Kerry Courts Arab-Americans Alienated by Bush

[JI7]

<ORLANDO, Fla. -- Ever since President Bush narrowly won Florida four years ago, Democrats have meticulously courted key voting blocs that strategists believe could help reverse the party's fortunes in 2004 -- showering attention on seniors, blacks Jews, even Cuban-Americans and Haitians.

But Sunday night a surprising new ethnic thread wove itself into Florida's ever-complicated political fabric: the frustrated Arab-American.

Furious over the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies that many feel unfairly target Muslims and Arab-Americans in the government's quest to root out terrorists, business owners, physicians, lawyers and others huddled in a hotel ballroom across the street from Walt Disney World to demonstrate how much they wanted a change in the White House.

The Orlando meeting, intended to be a bipartisan affair sponsored by the Washington-based Arab-American Institute, turned into a cheering session for Democratic nominee John F. Kerry -- illustrating a dramatic shift in a traditionally Republican group that is now mobilizing to back the Democrat.

"I thought Bush was another Ronald Reagan on a small scale for what he believed in," said Ashley Ansara, president of a clinical research company in Orlando who said he had voted for the GOP in every election since moving to the United States in 1973. "I found out he's no Reagan. Not even close.">

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/worldnation/index.asp?StoryID=10792

[oasis]

1. "An Arab voting for Chimpy is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders" . I

stole that one from grandpappy Watts.