Four years after earning the moniker Flori-duh, the state is again risking becoming a late-night talk show one-liner for mismanaging a presidential election. Once again, there is turmoil over a list of who is eligible to vote, and the voting machines themselves in some of the state's biggest counties are under question: The touchs-creen machines touted as a space-age solution to the 1960s-era punch-card dinosaurs are proving to be a colossal headache.
Sensing a mounting public relations disaster less then four months before what could be another squeaker of a presidential election, state officials Saturday yanked the controversial ''felon-purge'' voter list. It was a concession to the critics who barraged the administration with complaints and data showing that the list was riddled with errors -- this despite Gov. Jeb Bush's vow that the state, after the 2000 debacle, would become a model of election reform for the nation. [...] The controversy started to blaze out of Bush's control when The Herald reported that more than 2,100 people remained on the list of potentially ineligible voters despite having won clemency -- the right to vote -- after serving their sentences. Many of them were black -- part of the Democratic base that mobilized against George W. Bush's candidacy in 2000 and nearly cost him the presidential election.
Then the discovery this week that Hispanics -- who in Florida lean Republican -- weren't on the felon purge list sent Bush critics and conspiracy theorists into overdrive, considering that the list was prepared by a Republican administration that went to court to block the public's right to review it.
So let me get this straight-ish.
The outrage of the state when 21,000 mostly black, mostly Democrat-leaning individuals were mistakenly included on the list did not stir the state to feeling that it should do something. (Note that this includes only people who were granted clemency; it says nothing about people who were not felons and who should not have been on the list in the first place, which was a particular problem in the last election.)
But the "accidental" exclusion from the list of thousands of Republican-leaning Hispanics, who should have been on the list, did.
The solution, to drop any list whatsoever, means that while the Democrats will remain on the list, so will the Republicans. To be sure, given registration numbers, an advantage to the Democrats.
Really, the corruption level of Florida politics is beginning to make Cook County's near-legendary corruption look peculiarly picayune, by comparison. Mind, Cook County's corrupt politics are at least competent -- they would never have tried a dodge this bad twice in a row. (We prefer to have the dead voting, thanks. Harder to notice, you see.)
In the meantime, in order to try to ensure that the theoretically Republican-leaning Hispanics decide to give the Democrats a try, the administration is now embarking on some magnificently badly timed and ill-advised revisions to what it is pleased to call its Cuba policy.
WASHINGTON – For more than 40 years, the debate has persisted: Do tough sanctions against Cuba weaken Fidel Castro's government or entrench it? President Bush's actions make clear where he stands. He believes loopholes in the embargo are serving as a lifeline for Castro.
At midnight Wednesday, new regulations take effect to sharply reduce Cuba-bound dollar flows from the United States, mostly by way of Cuban-Americans. Properly enforced, the measures could deprive the island of up to $150 million a year, according to administration estimates. The measures are being imposed despite growing congressional disenchantment with the embargo. Lawmakers voted by comfortable margins last year to end restrictions on travel to Cuba. A threatened presidential veto killed it. Proponents argued that U.S. tourism would plant democratic seeds in Cuba; the administration contends the chief effect would be an economic windfall for Castro. The measures taking effect on Thursday appear aimed partly at the November elections. In 2000, Bush's 4-to-1 advantage over Al Gore among Cuban-Americans in Florida helped to carry the state in 2000, by a mere 537 votes, and to win the White House....
BUSH LOSING SUPPORT AMONG CUBAN-AMERICANS
New York Post
July 10, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — President Bush is losing support among the crucial Cuban-American constituency in Florida and new curbs on U.S. travel to the island are stirring some division, a poll released yesterday showed. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they would support Bush if the election were held today, down from 82 percent who voted for him in 2000, according to the poll of 800 Cuban-Americans, commissioned by the William C. Velasquez Institute. Bush won Florida in 2000 by just 537 votes after a recount battle, and the Cuban-American community has traditionally been a reliable Republican bastion. Cuban-Americans were also reluctant to back Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Only 16 percent said they would vote for him if the election were held today, according to the poll.
So at this point, about the best outcome that Bush can hope for is that a substantial portion of Cuban-Americans in Florida are both so disillusioned with his wrongheaded policy, but not at all enthusiastic about Kerry, so that they simply don't vote at all. The problem with this is, a certain number of Cuban-American votes would have gone to Kerry anyway -- no group is a monolith -- and those voters aren't likely to change their mind unless Kerry does something particularly boneheaded between now and the election (always a possibility). Thus, all Bush is doing with this policy -- with which the Republican House has already pointedly disagreed, voting to ease the parcel content restrictions -- is to cut into his own voter base, thinking that by pandering to the Cuban American exile community, they'll like him more. It may appeal to hardliner exiles, but surely most of the exile community isn't hardliner, because otherwise, there wouldn't be so much flowing into Cuba. The problem is, telling them "You can't go home, you can't send soap and clothing to your family, you can't send them money, you can only visit once every three years -- and if you didn't make the June 30 visitation window for this year, you're just shit out of luck until 2007, regardless of when your last visit was," ... well, those statements really aren't calculated to make people like him, are they?
Posted by iain at July 12, 2004 03:01 PM
