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TAMPA - Many prominent Democrats came to the defense of Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas this week after the U.S. Senate candidate was criticized by Al Gore for failing to be supportive enough during the 2000 presidential election.
But Gore's former campaign manager sided with the former vice president Wednesday.
"Gore was absolutely right," Donna Brazile said. "I don't know why it took him so long to say it, but I'm sure after years of thinking about the people who stood with him in trying to help America vote and those who stood against him, it was time that Al Gore called the roll."
Penelas has said he is proud of his efforts to help Gore. But questions about his Democratic loyalty have dogged him for months and peaked this week after Gore released a statement calling Penelas "the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America."
Brazile, passing through Tampa while promoting her new book, Cooking with Grease, said the Gore campaign had counted on Penelas' help in the campaign's final weeks but "he was nowhere in sight. He returned one call and then walked away from the process."
She said she will never forget the passive role Penelas took when protesters, many of them Republican operatives, helped shut down the recount in Miami-Dade. Penelas has said county lawyers insisted he had to stay out of the recount process, but Brazile doesn't buy it.
"It was not a legal thing; it was a political thing and he understood the politics," Brazile said. "He failed his own people in my judgment."
Penelas could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Campaign spokesman Danae Jones called Brazile's comments "a sad attempt to call into question Alex Penelas' loyalty to the Democratic Party and it just won't work. ... These kind of attacks within the party don't serve anyone."
Prominent Democrats such as U.S. Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson have defended Penelas. The Miami-Dade mayor is running against former Education Commissioner Betty Castor of Tampa and U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch of Hollywood in the Democratic Senate primary.
The typically blunt Brazile made no apologies for weighing in on the Miami-Dade mayor: "I didn't come down here to get involved in the Democratic primary. I wish him well. I hope he doesn't have a Penelas in his life the way Al Gore did in his."- Adam C. Smith can be reached at adam@sptimes.com or 727 893-8241.