Cuban-American Senate Hopefuls Take Polar Stands

BARTOW - Alex Penelas and Mel Martinez, a pair of Catholic Cuban Americans in Florida's U.S. Senate race, used some divisive issues to show their differences at a political forum Monday.

Penelas, the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County, supported legal abortion and challenged President Bush's stated reasoning for the war in Iraq.

Martinez, the Republican who left Bush's Cabinet to campaign, opposed abortion and defended the president's administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Debates across party lines haven't been common in the race so far; both parties have crowded nomination contests going. The forum was arranged by the Polk County Tiger Bay Club, which pitted Democrat Betty Castor against Republican Bill McCollum in February.

more: http://news.tbo.com/news/MGA03U2G3UD.html

how they feel about Fidel Castro. Admittedly, this is not in my list of priorities personally, but when you come from Miami, it means everything.

Penelas opposed the return of Elian Gonzalez and vowed that Miami-Dade officials would not aid federal authorities in returning the boy to his father in Cuba.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/31/elian.federal.defiance/

Martinez supports the Bush administritaion's new Cuba policy.

http://www.melforsenate.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=41

He opposed the returning of the boy to Cuba and bailed out the last two weeks of the campaign after they did it anyway?

end of the campaign and beginning of the recount. He was against sending Elian back to a dictatorship though.

The US 11th circuit court ruled that jurisdiction of any minor child custody hearing resides in the country of residence of the legal guardian (Elian's legal guardian - his father, as legally accorded by the joint custody agreement in his divorce of Elian's mother, who drowned in the reckless boat trip that nearly killed the child). This is according to the US and Cuba being signators of the Hague international treaty on child custody.

Gore supported the idea (in a move designed to pander to the Cuban-American vote) that jurisdiction somehow belonged in a Miami-Dade DCF court, despite the fact that the law is clear on this issue.


HAGUE CONVENTION ON THE CIVIL ASPECTS
OF INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION
http://travel.state.gov./hague_childabduction.html

Yeah, it sucks that the drunken uncle kidnapper in Miami didn't get to keep the traumatized 6 year old turned into a political pawn by ruthless political opportunists, and yeah, it sucks that Janet Reno actually rescued the kid unharmed from that insane group of armed hostage holders - led on by Miami-Dade mayor Alex Penelas and Miami mayor Manny Diaz (one of the kidnapper family's lawyers).

Yep, doing the right thing sucks. </sarcasm>