www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8910036.htm?ERIGHTS=-756928559241119802miami::webmaster@algoresupportcenter.zzn.com&KRD_RM=9ppqyvxqryqtuquwuppupppppp|Chris|NDEMOCRATIC SENATE RACE
Hopeful Penelas fights on
Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas is defending his Democratic bona fides as he runs the first partisan race of his career.
BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com
When Florida's Democratic leaders declare their support for presidential candidate John Kerry at the national convention in July, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas will be watching from the sidelines.
That's because the mayor didn't muster enough votes from activists around the state to serve as a delegate. The top Democrat in Florida's largest county got only enough support to go as an alternate who can't vote on the main floor.
And that was before Al Gore, the party's standard-bearer in 2000, called Penelas ``the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America.''
The blistering statement unleashed a debate over Penelas's Democratic credentials, as he vies to be his party's nominee to replace U.S. Sen. Bob Graham.
A slew of Democrats, from New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami to Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox, rushed to his defense. Even Graham affirmed the mayor's loyalty.
But for Penelas' critics, Gore's remark amounts to a whopping ''I told you so.'' They say Penelas betrayed his party by failing to mobilize Hispanic voters in the homestretch of the 2000 presidential race.
What kind of Democrat is Alex Penelas, anyway?
He's a lifelong Democrat, yet his political base is the heavily Republican Cuban-American community. He's a leading party rainmaker, yet he has raised money for Miami Republicans such as U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart. He's an eloquent spokesman for the party platform but defied a Democratic administration during the standoff over Elián González and disappeared during the closest presidential election in U.S. history.
''That's the challenge for him now. Some Democrats have hard feelings,'' said former leading rivals, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch and former Florida Education Commissioner Betty Castor.
''The mayor has to overcome Elián and Gore. He has to earn one vote at a time,'' Meek said.
Though he has been in politics for 17 years, Penelas has never run as a Democrat. All of the offices he has sought and won -- for Hialeah City Council, Miami-Dade County Commission and Miami-Dade mayor -- are nonpartisan.
Questions about Penelas' party loyalty incense his wife, Lilliam, a lifelong Republican who switched parties so she can vote for her husband in August. She points out that he regularly touts Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on the campaign trail.
''Has anyone ever thought about how hard it is to be a Cuban Democrat?'' she said, sitting next to Penelas in the booth of a pancake restaurant. ``Democrats are viewed as Fidel Castro commie lovers. For him to stick to his guns and remain a Democrat all these years is a testament to how he sticks to his beliefs.''
At a recent Miramar Democratic Club meeting, Penelas gave the standard party stump speech: no tax cuts for the rich, help for the working poor. Then he aimed a zinger at the Republican administration's budget deficit: ``They used to call us the tax-and-spend party. They are the borrow-and-spend party.''
He reminds the activists of his 2002 crusade for a state constitutional amendment that guarantees free pre-kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. The popular measure was one of the few Democratic victories in a year when the party's nominee for governor, Bill McBride, got creamed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
KEY POSITIONS
On some issues, Penelas sides with the liberal wing of the party. He attacks U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and his enforcement of the antiterrorism USA Patriot Act, which the mayor says unfairly targets immigrants.
Socially, the mayor is a moderate who supports same-sex unions but says marriage is between a man and a woman only; he doesn't want school prayer but says a moment of silence is acceptable.
Penelas downplays his not-quite-VIP credentials to the party's national convention, saying he didn't lobby the Democratic leaders eligible to vote for delegates. But the mayor's humble tally contrasts with the golden boy-aura he enjoyed in the late 1990s, when he was rumored to be a potential Cabinet pick by President Clinton or a Gore running mate.
Then little Cuban boater Elián González ashore was rescued at sea on Thanksgiving Day, 1999.
Penelas' credibility with mainstream Democrats plunged when he declared he would hold President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno responsible for any violence provoked by returning the boy to Cuba. It was a nationally televised act of resistance that Penelas says he regrets.
''If I had an opportunity I would have handled it differently,'' the mayor said between fundraising calls at his Northwest Miami-Dade home.
``I learned from my mistake. Regardless of my personal feelings, my first responsibility is to the welfare of the people I represent.''
Penelas does not apologize for his role in the Gore campaign. He helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the vice president and supported him on Spanish-language radio. ''I fulfilled my obligations,'' he said.
Not according to Gore supporters, who note Penelas did not attend a get-out-the-vote rally and took a 12-day trip to Spain in the last weeks of the campaign. Gore's statement, which was e-mailed to The Herald on June 5, said, ``Not all who claim to have been supportive and loyal truly were.''
The harsh reproach may dampen Penelas' appeal among the party faithful who typically dominate turnout in primary elections and still fume over the 2000 race.
''It reminds people of what they lost,'' said Ginger Grossman, a longtime political activist in northeast Miami-Dade and a Deutsch supporter. ``The angrier they get at Bush, the angrier they get at Alex.''
COULD BE FINISHED
Washington political analyst Charlie Cook had this to say in an e-mail to opinion makers around the country: ``It was always hard to see how Penelas would expand his base beyond South Florida and the Cuban-American community. Gore's comments could make it impossible.''
Cuban Americans have traditionally backed the GOP, largely out of a belief that Democrats were soft on communism and Fidel Castro in the Cold War. Asked why he chose the Democratic Party, Penelas talks about equal opportunity. His parents, who fled persecution in Cuba, registered as Democrats.
''I believe in one single definition of opportunity,'' he said. ``I believe in America, where the color of your skin or whether your speak with an accent does not matter. If you play by the rules, you can realize the American dream.''
Penelas and his supporters argue that Gore's strident comment is irrelevant to most voters and may even help his campaign by generating sympathy. Several Democratic leaders agree.
''Al Gore does not control the hearts and minds of all Democrats,'' said Amadeo Trinchitella of the Century Village retirement community in Deerfield Beach.
Penelas said his lack of partisanship may cost him some votes in the primary but will help him court moderate Republicans and independents in the general election. Ordinary voters are concerned about healthcare and jobs, not party politics, he said.
''Most voters don't care about the partisan stuff,'' he said. ``When I walk up and down the Pembroke Pines shopping mall, people want to shake my hand.''