"GOP Consultant, 2 Men Found Dead in Fla."

[GreenPartyVoter]

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A Republican political consultant and two other men were found dead in a home in an apparent double-murder and suicide, authorities and relatives said.

Authorities have not determined a motive for the deaths of Ralph Gonzalez, 39, his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30.

Investigators found weapons and signs of a struggle in the house, but they did not say what the weapons were or which man they believe was the killer. The men are believed to have died several days before the bodies were discovered Thursday.

Gonzalez was executive director of the Georgia Republican Party from 2001-2002. He managed U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney's 2002 campaign and was president of Strategum Group, an Orlando-based political consulting firm that represents Republican candidates.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070824/D8R7DVNG0.html

[marmar]

1. Bizarre.....

to say the least.

[zanne]

2. I think it's kind of sad....

Nobody noticed they were dead.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Yeah :^(

[soothsayer]

4. luv triangle

[Xipe Totec]

6. Not much love there... n/t

[Hepburn]

5. Interestingly enough....

...I read a headline on Google news that this was a love triangle murder, and when I clicked on the article, the headline was entirely different and nothing in the article about a love triangle.

Hmmmmm...???

[rfranklin]

8. Those self-hating Republican homosexuals at work....

If they could just come out of the closet, so much violence and angst would be avoided.

[ccpup]

10. the offical word from the Republican Party

is that none of their consultants, senators, congresspeople, big money contributors or anyone, really, with access to the Republican Power Structure is, has been or ever will be gay.

Didn't you get the memo? :sarcasm:

[Hepburn]

12. But how the hell did the Repukes sanitize this so quickly???

I mean...WHAM...the headline is there on Google News, but the headline of the article is entirely different. How the hell did they manage that one and that fast????

:shrug:

[malaise]

20. Check Florida Today as well

http://news.google.com.jm/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=Ralph%20Gonzalez&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn

[annabanana]

33. Now you see the extent of the media compromise...n/t

[ccpup]

34. they have sleeper cells

of evil little republican minions who do nothing but attempt to sanitize the increasingly skeevy, icky, sticky, disgusting news coming out daily about the GOP

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. It's possible, though my first thought was of shutting mouths that could have

told some interesting stories.

[wordpix]

7. Ties to Congressmen Feeny, Price, also Ralph Reed, maybe Abramoff

http://crimeblog.us/?p=535

snip: Ralph Gonzalez’s career seems to have always put him one degree of separation away from infamous former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

When Ralph Reed was elected chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in 2001 , two of the party’s executive directors were Todd Schnick and Ralph Gonzalez. When Gonzalez filed an annual report for Strategum with the State of Florida Division of Corporations in January, 2007, Schnick was listed as one of his business partners. (Note: Todd Schnick is a name that you might remember if you believe the 2000 presidential election was stolen, and that said theft occurred in Florida.)

Ralph Reed has been associated with Abramoff since at least 1981.

Tom Feeney’s connections with Abramoff have been well-documented by Brad Friedman. This link goes to just one example.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Things that make ya go.. hmmmm

[mod mom]

16. think Ray Lemme

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Remind me who that is again?

[mod mom]

23. Florida Investigator w a strange suicide (Clint Curtis connection) LINK:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3024

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. Right, thanks!

[annabanana]

9. Of the three.. Who was the shooter?

I wonder if we'll ever know....This ISN"T going to get the 24/7 treatment it would if it were Democratic operatives.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. No, I expect this will get swept under the rug

[Philosoraptor]

13. How very sordid and republican!

[marmar]

14. "How very sordid and republican!"

Exactly.

[glitch]

37. redundant. nt

[burythehatchet]

19. a moment of silence for 3 dead REpukes

thank you.

[tridim]

21. "I love my dead gay son" nt

[POAS]

24. Now that was a movie to die for!

[stimbox]

26. hahahahaha...

i was thinking the same thing.

[drm604]

22. "Lovers' fight may have sparked 3 deaths"

Google currently has a link labeled "Lovers' fight may have sparked 3 deaths" which is linked to this story (I don't know how long it will be there) but that's not the headline at the link.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&q=florida+suicide&btnG=Search

[nashville_brook]

25. when you think of FL politics, think "Chinatown" (oh, and here's a pic of Ralph Gonzales)

it's worse in South Florida, but I can tell you that Central Florida politics are dominated by the politics of land and water use. This is to say, the game is about people with power taking land and water from those who aren't paying attention. By it's very nature, this game walks the line of legality -- the people (developers) who pay these guy's salary (as the largest campaign contributors) operate like mobsters.

Point being, their stated profession and the nature of their real work are likely different things.

[OnionPatch]

28. My first thought was

that they were arguing over who was going to get the biggest share of the booty they rip off from the public.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. We're assuming this was a murder-suicide.

The one who won may not have been part of the trio.

[The Backlash Cometh]

30. Oh, we're paying attention. There's just nothing we can do about it.

Nobody will help us crack this cycle of corruption. Anyone new that comes into the area that puts up a stink either gets turned, or gets turned in. The governmental-political-business networks use their connections in all the wrong ways imaginable. It's like all the worst of the North Eastern politics and all the worst of the good ole boy network merged, and we're left sequestered in our homes if we don't want to be tainted by it.

There is no agency that will help the public. The US Attorney General's office is set up to protect these corrupt governmental networks. The FBI and other agencies, if they gather information on a "dissenter," would probably pass the information on to the government body where the corrupt individuals are operating. It's a no win situation. We really have no one to help us.

[nashville_brook]

47. would be nice to have more serious media back-up

there's no "agency" -- that's for sure. we need back-up from the media.

Orlando Weekly seems be trying.

i'm an orlando resident now, btw, despite my screen name. native floridian. i'm having quite the time getting up to speed on what's what here politically. there's so much to be outraged about -- where to start?

[annabanana]

32. Aw gee... Ralph looks clueless on so many levels...

And behind him are the guys saying. . "Steal it.. go ahead, you want to. . We all want you to . .you'll be our hero" Not that he isn't fully complicit, but his motives may have been more than greed.

[The Backlash Cometh]

29. I can tell you from my personal observation, that something weird is going on

in Central Florida. Higher crime rate is very evident.

[SpiralHawk]

35. RHDD* -- it is epidemic, so not surprising it is in Central Florida as well

* Republicon Homelander Diaper Derangement, caused by having Diaper Sex with a prostitute -- a peculiar peccadillo if ever there was one

[Stevepol]

36. If one was a manager of Feeney's campaign, maybe he was going to blow the whistle.

Feeney apparently stole his latest election as Clint Curtis canvassed the Democrats in his district to show that the vote results (on the electronic voting machines) were false. He had good evidence (had signed affidavits from enough Dems to show that his vote total was wrong) and he tried to get Congress to look into it, but the committee with oversight of the issue said there wasn't enough evidence. Curtis testified before Conyers' committee after the 04 election, saying that Feeney got him to do a prototype of a computer program that he (Feeney) cd use to steal elections in S. FL.

No telling what these three deaths had to do with but it could have to do with some of this wholesale vote theft going on in FL. All these guys are very likely criminal, else why would Feeney try to have such a program made? Curtis made just such a program since he was working for Yang Industries, the company Feeney approached about his fraudulent program, and testified under oath about it. He also took and passed a lie detector test to support his allegations.

[glitch]

38. True, he could have been a whistle blower. They "discredit" whistle blowers all sorts of ways.

A crude, and even better, sordid, suicide makes a good discrediting with the added bonus of discouraging other whistle blowers.

If this story is tied in with Abramoff it probably won't go away with these deaths.

[lostnfound]

39. A reminder that this isn't the first suspicious death connected to Feeney/Curtis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5567680

Bizarre world.

[in_cog_ni_to]

40. I wonder what the odds are of 2 people connected to Feeney and Curtis BOTH being murdered?

Another instance of too coincidental.

[Beetwasher]

43. Heh

Lemme was found dead in GA. Gonazalez was head of the GA Repub party. Just sayin'.

[Robbien]

41. Wonkette has an email up from a supposed acquaintance of these guys

As per the claims of a lover’s quarrel, Ralph (aka Rob) has been a fixture of gay.com for a long while.

While I didn’t know him personally, nor did I realize exactly who he was, I have chatted with him off-and-on for years. His intentionally kept a low-profile, using a picture obscured his look, saying only that he worked in government consulting, and using a pseudonym. The one huge tell, however, was his occasional bioline that listed some Republican talking point. This would inevitably roil the chat room he was in, leading him to eventually change his s/n, remove his picture, and stay much lower-key.

Its still unclear who shot who, but I do know that his own roommate didn’t know he was gay. I just hope it wasn’t Rob that did the killing but rather he was an unfortunate victim of either murderous intolerance or jealous rage. We shall see.
http://wonkette.com/politics/from-the-inbox-dept'/the-secret-life-of-ralph-gonzalez-293176.php

So the guy is gay but his male roommate didn't know it? Heh.

[ComerPerro]

42. are freepers already blaming Bill Clinton?

[SpiralHawk]

45. Nah - they know Sen. David Vitter (R-perver) is at the bottom of this

[lala_rawraw]

44. wow, more dead Feeney bodies?

hmmm:)

[nashville_brook]

46. one of the murdered had been investigated by the Secret Service in 1992

Abrami, an attorney, drew Secret Service scrutiny in 1992 while still a student at the University of Central Florida.

As vice president of the Central Florida Young Republican Club, the 22-year-old senior announced a Turkey Shoot fundraiser where members could pay $2 to fire a shotgun at enlarged photos of then-President Clinton.

"This will be fun for the entire family," Abrami told the Orlando Sentinel before the Secret Service persuaded him to raise money some other way. "They came down hard on us, saying we threatened the president, things like that."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-murder2507aug25,0,5327007.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout

[Wcross]

48. Some kind of love triangle? n/t