A new development in local presidential politics emerged last week on the sidewalk outside the Versailles restaurant in the photogenic persona of 62-year-old Santiago Portal, who is president and founder of the 11-week-old, virtually microscopic Peace Justice Progress Party. His picket sign read: "No Kerry. No Bush. A Cuban for President Now."

What's wrong with Bush? "Bush doesn't have any plan for governing," Portal complained. And what's wrong with the junior senator from Massachusetts? "The problem with Kerry is the same," he submitted.

But don't think that Portal, an adiabatic engineer who is trying to invent a motor powered by water and water pressure, is the rare exile who praises Fidel Castro. Like many Cuban Americans, the inventor was an early Castro supporter until el comandante's obsession with Marxist-Leninism took hold after the 1959 ouster of the Batista regime. Today he has a different issue with Fidel: "The problem with Castro is that Castro is an official of the government of the United States."

Portal says the PJP doesn't have a candidate yet but is currently accepting applications for that position. Candidates for candidate should familiarize themselves with the PJP platform. Among its 24 planks are:

1. Eliminate taxes paid by retirees.

2. A comprehensive insurance plan for everybody.

3. Minimum wage: $7 per hour.

4. Two weeks vacation for everybody.

5. A 50 percent discount in gas for owners of four-cylinder cars.

6. Prison without bail for negligent parents.

7. Total elimination of drug traffickers.

8. Eliminate the power of all child abusers.

9. Televised trials of corrupt police officers.

10. People who are not born in the United States can be president.

11. The White House should be in Miami.

12. Immediate naval and aerial blockage against the Castro-communist regime.

"This movement has shark's teeth," Portal warned.

Some political watchdogs might have missed Portal's manifesto unveiling while their attention was on a press conference inside Versailles. There, Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez said the Democratic Party is attracting many new, friendly Latin members. As evidence he noted that listeners respond to him differently when he does radio guest spots. "I used to get cremated. Not anymore," he assured. Then ubiquitous pollster Sergio Bendixen presented some new data that held both bad and good news for Democrats. "We're not going to get the Hispanic vote in Miami-Dade County," he declared. "But we're going to win enough of it for Kerry to win Florida."