sisyphusshrugged | well, that clears that up.

So why did the Bush administration push HUD Secretary Martinez overboard to run for Senate in Florida?

Well, Martinez is a cuban emigre with a history of throwing himself behind the anti-Castro policies of the conservative emigre community in Florida.

Perhaps Mr. Rove thinks they're going to need a favorite son candidate down there to overcome the backlash from this:

As U.S. and Central American leaders sat down Monday to continue negotiations for a new free trade pact, a local sugar grower felt anxious and afraid.

Key players fear the U.S. sugar industry may be sacrificed in the agreement, which would tie the U.S. economy with smaller ones in five Central American countries.

"You've got to remember the U.S. trade representative's job is to negotiate a trade deal and I just hope they don't trade away the American sugar farmers just to get a trade deal," said Robert Coker, a vice president with U.S. Sugar Corp. in Clewiston.

Not everyone is sympathetic. There are groups working to make sure sugar is left on the table in this week's negotiations -- including Florida environmentalists, who are concerned about the industry's impact on the Everglades.

Producers of other U.S. agricultural commodities, such as pork, are also lining up against the sugar industry in this battle. They fear if sugar is excluded from negotiations this week, they won't get more access to the Central American markets. Sugar is a priority for many of the countries involved in negotiating the regional agreement.

I suspect strongly that the Fanjul family of Florida, who are currently great supporters of Our Fearless Leader and his brother, the Florida governor, but who have a history of spending buttloads of money on both sides of the aisle, have more than a little to do with this.

To understand the power of Florida sugar, it is illustrative to look at the very wealthy, very private members of the Fanjul family of Florida. With an enormous sugar empire that dwarfs even the U.S. Sugar Corporation, the Fanjul family's sugar holdings in Florida and the Dominican Republic total more than 400,000 acres, operated by a family of companies under the corporate umbrella of Flo-Sun, Inc.

Four brothers -- Alfonso "Alfie," José "Pepe," Alexander, and Andres -- are the principal owners and managers of Flo-Sun. The Fanjuls are Cuban-American descendants of the wealthy Gomez-Mena family of Cuba, which controlled much of the American-dominated sugar industry in Cuba until Fidel Castro seized power, and the New York-based Fanjul family. Matriarch Lillian de Fanjul and her four sons make their home in exclusive Palm Beach, Florida, an hour's drive and a world away from the gritty sugar plantations of western Palm Beach County.

Unlike U.S. Sugar Corporation, its Florida rival, whose offices are smack in the middle of Clewiston's sugar fields, Flo-Sun is headquartered in a posh complex in Palm Beach. The Fanjuls themselves live in multimillion-dollar mansions set among the palm-tree-lined streets of the town.

With their wealth conservatively estimated at several hundred million dollars (Forbes magazine puts the figure at $500 million), the Fanjuls can afford to spread around lots of political money. And they do. Family members, corporate executives, the corporations themselves, and the Florida Sugar Cane League PAC have contributed $2.6 million to political candidates and committees since 1979. (Until mid-1994, the Fanjuls and executives for Fanjul companies accounted for an increasing share of the Florida Sugar Cane League PAC's funds, from 20 percent in 1980 to 62 percent in 1992. While the PAC is still filing reports with the FEC, there has been little actual activity, with only $38 listed as receipts since October 1994.) Fanjul family members alone gave direct contributions of $359,505 to more than 172 congressional candidates of both parties.

That is just the "hard" money. The Fanjuls also give substantial "soft money" contributions to political parties. In fact, the Fanjul family and its companies account for 59 percent of all the soft money given by the sugar industry to the national party committees since 1991.

The Democratic and Republican parties alike are beneficiaries of Fanjul largesse. Alfie Fanjul, one of the four Fanjul brothers who controls Flo-Sun, is a lifelong Democrat. He served as co-chairman of Bill Clinton's Florida campaign, and co-sponsored a Cuban-American fund-raiser at Victor's Cafe in Miami that reportedly raised more than $100,000 for Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.1 In addition, Fanjul-controlled companies have contributed $131,000 to the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee since 1991. After Clinton won, Fanjul was invited to attend the president-elect's "economic summit" in Little Rock, where he occupied a place three seats away from Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore and next to future Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Alfie Fanjul later appeared with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt at a ceremony announcing an Everglades cleanup plan.

His brother, José "Pepe" Fanjul, is a Republican activist who served as a vice chairman of the Bush-Quayle finance committee during the 1988 presidential campaign. In 1988, Pepe Fanjul was also a member of "Team 100," the group of people giving $100,000 or more to the Republican Party. In 1990, he was a guest in the Bush White House. Since 1991, Fanjul-controlled companies have contributed more than $186,500 in soft money to Republican national committees. More recently, Pepe Fanjul joined the finance committee of Sen. Bob Dole's (R-Kan.) presidential campaign.

Most recently, though, they've been funneling significant largesse to Our Fearless Leader

Florida is traditionally a major source for campaign money, pumping more than $5.7-million into the Bush campaign in 2000 while raising $1.6-million for Democrat Al Gore. This year, the Sunshine State total already is near $6-million for Bush. A regular visitor to Florida, Bush is expected to return Nov. 13 for fundraisers in Fort Myers and Orlando.

In 2000, the Bush campaign dubbed its top check collectors - those who raised $100,000 - Pioneers. Florida had 27 Pioneers, behind only Texas and California. Since then, campaign finance laws have been revised, doubling the maximum contribution of individuals to $2,000, so the campaign opted for a new level of elite fundraisers, the Rangers.

Many Florida Pioneers from 2000 are becoming Rangers for 2004, though a new generation of elite GOP fundraisers also is emerging.

...

Other Florida newcomers to the top echelon of Bush fundraising included Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, whose family runs the Flo-Sun sugar corporation.

For political scandal buffs, you'll be happy to hear that Enron is more than peripherally involved here.

Sugar plantations leach phosphorus into the Everglades causing, with the help of other agribusiness polluters, $867 million in damage a year. Simple-minded souls may think the solution is easy: Tell the planters to stop crapping in the 'Glades. But while dumping phosphorus in the water, plantation owners also dumped big money into political parties coffers, nearly $1 million coming from the Fanjul family alone. Sugar magnate Pepe Fanjul was a member of Bush Sr.’s “Team 100,” Team players raised $100,000 each for the elder president.

Rather than demand that his sugar daddies stop polluting the Everglades, Governor Bush encouraged a scheme by a company called Azurix to repipe the entire Southern Florida water system with new reservoirs that would pump fresh water into the swamps. From the view of expert hydrologists, such a mega-project is a crackbrained and useless waste of gobs of money. As part of the deal, Azurix would be handed the right to sell the reservoir’s water to six million Florida customers. Azurix was the wholly owned subsidiary of Enron that had recently been kicked out of Buenos Aires.

If sugar is not off the table, money may be - or worse, on someone else's table altogether, unless the cuban community feels amply supported in other areas.

Republicans, playing the race card. What a concept.