Once again, another bumpy ride assured in Florida

[AlphaCentauri]

FROM Osceola to George W. Bush, the tradition of political skulduggery and duplicity in Florida is as long as it is revealing.

Osceola was the Seminole Indian chief betrayed by US forces in 1837 when he was lured into the open by a promise of peace talks under a flag of truce. Taken into custody, he died three months later.

Outrage over the manner of the capture prompted a burial with full military honours, but not before a doctor had cut off Osceola's head for a souvenir.

In the 1876 presidential election, Democrats won the vote in Florida and nationally but in one of the sleaziest deals in US history, the Florida return was manipulated to allow Republican Rutherford B.Hayes to become president.

The payoff was the withdrawal of federal troops from Florida and a Republican Party backflip on Abraham Lincoln's dream of racial integration and civil and voting rights for black Americans across the entire south.

By these standards, the saga of Florida's hanging chads in the disputed 2000 presidential election seems fairly tame, though not if your name is Al Gore.

In 2008, Florida promises to be another tight and important race. The so-called Sunshine State is the nation's fourth-largest; it has 27 electoral college votes. Winning here can be a game-breaker.

For Barack Obama, victory will almost certainly send him to the White House. For this reason alone, Florida is a must-win for John McCain, who is trailing in the polls and being outspent about four to one.

Florida's critical constituency is the Latino vote that Bush successfully targeted in 2004 when beating John Kerry by 52 per cent to 47 per cent statewide.

Bush won only 40 per cent of the Latino vote but it was a Republican record and a remarkable performance given the anti-Hispanic overtones of much GOP rhetoric on illegal immigration.

Bush's trick was a saturation ad campaign called "Te Conesco" or "I Know You", which pushed a familiarity and geographical themes. Bush was from Texas so he knew about Hispanics and had probably sat in the back of a pick-up truck with them. McCain hails from Arizona so the same arguments apply. Not only that, he defied the Republican mainstream when supporting Bush's attempt to settle the immigration issue by granting illegal residents citizenship and has declared Latinos a natural fit with Republican values on work and national security.

Much of the Latino vote is now concentrated along the Interstate 4 highway that runs between Tampa and Daytona and effectively cuts Florida in half.

With nearly five million people, the corridor is the state's fastest-growing region. Unfortunately for McCain, it's also one of the areas worst hit by housing foreclosures, a crisis that Senator Obama has blamed squarely on Bush.

The Florida statistics that play best for McCain relate to retirees and small business. The state has the highest percentage of retirees in the country and 98 per cent of its small businesses have fewer than 100 employees.

Retirees and people involved in small business typically are conservative voters but whether enough will stay that way after eight years of Bush is a big question hanging over the race.

And there is no doubt the Obama magic is working in Florida as it is in other parts of the country. Since Monday, Obama and his wife, Michelle, have pulled more than 120,000 people to rallies in Florida.

With Hillary Clinton at his side in Orlando, Obama performed in front of 50,000 people, the biggest political gathering in the state's history. In Miami it was 30,000 people. Add everything up and Florida appears as delicately poised and as prone to politically volatility as it always has.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24547083-5013948,00.html