Tempers flare at Election Day nears

By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

With a week to go before next Tuesday's presidential election, Republicans and Democrats on Monday found at least one thing on which to agree: Things are getting increasingly ugly.

From smashed car windows, to picked locks at campaign headquarters, to ugly rhetoric, to illegal campaign activity, both sides, in charges and countercharges, said emotions surrounding the Nov. 2 election are getting hot. Some said, too hot.

'There's serious violence by the other side,' Republican activist Jack Furnari said of several incidents during the past few days that have been aimed at supporters of President Bush.

Democrats countered that the tone of Republican rhetoric is getting increasingly hostile.

'The majority of Bush supporters are very, very rude,' said Doris Karp, 80, of suburban Delray Beach, who was handing out literature supporting Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John Kerry outside Palm Beach County government offices in Delray Beach.

While those on both sides insisted they are taking the high ground, in the past several days:

• Car windows of two Bush supporters were smashed Friday while the owners were standing along Palmetto Park Road waving Bush-Cheney signs, Furnari said. He said dirt and rocks were thrown at his face from a nearby car.

• A man carrying a sign, "Arafat Endorses Kerry," was asked to leave an early voting place at Southwest Regional Library west of Boca Raton during the weekend, said Kerry supporter Anna Schulz, 43, of Boca Raton. While security officials said his sign was protected by the First Amendment, his antagonistic behavior toward Kerry supporters was not, she said.

• Workers arrived at the Bush-Cheney election headquarters on Federal Highway in Boca Raton on Monday morning to find the door lock jammed with a pin. "I don't want to point fingers," said volunteer coordinator John Farner. "But obviously somebody didn't want us to get into the office."

• The president of the College Republicans at Florida Atlantic University was surrounded by spitting, beer-tossing, insult-yelling Kerry supporters when she drove through the campus shortly before Kerry's appearance there Sunday. Dana Roberts, 20, said Monday she has a video of the scene that she plans to share with campus police.

• A simmering feud between Democratic and Republican election watchers erupted into a screaming match Monday at the early voting location at the Jupiter Recreation Center, said Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore. She had the two separated but warned that future problems could force her to close the voting site.

Furnari blamed some of the incidents on outside agitators.

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