Electoral corruption is the only constant in Florida

By ROGER FRANKLIN

TAMPA - At the time, seven weeks ago on a sweltering Tampa afternoon, it seemed like nothing more than another funeral in Florida - the state where New Yorkers come to die. Augie Madsen, born in 1930 in Brooklyn, passed away in Hernando Beach.

Poor Aug, carried off by prostate cancer after three score years and 10 of remarkably consistent misfortune. As his son-in-law, this reporter had heard it all time and again: the fire that destroyed his uninsured carpet-laying business; the first wife who took off with his money and best friend; the son he lost in Vietnam.

He was an incorrigible punter and, as he admitted, his life was a litany of horses that led into the home turn - and dropped dead just shy of the winning post.

His luck stayed bad until his final breath, when he was a shrunken shadow of his old burly self in one of the many hospices that line the highway north of Tampa. He wanted to see the Cleveland Indians get into the World Series and lived just long enough to know that it would not happen. But most of all, what he longed to do was cast a final vote against Republicans in general - and George W. Bush in particular.

That did not happen, either, which was perhaps the ultimate example of Aug's consistent misfortune. For in Florida, as in Chicago, New York, St Louis and just about any other large United States city you might care to mention, being dead has never been much of an impediment to exercising your democratic franchise.

In fact, if you go by the dubious returns in some cities, the deceased often cast more ballots than the living - an irony underscored by the fact that it was Gore campaign aide William Daley, son of the late Chicago Mayor Richard "Boss" Daley, who has been the official spokesman for Gore's contention that vote fraud in Florida might have cost the Vice-President his chance at the Oval Office.

In 1960, when John F. Kennedy won the presidency by less than 120,000 votes nationwide, most - and perhaps all - of that winning margin was allegedly conjured up by his father's legendary ruthless Windy City political machine. In Chicago, a radio commentator chuckled at the idea that anyone with Daley's last name would have the gall to complain about fraud. "Little Bill was stuffing ballots in his bassinet," the DJ sneered.

So, as the light faded, the final chore of Augie's life was to serve as the centrepiece of a funeral that, just maybe, helps to explain why the Texas Governor he detested might yet become the 43rd President of the United States - and why he might not.

Augie's wife, Edy, was in her wheelchair, a portable oxygen bottle holstered in a sling over the armrest. At 72, her lungs are shot from cigarettes and the fumes of heat-sealed plastic she inhaled over 30 years of wrapping meat in a wholesale butcher's New York freezer room.

She came to Florida with Augie to retire, to get the chill of the meat locker out of her bones, and fill their home with the kitsch ceramic cats she so admires.

Instead, after a few short years of reasonable health, the old girl fell to pieces. She is Democrat to the core - and scared of what she imagines Bush might do to restrict her access to Government-subsidised doctors.

"That Bush, he's the Devil," the widow wheezed last week over the phone from her home, where the five of her seven grown-up kids who drifted south from New York in her wake were packing her things in preparation for the move to an "assisted living" apartment complex overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

Between her Social Security cheque and the Medicare clinics she visits every 10 days or so, Edy's life quite literally depends on the federal Government's largesse. That was why her fellow Democrats made an extraordinary effort to make sure that she voted last Wednesday.

"Bush, he's not putting me out on the street," she had averred, before the local branch of the Democratic Party sent over a couple of burly young men to lift her wheelchair into their van and spirit her to the polling station.

The helpers were black, so they had their own reasons for getting out to vote: for the past month, Gore's allies have been showing adverts that depict a chain being dragged behind a pick-up truck. The message: A vote for Bush would be a vote for the same sort of racist rednecks who dragged a black father to his death in Texas.

The local Democrats had told Edy several weeks before - she is not sure how they knew her unlisted telephone number - that she could vote by mail. But she would not come at that. She is old, but not stupid. "You think I'd let someone steal my vote at the post office," she told them.

Her fear that Bush wants to tie a knot in the tube of her oxygen bottle is exaggerated, but understandable. For the past three months, Democratic adverts have blitzed Florida's old folks with stories of Republican heartlessness. But some of Edy's offspring hold different views. The eldest boy, Joey, a water inspector in a neighbouring county controlled by a majority of Republican commissioners, is a devoted Bush buff. Though he earns decent money, he complains that too much of it is taken by taxes - the same taxes that underwrite his mother's medical benefits.

"Ma needs the help. But the oldsters around here, mostly they get a great deal. I've got three kids and I drive a 10-year-old car. Why do I have to pay for the retirees who could pay for themselves?"

One brother agrees, the other despises Democrats for what he sees as their institutional corruption. "You can't hold an election around here unless they rig it," he laments. As they laid Augie to rest, an honour guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars fired volleys of shots in tribute to the Korean War veteran.

They represent another element of the greater Florida equation: the native Floridians who could once be counted upon to vote the redneck ticket. That was back in the days before one huge migration of Yankees from the North collided with a Hispanic tide sweeping from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now, as Florida Governor Jeb Bush admits, even he does not know from one election to the next just what sort of electorate is out there. "We call this the Sunshine State. But really, it's the State of Flux. Our state remakes itself every day."

According to bestselling novelist Carl Hiassen, Jeb Bush is right - although the former journalist is quick to add: "In Florida, you can always count on corruption. That's the constant."Much of Hiassen's Striptease takes place in and around Palm Beach, which also happens to be the focus of the Gore camp's allegations concerning anomalous ballots which, or so they say, gave their opponent both the state and, maybe, the presidency.

"It's New York by the sea," says Myra Soklow, whom I met at Augie's funeral. A friend of Augie's from the old Brooklyn neighbourhood, her late husband left her with enough money for a comfortable retirement in Palm Beach - the richest part of the state, and quite possibly its oddest electoral district.

Drive down the main drag at noon, and it seems the population is entirely over retirement age. Check the plush stores and it is all younger, well-heeled shoppers hunting for designer labels. Veer a little off the beaten track, and the topography is dotted with an even mix of strip joints and churches locked in battle for residents' souls.

Last week, when Soklow was asked if she felt disenfranchised by the confusion at the polling booths, the Gore voter said things were not as bad as Democrats had been painting them.

"The ballot was confusion; sure it was confusing. But bingo cards are confusing and we play bingo down here all the time."

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