020/02/10/manny-diaz-opens-mike-bloomberg-miami-campaign-shop-in-little-havana/

[superpatriotman]

1. Not exactly a Democratic stronghold

As a matter of fact it’s exactly the opposite.

There are many better, more important neighborhoods in Miami he should have considered.

[comradebillyboy]

4. Bloomberg is bringing new voters to the Democratic party.

Good for Mike trying to broaden his base.

[mia]

5. This neighborhood is a depressed area of Miami and is in the process of gentrification.

The blocks of homes and apartments that surround this vibrant section of 'Calle Ocho' tell the story. It's always been an area where new immigrants settled and then moved up and out. Now it's full of newer immigrants from other Spanish speaking and Caribbean countries. There are also many elderly immigrants pushing their walkers across the streets. I used to teach near this neighborhood and now pass it often on my way to downtown Miami.

Before Super Bowl, Miami's Little Havana faces exodus of Cubans, pressure from developers
The once predominantly Cuban enclave is changing fast, with Cubans moving out and high-rise developers trying to move in.

Just past the row of Cuban restaurants, past the park where Cubans spend their days playing dominoes, past the crowing roosters and the Bay of Pigs Memorial, there's a cigar shop in the heart of Little Havana.

Inside Casa del Tabaco, native Cubans spend their days rolling the cigars that have become as synonymous with the Cuban experience as rum, baseball and salsa dancing.

But the tobacco leaves used to roll those iconic stogies hold a secret: The seeds are from Cuba, but the plants are grown in Nicaragua, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. The store itself has another surprise: Its owner, René Diaz, isn't Cuban either. He's from Chile.

That same dichotomy plays out on a larger scale throughout Little Havana. The once predominantly Cuban enclave has changed dramatically in recent years, and development threatens to plow over the historic neighborhood as the population has morphed into a hodgepodge of people from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean....

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/01/31/miamis-little-havana-no-longer-majority-cuban-but-roots-remain/4587792002/

[Iliyah]

2. Younger Cubans, yes it is . . .

Smart move. As I've said in the past, he's got the money.

[pandr32]

3. He is the one to watch now

[Jose Garcia]

6. Bernie Sanders should open an office in that neighborhood too

[HarlanPepper]

7. Yeah they just love people who love and heap praise on Fidel Castro

But yeah the reaction would be entertaining.