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Florida's national security threat Posted: August 23, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The leading Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from Florida, the former president of the University of South Florida, chose to ignore repeated warnings that her faculty included terrorist supporters. Betty Castor is seeking the seat vacated by Sen. Bob Graham. Her biggest claim to fame is her tenure as president of the university at the time it employed Sami al-Arian. Al-Arian awaits trial in January on a 50-count federal terrorism indictment, stemming from Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations he allegedly managed with several others from...

TALLAHASSEE · Robust, early leads by the Democratic and Republican front-runners in the race to become the next U.S. senator from Florida have narrowed sharply, according to a new statewide poll that shows the 12-candidate race has tightened into a five-person sprint. With television advertisements for the race beginning to hit the airwaves, the survey of likely voters conducted for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Florida Times-Union newspapers puts Betty Castor ahead of Peter Deutsch among Democrats, and Bill McCollum over Mel Martinez and Doug Gallagher at the top of the eight-candidate Republican field. After months of quiet preparations...

Peter Deutsch is not funny. The congressman representing Broward and Miami-Dade counties takes himself -- and his campaign for the U.S. Senate -- very seriously. Which makes his choice of press secretary interesting. Roy Teicher is funny. At 19, he was the youngest writer hired by The Tonight Show. He also worked on Newhart, Mork & Mindy and lots of other silly sitcoms and screenplays like The Flintstones. He just might be the perfect person to try to mellow Deutsch's brash public image into something more appealing. Deutsch rips his Democratic rivals at candidate forums. He is testy with reporters....

Deutsch has deep pockets to finance his Senate bid Throughout his political career, Peter Deutsch has not hesitated to use his own money in a tough race. In his first bid for office, fresh out of Yale Law School, he lent himself $10,000, nearly a third of his campaign treasury, for the Florida House of Representatives. When he ran for Congress at 35, he invested $350,000. Now 47, and facing his most daunting campaign, he has spent $750,000 of his own money on a U.S. Senate bid, even though he didn't need the cash to stay comfortably ahead of Democratic...

Peter Deutsch has been giving it to Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas good. For the past few months, the Pembroke Pines congressman has been playing the Elliot Ness -- or Eliot Spitzer, if you prefer -- of the U.S. Senate race. Both Democrats, of course, are running for the Florida seat being vacated by presidential not-gonnabe Bob Graham. But the noble Deutsch doesn't just want to beat Penelas; he wants the SOB in prison, where the youngish almost-supple mayor would surely be raped on a daily basis. After learning in July that Penelas accepted questionable campaign contributions from a health care...

In an audacious attack on a rival that he said was necessary if Florida's Democrats are to keep a Senate seat in 2004, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch used a candidates' forum Sunday to blast Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas as a party traitor with felonious campaign finance practices.

LEESBURG - U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch tore into his U.S. Senate Democratic rival Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas in person Sunday, accusing Penelas before a stunned audience of ``single-handedly doing as much as anyone to help George W. Bush become president.'' As a stone-faced Penelas sat beside him, staring straight ahead, Deutsch, of Pembroke Pines, looked at the mayor and called him a ''pathological liar'' for suggesting that he had labored to elect Al Gore during the 2000 presidential race.Then Deutsch repeated his accusations that Penelas has engaged in ''illegal and criminal'' fundraising in his bid for Senate.Deutsch's attacks -- the...

U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch of Pembroke Pines, who has already called Miami-Dade County mayor and Senate rival Alex Penelas a ''pathological liar'' and a traitor to his party, filed a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Elections Commission accusing Penelas of illegal fundraising. Deutsch's complaint referred to a series of checks to Penelas' campaign from associates and employees of CarePlus Medical Centers, whose owner told underlings in March that they were each ''expected'' to give Penelas $1,000.Coerced contributions are against the law.Penelas' campaign distanced itself from the e-mail when it became public in March and said the mayor would not accept...

``I was an early and strong supporter of Al Gore. I helped him and President Clinton raise millions of dollars and I helped him win Miami-Dade County by 30,000 votes.'' -- Miami-Dade Mayor Alex PenelasWhen Alex Penelas made those comments last month, they created an uproar. Anyone who actually followed the 2000 presidential election remembers Penelas abandoned Gore in the final months of the race, and worse, had turned his back on his supposed friend during the infamous Florida recount.And yet in recent weeks, Penelas has been trying to rewrite that history. Campaigning to be the state's Democratic nominee next...