US election campaign gets nasty in key political battleground

4.30pm - By ANDREW GUMBEL in Orlando


In Orlando, the Florida home of Disneyworld and one of the key political battlegrounds in the United States, the campaign for the November presidential election is getting sly, nasty and very, very personal.

Normally at this stage of the proceedings, a well-known character on the predominantly African-American west side of town, Ezzie Thomas, would be out chatting to local residents, registering them to vote and helping them fill out 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 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, who didn't even dare attend a local appearance by John Kerry, the candidate he is supporting for president, earlier this week for fear of what it might add to the legal troubles facing his own organisation.

The firefighters are subject to a criminal investigation, the chief allegation - for which no evidence has been produced - being that they have 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 both declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party ticket.

The investigations into both of them are being conducted by the state police, known as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports directly to Jeb Bush, the Republican Governor and brother of President George W Bush.

The Republicans, naturally, deny that the investigations are politically motivated. Even they acknowledge, however, that a chill has gone through Orlando's overwhelmingly Democratic black voting community following a flurry of unannounced visits by armed state police officers 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. No charges have been brought despite exhaustive investigations into both cases.

A grand jury looking into the allegations concerning the firefighters union concluded that no laws had been broken - but the FDLE remains undeterred. 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.

Orlando 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.

Given the unholy electoral mess that Florida produced in 2000, and given the state's sordid history of vote fraud and systematic disenfranchisement, especially of black voters, both major parties find themselves voicing the suspicion that the other side will try to steal Florida if only it can figure out how.

One added wrinkle is that Orlando's Mayor, Buddy Dyer, is one of only two prominent Democratic public officials along the I-4 corridor. If he is discredited, the Democrats will be deprived of a key figurehead in the run-up to November 2. As it happens, he is directly implicated in both of the FDLE's investigations.

In fact, the intrigue began with Mr Dyer's election last March, the result of which was declared fraudulent by his closest rival, Republican Ken Mulvaney.
Most, if not all, of Mr Mulvaney's allegations turned out to be demonstrably untrue.

The greatest suspicion then fell on Ezzie Thomas, who had personally witnessed applications for 270 absentee ballots - a figure big enough to force a run-off election if it could be shown that the votes were fraudulent.

The city attorney's office and the FDLE both investigated the accusations and concluded the case should be closed.

But something caused it to change its mind, because in early June uniformed officers began knocking on the doors of dozens of black voters who had had contact with Mr Thomas.

Many appear to have been intimidated into viewing absentee voting as an illegal practice, despite it being a perfectly legitimate voter choice. The FDLE 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, has not been accused of paying for votes, but they have acknowledged paying the 37 cent postage for some people's absentee ballots. The allegations seem particularly absurd because such practices are par for the course for both political parties.

Mr Thomas has previously been hired by Republican candidates to perform exactly the same services he provided for Mr Dyer - without falling foul of the law. Among his past clients is a name with particular resonance: Glenda Hood, Jeb Bush's Secretary of State.

It was Mayor Hood, not Mayor Dyer, who 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 Republican allies. But in early June, disappointed with the White House's failure to stick to pre-election promises, they endorsed Mr Kerry for president in 2004.

Days later they and their so-called "leave bank" were under investigation by the FDLE. The leave bank was eventually ruled legal and Mayor Dyer asked Florida's attorney general for a ruling to get the FDLE off the firefighters' back.

Mayor Dyer's bad luck, though, was that he had himself run for the office of attorney general in 2002, and his successful Republican opponent, Charlie Crist, was not about to cut him any slack.

Such is the incestuous nature of politics in Orlando - all of it poisoned further by the fact that the Governor of Florida is the president's brother.

If Orlando is such a flashpoint, it is partly because the city is in a state of major political flux. An influx of low-wage service workers in recent years, including a growing tide of immigrants from Puerto Rico, suddenly changed its complexion from a sure thing for the Republicans to a seat clinched by the Democrats in 2000.

The shocked Republican party subsequently set to work to win over as many Puerto Ricans as possible. While the Democrats seek to attract the Puerto Ricans with bread-and-butter social justice issues, the Republicans have appealed to their aspirations to material self-betterment as well as their generally conservative views on social issues like homosexuality and abortion.

Although the demographics still favour the Democrats in November, the Republicans, by common consent, have done a bang-up organising job, keeping particularly close tabs on Orlando's Spanish-language churches.

The ballot in Orange County will feature Hispanic Republicans running in every state and local race from US Senate (Mr Martinez) down to county commissioner, and quite a few of them are likely to win. That, in turn, 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.

- INDEPENDENT