[Marxism] Florida, Again, Too Close To Call (CBS News)

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

By the way, Cuba's National Assembly President,
Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, is proposing that the
Carter Center, the Organization of American States
and the United Nations travel the short distance to
Florida and provide election observers there. After
all, they travel everywhere else on the map telling
other countries how to conduct THEIR elections, why
not, in light of the electoral fiasco of the year
2000, start sending observers to Florida RIGHT NOW?

In Florida, the election roles are secret. This is
information which the public is forbidden to know.
By contrast, in Cuba, there is no registration at
all, since everyone is automatically eligible to
vote the day they become of voting age, which is 16.

All the more timely, then, is the call for outside
and independent election observers in the US today.


Walter Lippmann
=====================================================

READ RICARDO ALARCON'S PROPOSAL HERE:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/vier30/32elec.html 

WILL THE ELECTION FARCE OF 2000 BE REPEATED?
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/junio/mier30/27florid.html 

CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS FAVOR UN OBSERVERS:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/mar20/30powell.html  

FRAUD AND RACIAL SEGREGATION IN THE LAND OF TRUE BROTHERHOOD:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/lun12/29elec1.html 

ELECTIONS IN JEB BUSH'S FLORIDA
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/lun19/30elec.html 
==========================================================

Florida, Again, Too Close To Call
NEW YORK, July 21, 2004

Political analysts are genuinely unsure 
whether Florida will go red or blue.
By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer
-----------------------------------

Four years ago, Florida famously decided the presidential
election - and it could happen again. The Sunshine State is
in another dead heat with less than four months remaining
until Election Day.

Florida is crucial every election year, but even more so
this time around, as the election takes place in the shadow
of the 36-day 2000 debacle. Having gained two additional
electoral votes, pushing its total to 27, Florida is the
richest prize of any swing state, with just one electoral
vote less than the strategically important states of
Michigan and Missouri combined.

With strong turnout expected, possibly broaching record
numbers, Floridians have already faced an onslaught of
advertising, and political analysts are genuinely unsure
whether the state will go red or blue.

Seventy percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2000
general election, according to the Florida Department of
State, compared to 83 percent in 1992 (an extraordinary
amount compared to national averages). Experts say this
election should approach or beat those 1992 numbers.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

More On Florida: Ballot Woes Again on Tap in Sunshine
State?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

"You'd have to say turnout will be high because the state
is so competitive," says Susan McManus, an expert on
Florida politics at the University of South Florida. "But
the real key to victory," McManus continued, is likely to
be less about wooing voters, than "get-out-the-vote
efforts."

Wooing voters in the Sunshine State is not simple. The
state is anything but monolithic, in both people and place.

The southeastern Gold Coast is GOP territory: white, upper
class, Christian. The southwest coast of Palm Beach and
Fort Lauderdale is heavily Democratic, heavily Jewish. Both
coasts brim with retirees.

The southern tip of Florida also leans Democratic.
Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, is nearly half
Cuban-born, with large numbers of non-Cuban Hispanics,
African Americans and Jews, as well. While traditionally
Democratic, the area has often swayed to the Republicans
thanks to the conservative Cuban-American vote.

Northern Florida is the only part of the state that is
truly of the South, much more akin to Georgia in culture
and makeup than south Florida. It's Republican turf,
through and through.

In between it all is the I-4 Corridor, a highway in central
Florida spanning the width of the state. From St.
Petersburg and Tampa, on east through Orlando to Daytona
Beach, it passes through 14 of Florida's 67 counties. As of
April 2003, there were 9.3 million registered voters in
Florida, 3.7 million of them in the I-4 Corridor, according
to the Florida Department of State.

Of the state's 9.3 million registered voters, about 3.9
million are Democrats, 3.6 million are Republicans and 1.7
million are neither. The bulk of these non-aligned voters
live in the I-4 Corridor.

"I still always watch the I-4 corridor," McManus says. "It
has the decisive independents and non-Cuban Hispanics."

John Kerry is looking to the I-4 corridor as well. He is
targeting his television advertising to central Florida,
according to the non-partisan Wisconsin Advertising
Project. Dwarfing Kerry in early Florida spending, the Bush
campaign has focused on its conservative base in the
Florida Panhandle, as well as in the hotly contested city
of Miami.

The Bush campaign has spent 20 percent of its early
advertising budget on the Sunshine State alone; nearly
double that of any other state.

A poll conducted July 13 to 15 by American Research Group
gave Kerry a 47 to 44 percent lead over President Bush,
with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 3 percent. With
Nader out of the race, Kerry has a 49 to 45 percent lead
over Mr. Bush.

Though Nader's impact falls within the margin of error, he
still appears to be a siphoning more votes from Kerry. Vice
President Al Gore would have won the 2000 election if Nader
had been off the ballot in Florida (or New Hampshire). Mr.
Bush won the Sunshine State by just 537 votes, while Nader
earned 97,488 votes in Florida. Voter News Service exit
polling showed that 47 percent of Nader's Florida
supporters would have voted for Gore, and 21 percent for
Mr. Bush.

Experts do not expect Nader to earn anywhere near the votes
he did in 2000. But University of Miami political scientist
Ben Bishin points out that "when you have an election that
can be decided by a thousand votes, ten or fifteen thousand
votes could be enough to decide."

Bishin adds that Democrats are dependent on a large turnout
by African Americans. In 2000, 70 percent of African
Americans voted. During the 2002 gubernatorial election,
only about 45 percent did, likely contributing to Gov. Jeb
Bush's decisive victory over Democrat Bill McBride.

In the same election, Gov. Bush (the president's brother)
received between 78 and 82 percent of the Cuban-American
vote, helping him win mostly Democratic Miami-Dade County.

But Bishin sees Republicans once-solid hold over this
decisive Florida voting bloc "splintering" between
generations.

"The first two waves of Cubans were people who fled for
political reasons and their property was seized," Bishin
said. "But in the last 15 years we have seen a lot of
economic refugees and they are almost half of the total
population, but maybe 20 percent of the voter population."

Bishin explained that more recent Cuban immigrants have not
backed many of President Bush's policies toward Cuba,
citing increased skepticism about whether economic
sanctions have been an effective tool against the communist
country.

The key to Bill Clinton's win of Florida in 1996 was his
surprisingly strong 35 percent support among Cuban
Americans. Prior to then, no Democratic presidential
candidate had won Florida since 1976.

In 1992, former President Clinton only earned 20 percent of
Florida's Cuban American vote, contributing to his loss of
the Sunshine State. But Mr. Clinton still became president
that year, thanks to his victories in several other
Southern states.

By any measure, Kerry faces the same reality. The Democrat
must win Florida or stop the GOP sweep of the South,
otherwise President Bush earns four more years in office.

CMMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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