Draft Taddeo for Florida's CFO

Last week, 2008 congressional challenger Annette Taddeo suggested she might be interested in a possible run for CFO. This would be a very good idea.

If you already know about Annette and agree, go sign the petition and encourage her to jump into the race.

Taddeo ran a strong campaign against Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Florida's 18th District. Despite widespread support and much excitement generated by her candidacy, she was unable to overcome the popularity of the incubment, who had the vast resources of her office and long career in politics to hold off the newcomer. Taddeo did establish herself as a progressive politician to keep an eye on, though.

Upon hearing that she might consider running to replace Alex Sink as Florida's chief financial officer, several bloggers, Fried Gator and myself included, decided that this was something we really wanted to see happen. So, we've launched a new blog Draft Annette Taddeo for CFO and a petition to convince that this is the best way that Annette can serve the state and this is her best career option right now. Since she has expressed openness to running for CFO, we want her to know that she has the support of the people. Maybe that will convince her to take the plunge and join the race.

And this is the year to do it. It looks like the Republicans will offer up a slate of old white guys for Florida's state-wide offices. And not just any old white guys, the same old white guys that got us in the mess we are in now. Democrats, on the other hand, are looking to field a diverse group of candidates for office -- women, African-Americans, Jewish candidates. Wouldn't it be great to add another woman -- a Colombian woman -- to that field? And wouldn't it be great to see a cabinet with a gender make-up that reflected our actual population.

This is particularly true when the Colombian woman in question is so well-qualified for the job. She's got great experience to serve as CFO. She is the founder and CEO of LanguageSpeak, a company with many huge clients across the nation. LanguageSpeak isn't just any corporation, either, it's a company with the goal of bettering society built right in to its mission. They provide language services including translations, interpretors and tutoring in over 100 languages. Taddeo is working on bring the world closer together through better communication. Sounds to me like the type of person I want running our government.

During the 2008 campaign, Annette consistantly came down on the right side of the issues. She endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. She opposed the Defense of Marriage Act and the Bush global gag rule on abortion. She supported reporductive rights, domestic partnerships, renewable energy and the expansion of early childhood education.

If this sounds like the type of person you want in Tallahassee, sign the petition.

It was stances like those above that helped garner Annette widespread support from Florida bloggers. Florida Progressive Coalition endorsed her and she was frequently supported by blogs like Discourse.net and Miami-Dade Dems, among others.

Many of the best organizations on the left supported her candidacy last time around, showing that it wasn't just Florida bloggers who liked her. She was endorsed by Feminist Majority, NOW, EMILY’s List, Florida AFL-CIO, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, DFA, Women's Campaign Forum, Congressional Hispanic Caucus' BOLD PAC, Russ Feingold's Patriot Corps and Red to Blue.

Another thing I love about Taddeo is that she's very plugged in to the Netroots and is supportive of bloggers and online activists. She appeared on a "Future Leaders" panel at Netroost Nation last year and her campain brought in attention from national blogs such as Daily Kos, Open Left, firedoglake, Swing State Project, Huffington Post, AMERICAblog, MyDD and many others. She raised more than $80 thousand on Act Blue last time around, putting her far ahead of most Florida congressional candidates.

Is that enough to convince you to sign the petition.

If you want to see for yourself how great she is, check Annette out in action at Netroots Nation in 2008:



You can also learn more from her Blue America chat or by watching her memorable Pea Pod ad from last year's campaign:



Did I mention you should sign the petition?

I'm Kenneth Quinnell and I approve this message.