If Julio Robaina walks away with the County Mayor election today -- despite scandals over Ponzi schemes, shady real estate deals and his support for the Marlins Stadium -- there shouldn't be all that much mystery about how he pulled it off. The latest campaign finance reports have come in, and the fund-raising race ain't even close.
Robaina has cashed in $1.2 million -- more than the ten other candidates combined -- and spent $900,000, twice again the spending of his closest competitor.
Robaina's latest reports show that he raised $1,208,855 through last Thursday, just short of three times the cash brought in by the next biggest fund-raiser, Carlos Gimenez's $450,018.
Ex state Rep. Marcello Llorente was a close third with $448,418, and Jose "Pepe" Cancio has booked a surprising $119,305. If our admittedly shaky arithmetic is correct, all ten of the other candidates combined have reported $1.19 million.
Robaina reports spending just over $900,000 of that cash, most of it on consulting and advertising. The biggest recipients: consulting firms Rise Strategies and G&R Strategies and consultant Alfredo Balsera.
As for Uncle Luke: he raised $12,105. Yeah, that's exactly one percent of Robaina's treasure chest -- but that's only going to make the victory party all the sweeter, right?
