BY MARK SILVA

 TALLAHASSEE -- After the Republican Party of Florida dispatched a winter
 fund-raising letter invoking the plight of Elian Gonzalez, the chairman conceded
 his money-seeking missive was in bad taste.

 Now U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, an Orlando-area Republican seeking the seat of
 retiring U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, is defending an Elian-inspired campaign
 fund-raising letter circulated in Miami-Dade County.

 The boy's mother risked ``dangerous waters . . . so that her young son Elian
 could breathe freedom,'' states McCollum's mid-March letter. ``Her desperate act
 of love and last wish should not, cannot and will not be ignored.''

 Boasting of a bid to grant Elian citizenship that he and others in Congress back,
 McCollum concluded by asking for as little as $25 and as much as $1,000 for a
 campaign expected to cost $10 million.

 ``President Clinton and his henchmen'' have made McCollum's defeat a priority,
 claims the letter from McCollum, who sought Clinton's impeachment.

 The Democratic Party, with little cause for celebration in South Florida since the
 Clinton administration started insisting upon Elian's return to Cuba, is having a
 field day with the Republican fund-raising.

 ``Elian survives the shark-infested waters of the Florida Straits, only to get on land
 to be surrounded by the sharks of the Republican Party,'' says Bob Poe, newly
 seated state Democratic Party chairman.

 A spokeswoman for McCollum, a 10-term congressman whose letter also boasts
 of support for Radio and TV Marti, says Elian is simply the issue of the day. He
 would have issued a similar Spanish-language fund-raiser regardless of Elian's
 rescue, she says.

 ``Unfortunately, that is now a Cuban issue -- just another page in Castro's book,''
 says Shannon Gravitte, dismissing Democratic complaints of exploiting the
 6-year-old.

 U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican named in McCollum's letter as
 a supporter of citizenship for Elian, says he complained about this unauthorized
 use of his name -- and opposes Elian's name -- for fund-raising.

 ``I was outraged,'' he says. ``I never saw that letter nor approved the use of my
 name. I called my friend, Bill McCollum. . . . He apologized.''

 Diaz-Balart says he penned his own McCollum endorsement, mailed weeks
 before. This, too, noted McCollum's support for Elian, among other issues.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald