Originally published in The Independent September 27, 2004
Copyright 2004 Financial Times Information
By: Andrew Gumbel
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 organisation. 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 chDISange
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 organisation, 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 organisation 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
favour the Democrats in November, the Republicans, by common consent,
have done an excellent organising 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.