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Pastimes : CENSORSHIP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mao II who wrote (39)	11/26/2000 9:11:11 PM
From: Mao II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 84

Protest by GOP called `fascism' ANDRES VIGLUCCI aviglucci@herald.com Democratic Party leaders Saturday intensified their criticism of a rowdy Republican demonstration at the Miami-Dade canvassing board last week, accusing GOP leaders of deploying a mob to intimidate board members and suggesting for the first time that their tactics smacked of ``fascism.'' At a news conference outside County Hall, Democratic Congressmen Alcee Hastings of South Florida and Jerrold Nadler of New York contended that the board's three members caved in to the protest when they abruptly rescinded a decision to conduct a manual recount of disputed ballots in the presidential vote. The decision may cost Vice President Al Gore scores of additional votes and could end up assigning Florida's decisive 25 electors to Republican George W. Bush. Nadler read aloud from a report Friday by a conservative columnist in The Wall Street Journal who wrote that a Republican congressman, John Sweeney from New York, set off the protest with an order to shut down a hand count already underway. The Journal column, which ridiculed the recount, said protesters ``also let it be known'' that 1,000 Cuban-American Republicans were being bused to County Hall in an implicit threat to two of the board members, who are non-Hispanic elected judges. ``Ladies and gentlemen, I have never called anything this before, but the whiff of fascism is in the air,'' said Nadler. ``We have a Republican rent-a-gang led by a Republican from New York who says, `Shut it down,' not by a writ, not by a legal decision, but by intimidation. That is intolerable.'' The Journal column did not include a response from Sweeney. He could not be reached for comment Saturday. Neither Nadler nor Hastings was at the demonstration. The protest came after county elections officials moved to a closed-off area on the 19th floor of County Hall to conduct the recount. Two dozen angry Republican observers staged a sit-in, chanted and banged on doors and windows. Democrats have said several people were punched, kicked or threatened during the protest. The board decided to move back to a public conference room a floor below, but then unanimously canceled the recount, calling the logistics unworkable. Elections supervisor David Leahy has denied the protest influenced his vote. The other two board members, County judges Myriam Lehr and Lawrence D. King, have declined interview requests. Nadler and Hastings said they are unconvinced by board members' public rationale. ``It smells,'' Hastings said. Republican leaders have insisted the demonstration was unplanned. But the piece by Wall Street Journal columnist Paul A. Gigot, who was with the Republican monitors when it erupted, suggests it was not entirely spontaneous. In his Potomac Watch column Friday, Gigot wrote that the monitors grew increasingly agitated as Gore's vote count grew under a liberal accounting of dimpled ballots. He added: ``Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to `Shut it down,' and semi-spontaneous combustion took over. . . They also let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban Republicans were on the way -- not a happy prospect for Anglo judges who must run for reelection.'' miamiherald.com