SENDING 20,000 U.S. TROOPS TO HAITI TO TOPPLE a pro-American government and install in its place Leftist Jean-Bertrand (“Fidel Castro is my greatest personal hero”) Aristide was among the first acts of the Clinton-Gore Administration.

Among its final acts was to send thugs into the Miami, Florida suburb Little Haiti to intimidate black immigrants from that Caribbean island nation on election day 2000.

These Gore goons forced their way into polling places where, in blatant violation of law, they reportedly put up Gore posters next to voting booths and “helped” frightened voters by marking their ballots for Mr. Gore.

Residents of Little Haiti who had Bush signs or buttons were threatened with violence. One reportedly was beaten with a baseball bat.

Virtually none of this intimidation of black Haitian-Americans was reported except by Fox News. But the nation’s Leftist media days later rushed to cover the Rev. Jesse (“Long live Fidel, Long live Che!”) Jackson’s claim that Republicans had denied Miami blacks their right to vote.

And now, days before this year’s November 5 election, more than 200 Haitians on a rickety boat penetrated America’s coastal defenses and came wading ashore near Miami.

Governor Jeb Bush was forced to disrupt his reelection campaign to face on camera demands that these illegal aliens be given the same asylum that American law provides to black and white Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s Communist tyranny.

If Bush agreed with these demands, he risked outraging those opposed to illegal immigration. If he disagreed, Gov. Bush’s words could be used by Democrats to accuse him of racism and to boost Florida black voter turnout against him.

The Haitian invasion almost on election eve was no coincidence, wrote Raymond Joseph in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. This editor of Haiti Observateur recounts how at least twice in 2002 President Aristide commented on how Jeb Bush could be hurt by a flood of Haitian immigrants.

“The experts say that the wily Mr. Aristide and his Democratic allies, especially in the Congressional Black Caucus, stand to reap some political benefits from the display of what appears to be a double standard,” wrote Joseph. “The spectacle of Black Haitians being hauled to jail could energize the black constituency in Florida to vote en masse against Gov. Bush and make for an upset in favor of Bill McBride, his Democratic challenger.”

The Clinton-Gore-installed Mr. Aristide, “a defrocked radical Catholic priest, has turned into a would-be dictator,” writes Joseph. “He is compared now with Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, who set up his Tontons-Macoute gestapo-like police to harass, jail and kill his opponents. Mr. Aristide’s goons are called chimeres (chimeras) and have turned Haiti into a killing field.” “

Aristide, who claims to be a prophet, a messiah, reportedly was bathed in November [2000] in the blood of a dead Haitian by voodoo priestess Marie-Anne Auguste, commonly known as So An,” wrote Yves A. Isidor, who teaches at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

“The purpose of bathing…, said a senior member of Aristide’s Lavalas Family Party,” wrote Isidor, “…was in an effort to put a curse on then-U.S. Rep[ublican] presidential candidate George W. Bush… His Dem[ocratic] rival, U.S. Vice President Albert Gore would, hopefully, emerge as the winner of the November election.”

Back in 1980 another George Bush coined the term “Voodoo economics” to describe the policies of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan. Who then would have foreseen that real Voodoo would be used against the son of this man who became President Reagan’s Vice President and successor?

In year 2000 Missouri Democrat Mel Carnahan was about to lose his race for U.S. Senate when he died in an airplane crash. A sympathy vote allowed his widow to retain this key seat that made an illegitimate Democratic takeover of the Senate possible.

In 2002 incumbent Democratic Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone was about to lose his reelection bid when he died in an airplane crash. Democrats turned his memorial service into a hate rally (lacking the blazing torches, but showing clear evidence of Voodoo possession in some of the hypnotized attendees) to elect Walter Mondale, hand-picked by party bosses to help retain control of the U.S. Senate.

In 2002 incumbent Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli was about to lose his reelection bid when party bosses made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, prompting his resignation from the race. Perhaps he was given a sudden fear of flying. Democrat bosses shoved aside a primary vote of the people to install their hand-picked replacement, who was then forced onto the ballot in defiance of state law by the Democrat-dominated New Jersey Supreme Court.

The soulless zombies resurrected by Democratic bosses, raised from the politically dead to do their bidding, are Walter Mondale and Frank Lautenberg.

Both of these living dead candidates are ducking requests for multiple debates with their Republican opponents, lest their servitude and strangeness as septuagenarian zombies be recognized by voters. (Such widespread recognition that Al Gore is not really alive led to his defeat in 2000.)

These zombies have been summoned to replace 2002’s two most vulnerable Democratic Senators, whose disappearance now seems likely to keep Tom “Papa Doc” Daschle in power as sorcerer of the Senate, able to cast Voodoo doll spells on the Bush Administration.

To Democrats this salvation must seem a miracle. To the rest of us it seems too convenient to be mere coincidence. It seems almost like demonic witchcraft, and it leaves us wondering if a search of some Washington, D.C., office would find Robert Torricelli and Paul Wellstone dolls stuck full of pins.

Voodoo, born from African pagan beliefs, took root in the New World and especially the Caribbean and Brazil through slaves. It has infiltrated our culture in surprising ways, e.g., when Cuban bandleader and TV star Desi Arnaz made his signature song a tribute to the Voodoo-related diety “Babalu.” In our multicultural age Voodoo is increasingly recognized as a “legitimate religion.” Which leads to the question: do Democrats really believe in separation of church and state?

This year’s elections by the calendar come almost a week after Halloween. But after this year’s political voodoo, our politics seem closer to Halloween and to Haiti’s than ever before.

Mr. Ponte hosts national radio talk show Monday through Friday Noon-2 PM Eastern Time (9-11 AM Pacific Time) as well as on Saturdays 6-9 PM Eastern Time (3-6 PM Pacific Time) and on Sundays 9-11 PM Eastern Time (6-8 PM Pacific Time) on the Talk America network . Internet Audio worldwide is at TalkAmerica.com. The show's live call-in number is (888) 822-8255. A professional speaker, he is a former Roving Editor for Reader's Digest.                                                                                                                                                                                          *Reply to voodoo politics