In Orlando, the Florida home of Disneyworld and a vital political battleground,
the campaign for the November presidential election is getting sly, nasty
and very, very personal. Normally, at this stage of the proceedings,
Ezzie Thomas, a well-known character on the predominantly African-American
west side of town, would be out chatting to the people, registering them
to vote before the 4 October deadline and helping them with absentee
ballots if they do not think they will have time to make it to the polls
on election day. But the 73-year-old Mr Thomas, an affable ladies' man,
is staying out of public view for fear of exacerbating what is already
a highly controversial - and highly political - criminal investigation
of his election-related activities.
A similarly low profile is being taken by Steve Clelland, the head of
the local firefighters' union. Last week, he did not even dare attend
a local appearance by John Kerry, the candidate he is supporting for
President, in case it added to the legal troubles facing his own organization.
The firefighters are also subject to a criminal investigation, the chief
allegation - for which no evidence has been produced - being that they
colluded with City Hall to set up an illegal slush fund for political
campaigning.
What makes the troubles facing the two men particularly sinister is that
they are declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds
if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party. The investigations
are being conducted by the state police, known as the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement (FDLE), which reports directly to Governor Jeb Bush,
brother of President George Bush.
The Republicans, naturally, deny the investigations are politically motivated.
But even they acknowledge that a chill has spread through Orlando's overwhelmingly
Democratic black voting community after a flurry of unannounced visits
by armed state police to at least 52 homes whose mostly elderly residents
had signed up for an absentee ballot with Mr Thomas's help.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men
have done wrong. The media has aired official allegations ranging from
vote fraud to campaign finance irregularities to racketeering, but no
charges have been brought, despite exhaustive investigations. A grand
jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded
that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing
the case.
It is impossible to understand what is going on without considering the
broader political picture. Orlando is slap-bang in the middle of the
so-called "I-4 corridor", the line of Florida cities running
along Interstate Highway 4 from Daytona Beach on the Atlantic coast to
Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The I-4 corridor is regarded as the
hinge on which the outcome of the presidential election in Florida will
swing, and Orlando - with surrounding Orange County - is considered the
corridor's bellwether city.
So this is the key swing city in the key swing region of the key swing
state that will determine whether or not George Bush wins another four
years in the White House. Little wonder passions are getting heated.
Given the unholy electoral mess Florida produced in 2000, and given the
state's sordid history of vote fraud and systematic disenfranchisement,
especially of black voters, both parties find themselves voicing the
suspicion that the other side will try to steal Florida if only they
can figure out how. "It's a blood sport," said Joe Egan, a
prominent Orlando lawyer who represents both Mr Thomas and the firefighters.
One added wrinkle is that Orlando's mayor, Buddy Dyer, is one of only
two prominent Democratic public officials along the I-4 corridor. Clearly,
if he is discredited, the Democrats will be deprived of a vital figurehead
in the run-up to 2 November. As it turns out, he is directly implicated
in both of the FDLE's investigations. The intrigue began with Mr Dyer's
election last March. It was a two-round election, but Mr Dyer finished
with just over the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a run-off. His
closest opponent, a Republican called Ken Mulvaney, cried foul, saying
the 234-vote margin putting Mr Dyer over the threshold was fraudulent.
Since Mr Mulvaney's campaign manager was a prominent local talk-radio
host called Doug Guetzloe, his allegations had a wide airing. But most
of them, if not all, were demonstrably untrue. Mr Guetzloe claimed illegal
absentee votes had been faxed into the elections supervisor's office,
but the office accepts only originals. He also said people had been paid
for their votes, but offered no evidence of this.
The greatest suspicion fell on Ezzie Thomas, because he had personally
witnessed applications for 270 absentee ballots, a figure big enough
to force a run-off election if it could be shown the votes were fraudulent.
The city attorney's office cross-checked the signatures on the absentee
ballots with the original application forms and concluded they were valid.
Intriguingly, the FDLE did the same thing and stated, in a letter written
to the state attorney in Orlando in May, that there was "no basis
to support the allegations" and that the case should be considered
closed.
"
They've been trying to explain away that letter ever since," said
one senior city employee who did not wish to be identified. Something
caused the FDLE to change its mind, because in early June uniformed officers
began knocking on doors and asking threatening questions of dozens of
black voters who had been in contact with Mr Thomas. Several said the
FDLE officers took off their jackets and exposed their firearms while
questioning them. In at least one case, the officer crossed his legs
and tapped a 9mm pistol sitting in an ankle holster while he asked detailed
questions about the interviewee's reasons for voting absentee. (Absentee
voting is a choice under Florida law, so one can wonder about the line
of questioning.)
"
I felt threatened, embarrassed and like I was being accused of being
a criminal," one interviewee, Willie Thomas, wrote in a statement.
Many others told Joe Egan later that they no longer wanted to vote absentee
because they felt it was somehow illegal.
Although the FDLE's public statements have been less than transparent,
it appears to have relied on a paragraph in the Florida statute books
which says it is illegal to receive or offer "something of value" for
absentee ballots. Mr Thomas and his organization, the Orlando Voters'
League, have not been accused of paying for votes, but they have acknowledged
paying the 37-cent postage for some people's absentee ballots. Mr Thomas,
who received $10,000 from the Dyer campaign for his get-out-the-vote
efforts, has also acknowledged paying his volunteers between $100 and
$150 for petrol and other expenses over the campaign season.
The allegations seem particularly absurd because such practices are absolutely
par for the course for both parties. "A 37-cent postage stamp is
a very interesting definition of racketeering," Mr Egan said. "Now,
it's well known that most absentee ballots come out of the white community
... I seriously doubt the police would behave in the same way in a white
community."
As it happens, Mr Thomas had been been hired before by Republican candidates
to perform exactly the same services he provided for Mr Dyer, without
falling foul of the law. Among his past clients are two names with particular
resonance in the 2004 presidential race. One is Mel Martinez, the Bush
administration's outgoing Housing Secretary who is now running for the
Florida Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Democrat, Bob Graham.
(Mr Thomas helped Mr Martinez run for chair of the Orange County commission
a few years ago.) And the other is Glenda Hood, who was mayor of Orlando
for 12 years before being appointed Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, the
office responsible for running Florida's elections.
And Mayor Hood, not Mayor Dyer, allowed the firefighters' union to spend
up to $40,000 a year in city funds on political activities. In those
days, the firefighters were considered allies of the Republican establishment
in Orange County and had endorsed George Bush for President in 2000.
But Mr Clelland and his members were deeply disappointed by the White
House's failure to follow through on promises to put an extra 100,000
firefighters on American streets and update their equipment. So, in early
June, they joined a statewide union vote endorsing Mr Kerry for President
in 2004.
Days later, the FDLE, with television cameras in tow, raided City Hall,
seized several computers and announced that the union and its so-called "leave
bank" were being investigated. The beefy Mr Clelland said he was
scared to death in his interview with the FDLE supervisor in Orlando
and was told he might be slung into jail if he insisted on having his
lawyer present. He duly asked Mr Egan to leave the room.
Like the black absentee voters, Mr Clelland also noticed the officer
tapping the 9mm pistol in his ankle holster as he let loose his barrage
of questions. "You would think these investigators were going after
John Gotti [the late Mafia don]," he said bitterly. "Their
actions have gutted this organization locally." After the grand
jury ruled that the union leave bank was legal, Mayor Dyer asked Florida's
attorney general for a ruling to get the FDLE off their backs. But Mayor
Dyer's bad luck was that he had run for the office of attorney general
in 2002, and his successful Republican opponent, Charlie Crist, was not
about to cut him any slack. Mr Crist has refused to offer an opinion
either way.
Such is the incestuous nature of politics in Orlando, and in Florida
generally, all of it poisoned further by the governor being the President's
brother. Mayor Hood was regarded as a consensus-building moderate for
much of her time in Orlando, but became more ideological on such issues
as gay rights and abortion as she cast around for a new job. Most Democrats
believe that, as Secretary of State and as a direct appointee of the
governor, her mandate is not to guarantee a free and fair electoral process
so much as to do everything in her power to clinch a Bush victory, much
as her notorious predecessor, Katherine Harris, did in 2000.
Orlando is also in a state of major flux. For years, the big citrus farmers,
as well as the land developers who came in Disneyworld's wake, made it
a reliable Republican stronghold. Then an influx of low-wage service
workers, including a growing tide of immigrants from Puerto Rico, changed
its complexion.
The Republicans were shocked when Al Gore beat George Bush in Orange
County in the presidential race in 2000, and vowed not to be taken by
surprise again. The party identified the Puerto Ricans - many from middle-class
backgrounds back home - as the key constituency and set to work to win
over as many as possible.
The Democrats try to attract the Puerto Ricans with bread-and-butter
social justice issues (an increase in the minimum wage, better health
care, and so on), but the Republicans have appealed to their aspirations
to material self-betterment as well as their generally conservative views
on social issues such as homosexuality and abortion.
Although the demographics still favor the Democrats in November, the
Republicans, by common consent, have done an excellent organizing job,
keeping particularly close tabs on Orlando's Spanish-language churches.
The ballot in Orange County will have Hispanic Republicans running in
every state and local race from US Senate (Mr Martinez) to county commissioner,
and more than a few of them are likely to win. That could have a positive
knock-on effect for President Bush.
With workers from both parties rushing to register as many voters as
possible while there is still time, the race remains nerve-rackingly
close, close enough that the votes controlled by Ezzie Thomas and the
firefighters might just make the crucial difference.
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
