Fred Barnes: Florida's Terror Referendum

Tampa
THE BIGGEST NAME in the Florida Senate race is Sami Al-Arian, and he's in jail. Al-Arian is a former professor at the University of South Florida awaiting trial on charges of terrorist activities as head of the American branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization that promotes suicide bombings in Israel. Around him swirls the issue of who would deal more effectively with terrorism, Republican Mel Martinez or Democrat Betty Castor. "The race," says Martinez consultant Stuart Stevens, "has become a referendum on the war on terrorism."

Nearly every other issue, including the traditional ones in Florida elections like health care and taxes, have faded. Or, more precisely, they never had a chance to emerge. Instead, the race pivots on whether Castor, during her tenure as USF president, took strong enough action against Al-Arian after his support for terrorism became known in the mid-1990s. Castor suspended him with pay for two years and cooperated with FBI investigators. But she rehired Al-Arian, a tenured professor of engineering, when the investigation initially produced no indictment. Her successor as USF president, Judy Genshaft, had fewer qualms, firing Al-Arian in 2001. He was indicted two years later.

Martinez, of course, claims Castor all but coddled Al-Arian and three associates, two of whom were also indicted while a third departed for Syria to run Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The same accusation was thrown at Castor during the Democratic primary by her chief rival, congressman Peter Deutsch. But she easily disposed of him and Miami mayor Alex Penelas to win the nomination. Martinez, meanwhile, topped former Congressman Bill McCollum in a brutal Republican primary in which he attacked McCollum as "the new darling of homosexual extremists" for backing hate-crimes legislation. McCollum was outraged, but he has endorsed Martinez.

The race here has national significance. If Democrats are to have any chance of capturing the Senate, they must win in Florida. The seat is being vacated by Democrat Bob Graham. A Castor victory would offset one of the expected losses of Democratic seats in South Carolina, where Fritz Hollings is retiring, and Georgia, whose senior senator Zell Miller is not seeking reelection. Republicans now control the Senate 51-49.

The Al-Arian case first received notice in 1994 and 1995 when a TV documentary and stories in the Tampa Tribune revealed his ties to Palestinian suicide bombers and his advocacy of "death to Israel." It was at roughly the same time that Al-Arian's USF colleague fled to Syria. The university defended its relationship with the departed professor as an effort at diversity, but Castor later said the disclosures about him and Al-Arian were "very disturbing." She maintained it wasn't USF's job to investigate Al-Arian or others, and in a primary debate last June insisted the FBI never gave her "one iota" of information that would have warranted firing Al-Arian. She stepped down as college president in 1999.

The issue seemed to collapse after Deutsch raised it in a TV commercial only to lose the primary by a landslide. His ad consisted of a dark screen with two voices suggesting Republicans would exploit the Al-Arian matter if Castor were the nominee. One voice says: "Betty Castor didn't speak out about terrorist professor Sami Al-Arian when she was USF president." The other voice replies, "Shhhhh," as if Republicans might hear. "Al-Arian was calling the '93 World Trade Center bombers," says the first voice. "Shhhhh" is the reply again. Finally, the first voice says, "Can we talk about finding a candidate who can win?"

Oddly, it was Castor who raised the issue in the fall campaign in a TV spot, surprising Martinez and his advisers. They were hoping to use the Al-Arian case against Castor, but hadn't figured out how to broach it. They feared a sharp attack on a female opponent might backfire. But when Castor's TV ad appeared, they saw it as a gift, freeing them to respond with their own ad.

Castor's aim was inoculation. If the ad worked, she'd be able to turn to other issues. "Every candidate talks about terrorism, but I've dealt with it firsthand," she declares in the ad. "As university president, I took action to remove a suspected terrorist from our campus.... To me, fighting terrorism isn't just policy, it's personal." Martinez fired back with an ad featuring a former federal investigator, Bill West. "Betty Castor's lack of strong leadership allowed a dangerous situation to get worse," West says. "Stopping terrorists takes aggressive action and Betty Castor did not deliver."

Castor didn't back off. Her next ad faulted Martinez, who was President Bush's campaign co-chairman in Florida in 2000, for allowing Al-Arian to campaign with Bush. Actually, Al-Arian was only pictured with Bush at a rally (he later was invited to the White House). Now Martinez is running a talking-head ad with Rudy Giuliani saying: "There's no greater issue today facing the American people than winning the war on terror. Mel Martinez is the clear choice." The ad is extremely effective.

And so it goes. Castor would like to stress conventional domestic issues, but there may not be time. The primary was late, August 31, and during September the Senate campaign was blotted out by the hurricanes. Now the campaign enters the home stretch with two televised debates scheduled. The prospects are not good for any issue beyond terrorism to gain traction before the election. Besides, Martinez is quite comfortable with the focus remaining on terrorism, because he assumes it helps him and hurts Castor. He's probably right.

Martinez needs all the help he can get against Castor. She is the best candidate Democrats could have fielded. Clay Phillips, Castor's political director, says Florida is "a name ID state" where voters don't know candidates well. So name ID matters, and hers is high. Castor, 63, also has a political base in the I-4 corridor across central Florida from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg. This is where statewide races are usually decided. And her moderate-to-liberal views position her in the mainstream.

Martinez, 57, is no slouch as a candidate. He had intended to skip the race, he says, until Graham decided not to seek reelection. Graham would have been difficult to beat, but an open seat is winnable. And the Bush White House was eager for him to give up his post as secretary of housing and urban development and run. Why? He not only gives Republicans a better-than-even shot at picking up a Democratic seat, but he's likely to attract a large Hispanic vote that may spill over and go for Bush.

Even without the terrorism issue, Martinez has remarkable political strengths: name ID, Hispanic ethnicity, central Florida home, great personal story, likable personality, big time connections. Martinez arrived in Florida in 1962 from Cuba as a 15-year-old with no family. He didn't speak English. The Catholic Church found him a foster home in Orlando. Four years later, his parents escaped from Cuba and joined him. He went to Florida State University, worked his way through law school, and taught himself to speak English without a Latino accent. "Sometimes people even think that I have a southern accent," he says.

Politics has been kind to Martinez, who was Orange County (Orlando) chairman before going to Washington. As rough and nasty as the Senate primary was, he came out of it with a reasonably united Republican party behind him. And he's blessed with a short general election campaign dominated by an issue, terrorism, that aids him. True, he doesn't have a lock on winning, but you've got to like his chances more than Castor's.

Lets see, you are a radical Islamic fundamentalist bent on destroying the U.S. You are an academic too. Where can you set up shop and be assured of protection should you fall under suspicion. Get into a state university to be assured that there will be a hew and cry of academic freedom. Now lets just sweeten the deal and locate in the same town as Central Command. I am positive it is all a mere coincidence. Thanks Betty Castor, you did a great job on this one. I am sure we can trust you with matters of national security in these times of war. NOT.

The Tampa bay area is my home turf and Castor was a wash out as president of USF. The Al Arian suspicions went along for some time and she was warned by the FBI that he was raising funds for terrorists. In addition, if I remember correctly, his cousin was also teaching at USF and there was information that he was a part of this fund raising terrorist cell. I believe he was subsequently extradited. Castor wanted to keep the two of them at the university for diversity and to keep the Muslim community happy. Good Citizens this has been happening all over the country to where trying to locate and identify our enemies within is close to being an impossible task, especially when there are those who try and block the effort.

Castor is scary too because her son is one of the ones proscuting (or should I say persecuting?) Rush Limbaugh. She said at one point "we will get him off the air," or something to that effect. I have little doubt if the Dems take power we could see a chilling effect on free speech. And this from the crowd that tells us we're losing our rights under Bush?? What a laugh.

Fred isn't all that swift!! I admit that he is a lot better than Mort (the fence straddler) and Juan (the boy with two left feet) More and more Brit Hume and his talking heads are an irritant to me except for the shining star Charles Krauthammer and the next best Bill Kristol. I really get upset when Brit, Mort and Fred make fun of the President for his speech and any hesitation to think before he speaks. Next time listen to the three stooges when they try and say something, they have trouble getting two words straight in sequence. Brit has trouble reading, I didn't realize that the schools were screwed up that far back and I believe he went to private school!

Not to nit pick but if you diagram the sentence, leaving out the prepositions, he's correct.

....every other issue, including the traditional ones.....have faded.

Nearly every other issue, including the traditional ones in Florida elections like health care and taxes, have faded. Not to nit pick but if you diagram the sentence, leaving out the prepositions, he's correct.

....every other issue, including the traditional ones.....have faded.

Sorry, but the sentence becomes: "Nearly every other issue have faded." Nope. That's just wrong.

I no longer subscribe to a daily newspaper, but it seems to me I read an article just this week in a discarded newspaper at my favorite restaurant that the FBI had released about forty or so pages of documents proving that she was given lots of information and simply failed to act on it, then denied having received it. All I know is that throughout the entire episode she never showed one ounce of courage or leadership in the matter. Judy Genshaft came in and dumped him almost immediately. The least she could have done was suspended him without pay. It galls me no end that as a taxpayer I was paying this man a salary while he was on vacation suspected of being an enemy of the US. Nope Betty Castor is not the person for that position.

I've got to go with the Chick on this one. Miss Schlinker, my old maid H.S. sophomore English teacher, ground sentence diagramming into this poor engineer's brain. The knowledge of grammar it engendered has served me well, though it was not much fun at the time.

I finally dropped my subscription to the Tampa Tribune. It was the only alternative to the Communist Daily Worker aka St. Petersburg Times. There was a change in the editor and it has gone liberal. The Trib endorsed Betty Castro I mean Betty Castor. They just skipped over the fact that she was actively protecting a terrorist cell at USF in easy striking distance of Central Command at McDill AFB.

I worked in the newsroom of the Tribune for a lot of years and can assure you that many of the people on the newsroom floor are quite conservative, but as you know they aren't the ones who determine what ends up in the paper. I was surprised at how many conservatives there were in the guts of the newsroom, the guys who layout pages and the copy editors! I was part of the news photo department and I could tell by the photos that were being selected who was designing a page that night. The atmosphere in the newsroom is very restrictive. Those who work there can work no place else in Tampa and they have to be very careful about what they say and how they say it, but their politics are pretty evident when you're one on one with them looking for a photo!

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