Memo to Demos: Alex Penelas cannot run for congress
By Alan Farago
From Eye on Miami
The notion that Florida Democrats are ready to forgive Alex Penelas and allow him to revive his collapsed, political career with a run for Congress against David Rivera is as delusional as any I’ve heard in Florida politics, and that includes a long list. But there you have it, reasonable thinking people are talking about Penelas as though his refusal to push the recount forward in the botched 2000 presidential election is just water under the dam.
Alex Penelas had a full hand in Al Gore’s defeat in 2000. For that he earned a footnote in the history yet to be written about a dismal era in American history.
Penelas never had the guts to publicly detail the source of his disagreements with President Clinton and then Gore. Jim DeFede’s "Dead End Kid", published by Miami New Times in November 2000 explained:
"Alex Penelas is a fucking asshole," one state Democratic Party official says angrily. "Whether we win or lose, we’ll never forget that he sat on the sidelines. I guess once his own national ambitions fizzled because of his jackass comments on the Elian Gonzalez case, there was no reason for him to get involved in helping Al Gore win the White House. I guess he decided that since he was screwed, screw everyone else in the party."
DeFede and his sources were wrong about Elian and Penelas and Clinton/Gore. Elian was a show under the Big Top. It was the Homestead Air Force Base (that DeFede first tracked for Miami New Times) and Clinton’s promise, first, to turn over the base to the Latin Builders Association reconstituted as HABDI, and then his retreat, that burned Penelas with his money men, including Ramon Rasco, who would later establish the failed, insider piggy bank: US Century Bank.
There was enormous money at stake at Homestead, with visions of sugar plum fairies in the billions dancing in their heads. The issue was the brainchild of then county commissioner Larry Hawkins after Hurricane Andrew decimated the air base in 1992. By 1994, Penelas was in full regalia (just like Joe Martinez is today, carrying the torch for the money men) setting sail to commandeer the air base with tens of millions of county (i.e. taxpayer) resources. The Homestead Air Force Base was important enough to have been highlighted by Penelas in a final meeting with Clinton in late October 1996. Four years later, and Gore still wouldn’t say one way or another if he would keep the promise, and Penelas had his own response to Gore: fuck you.
Never mind Elian. The HABDI team had lined up every politician in South Florida behind its pipe dream of $10 billion in economic impacts. (Penelas was Senator Bob Graham’s protégé.) But by November 2000, the issue had blown into one of the most controversial environmental debacles in the nation. And costly. I know, because I was in the middle of it.
If Penelas wants to run for Congress, he can run as a Republican in a primary election against the ethically challenged David Rivera. The GOP owes Alex Penelas big time. As far as the Democrats are concerned, allowing Penelas to run would only underscore the party’s weakness and alienate voters in droves.
For the past 20 years Alan Farago has written, worked and volunteered to advance civic engagement and issues related to the environment and politics. He publishes the Eye on Miami blog and writes under the name, Gimleteye.
Original: http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2012/03/memo-to-democrats-reasons-alex-penelas.html
