Voteforeddie.com Running For Congress In South Florida

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – NFL star Chad Ochocinco famously changed his last name to Ochocinco to capture some press and to get it on his NFL jersey. A local politician is taking a similar path with his legal name change to voteforeddie.com.

Seriously.

The candidate, originally named Eddie Gonzalez, is challenging Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart as a candidate with no party affiliation. But when voters look at their ballots, the race will include Diaz-Balart, Mario and voteforeddie.com.

Gonzalez legally changed his name in Miami and then filed to run as a candidate. State officials thought he had left his name off his papers, but he told them that wasn't the case, according to the News Service of Florida.

Officials then sent Gonzalez, voteforeddie.com, material saying he couldn't use a nickname, according to the NSF. The candidate replied with the court order legally changing his name and the Division of Elections sent him a letter acknowledging his name, the News Service of Florida reported.

Voteforeddie.com was born in 1980 and is the son of Cuban immigrants, according to his official website. Voteforeddie.com said his father was a distribution manager for the Miami Herald and his mother has a dental practice. He currently lives in Hialeah.

On his website, voteforeddie.com said: "The 249 millionaires and 202 lawyers that are in Congress are not a true representation of this nation as a whole. They are the silver spooned elite that are guiding this country on an unsustainable course. We cannot continue to follow them into record deficits, crushing debt and endless dependence on oil for their own personal gains or indifference."

Voteforeddie.com qualified for the November ballot by having enough signatures on a petition to be added.

Still, voteforeddie.com has a tall task ahead of him. Diaz-Balart has the well-known name and has $558,119 in cash to fun with this term. According to opensecrets.org, Diaz-Balart's top contributor is Leon Medical Centers, followed by the Greenberg Traurig Law Firms, NextEra Energy, AT&T and the Freedom Project.

Diaz-Balart gets 51 percent of his contributions from individual contributions and 47 percent from Political Action Committees.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.)