PHOTO/
Ryan, left, Drake and Holly Raschien.
Holly Raschein gets in her opinions
KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER
One of the leading — if not THE leading — politicians in the Florida Keys has not gotten to speak at Hometown PAC’s forums this election season nor been featured in Konk Life’s Candidate Q. and A. series.
That’s because Holly Merrill Raschein, the Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives for the 12th District representing Monroe County and southern Miami and Dade County, is not a candidate. She has no challenger in this year’s race.
“I wanted to speak at the latest forum to thank everybody for their support,” Raschein told Konk Life last week, “but Todd German of PAC felt that wouldn’t fit the format.” One potential candidate, Gray Pamela, a Democrat from South Dade, had filed in May last year but ultimately did not qualify, so at noon on June 20, 2014, Holly Raschein was reelected.
“And so there’s no need for me to campaign now, which hasn’t quite sunk in with me yet,” she said in our Konk Life interview that we chose, campaign or no campaign, to conduct at the Coffee Plantation on Caroline Street.
Raschein was born Holly Merrill in Anchorage, Alaska, 33 years ago and today she lives in Key Largo with her husband, Ryan Raschein, a businessman in window shutters, and their son, Drake, now 2½.
Her life has inscribed an arc of enviable success, threading a political path from Anchorage through Florida State University where, even as an undergraduate, she worked at a government relations firm in Tallahassee. After graduation, Holly became a legislative aide to State Representative Ken Sorensen, a Republican, and then, when Sorenson was unable to seek another term in the legislature in 2006, to Keys resident Ron Saunders, a Democrat, who was elected to replace him. Then, in 2012, following a reconfiguration of the state’s legislative districts and Saunders’ decision to run for the Florida Senate rather than seek re-election, a seat opened in the reformatted 120th District and Holly Raschein decided to run for that seat. Competing against former Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson, she won 66 percent of the vote, and then beat Ian Whitney, the Democratic nominee, in a very difficult election for Republicans nationwide.
How did she manage all that?
“By going door to door, whenever possible,” Raschein told us. “I did a lot of driving. I never missed an event and I never took anything for granted. I fundraised like the Dickens. I worked harder than the others, I guess.”
She also credits the assistance and persistence of devoted aides Erin Muir and Kate DeLoach and “my best friend and treasure,” her personal assistant Audra Hill, based in Key Largo.
Regarding the outcome of her efforts she asked, “You think the Keys are hard because of their length? Try South Miami and Dade, which include Homestead and Redland that are almost wholly agricultural, a very different matter.” As a former legislative aide, however, “ I knew who to go to and the people to see and I’ve been able to work closely with agriculture’s unique needs.”
Despite her unusual position this year, “I still feel I’m campaigning because I have to go everywhere,” including to Key West two or three times a month. She has also opened up an office in Homestead. And she checks and reads her emails herself. “That’s the former aide in me.”
As an aide she now feels she may have been protected somewhat from the essential ugliness of politics. “It’s still very much a boys club, for example,” she points out. “Boys rule the roost.” She makes sure, therefore, to “invite myself to things, whether I get in or not. I make no bones about it.”
As for the divisiveness of politics these days, “people hate it,” she insists, “especially as it’s played out in Washington, D.C. But I have the ability to work across the aisle. I’m not a right-wing yet even while I don’t necessarily agree with the liberal agenda.” About Obamacare, she says she finds the concept “incredible, I just don’t like the mandate.”
She believes people need to know that their vote does count and they need to get to know the candidate, not just the party. “And politicians should know the facts. I’m an avid reader and I love combing the local papers and listening to the radio. I don’t watch the TV news so much.”
She learned from Ken Sorensen and from Ron Saunders, she says, “the value of congratulating people for their business successes and their family successes.” (“I got your letter and I’ve framed it,” say so many of her constituents, she said.)
The big issues among her Keys constituency, from Key Largo to Key West, remain waste water —“gotta get it done, I keep beating that drum” — plus windstorm insurance, canal legislation, sea-level rise, coral reef restoration, workforce housing (not “affordable” housing) and other such concerns “that keep cropping up.”
“I really do love my job,” she said. “It’s paid like a part-time job, but I feel it’s a full time one.
“And the fact is, I only chose to run for this seat myself because, quite frankly, I didn’t like the idea of working as an aide for any of the people running for it.”
She loves public service and she loves her family, she said. “I’ve been blessed my whole life and I feel God has laid out a path for me. Sometimes, though, I do feel I haven’t quite grown up.”
For the Q. and A:
- Who are your favorite reporters?
A. Gwen Filosa and David Goodhue.
- What’s your favorite TV programming?
- The History Channel.
- Your Favorite movie?
A. “The Goonies.”
Q. Your Favorite Book?
- Madeleine Albright’s “Madam Secretary.”
- Your favorite character in U.S. history?
A. There are two: John and Abigail Adams.
- Your favorite character in local history?
- Jeb Bush.
- Your favorite quote?
A. “In all things which deal with people, be human. In all those things which deal with the people’s money or their economy or their form of government, be conservative” — President Dwight David Eisenhower.
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