For Miami-Dade race, a radio post-mortem

The post-mortem on the Miami-Dade mayoral election played out on Wednesday over the Spanish-language radio airwaves.

Mayor-elect Carlos Gimenez appeared on WQBA-AM (1140)'s Prohibido Callarse, a show he had ignored during the campaign. On Wednesday, he didn't explain his absence.

"Let's talk about the future instead of the past," Gimenez said. "This campaign ended yesterday...I'm going to be willing to come before these microphones.

"I'm not going to be a person like the previous mayor, who would hide," he added. By way of explanation for his absence, Gimenez spoke generally about "media" calling him a "Communist" and questioning his Cuban roots. "That's personal," he said.

Then he again mentioned ousted ex-Mayor Carlos Alvarez.

"I'm not going to repeat the errors that Mayor Alvarez made," he said. Then he sought to lower expectations on what's bound to be a challenging term ahead. "Every now and then I'm going to make a mistake, or we're going to have different opinions," he said.

Earlier, Robaina called into the show unexpectedly, sharing the air with Miami Herald Metro Editor Jay Ducassi and pollster Fernand Amandi, whose firm conducted a poll two weeks ago for the newspaper that showed Gimenez with an 11-point lead in the race. He ended up winning by 2 percentage points.

"Obviously I was not very happy with the reporting from the Miami Herald," Robaina said, calling the coverage "completely irresponsible." "But all of that is behind us. We feel very proud of Miami-Dade County."

Ducassi, who oversaw coverage of the race, noted that Robaina's campaign questioned the poll commissioned by the Herald only once it showed Gimenez in the lead -- not earlier in the campaign, when Robaina appeared ahead.

"I find that laughable," Ducassi said.

"I didn't call in today to get into a discussion," said Robaina. "I called today to wish the best to this community."

Also puzzling on Wednesday: Someone -- it is unclear who -- was polling voters the day after the election, asking them who they voted for, why and when they made up their mind in the hard-fought race.