Democrats point finger at Gore helper who let him down

By ANDREW GUMBEL

MIAMI - Was Al Gore double-crossed by one of his own lieutenants in southern Florida?

As time and luck turn against Gore in his efforts to overturn George W. Bush's lead, many Democrats are pointing the finger at Alex Penelas, the ambitious 38-year-old Mayor of Miami, as the man who threw the crucial spanner in the works and allowed political scheming to trump his loyalty to the Democratic Party.

Penelas, who is Cuban-American, was supposed to have been one of Gore's most trusted allies in the campaign to win Florida. But in the tense post-election period he has gone mysteriously quiet. Most particularly, he did nothing to encourage a manual recount in Miami-Dade, the most populous county in the state, and - say the Democrats - he may have been instrumental in the decision to shut the recount down on November 22.

Although Penelas denies any such scenario, telephone records obtained under Florida's liberal public access laws show he had frequent conversations with Republican leaders both in Florida and in Washington in the days before the recount stopped. Gore's aides say he made a promise to issue a statement supporting a recount but did not deliver.

The New York Times reported Penelas was considering a switch to the Republican Party if that would enable him to run for Congress next year in a heavily Cuban-American district in Miami.

To understand this tawdry piece of politics, one has to go back to the Elian Gonzalez saga and the decision by the Clinton Administration to seize him by force from his Miami relatives last April.

In Miami's Little Havana, sending him home to his father in Cuba was deemed unforgivable; having divided their loyalties roughly 50-50 between the two major parties in the 1996 presidential election, Cuban Americans did a u-turn and voted almost unanimously for Bush on November 7.

Penelas was in a difficult position - torn between his pledge to help Gore and his own survival instinct. He was re-elected mayor in September, but only by distancing himself clearly from his party on the Elian issue.

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT

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