Carlos Lopez-Cantera highlights his family’s Cuba history in first campaign video
Screen shot from Carlos-Lopez Cantera's campaign video, "Freedom"

Carlos Lopez-Cantera

Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera wants Floridians to know his love of America comes in part from his family’s flight from Cuban oppression, in a new video ad released by his U.S. Senate campaign.

In the 60-second spot called “Freedom,” Lopez-Cantera tells the story of how his grandfather was arrested and detained in Cuba in 1960, and how, upon release, he gathered his family and fled with just the clothes on their backs.

The video includes grainy, black-and-white stock footage of 1960 Cuba including of Fidel Castro, and interviews with Lopez-Cantera and his father, Carlos Lopez-Cantera Sr.

“This country has been very, very good to my family,” the lieutenant governor says. “I love the United States of America so much, because anybody can do anything.”

“America means opportunity to me, because I’ve seen it.”

The video ends with Lopez-Cantera, his wife Renee and their two children walking on a beach.

His campaign stated that it’s the first of a series of videos the campaign will continue to roll out in the coming weeks. The digital content will be broadcast to targeted audiences statewide.

Lopez-Cantera is in a four-way Republican race for the nomination to run for the U.S. Senate, against fellow Cuban-American, Tampa businessman Carlos Beruff, U.S. Reps. David Jolly of St. Petersburg and Ron DeSantis of Ponte Vedra Beach, and Orlando businessman Todd Wilcox.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].



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