Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, has a message for Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas: Forget the Senate.

''Alex Penelas was running for the Senate,'' Fransetta said. ''His campaign is done. Every senior in Florida is going to know that he sat back and did nothing during the FTAA protests while seniors were being attacked and pepper-sprayed and wrongly arrested,'' he said.

''I've got 125,000 members in my organization in the state of Florida and when we start spreading the word to them and to their friends, he's finished. He will not escape. His own silence elaborates and dictates his guilt,'' he said. Until now, the ire from protesters has been directed at Miami Police Chief John Timoney, but those groups are widening their efforts by targeting elected officials. First on their list is Penelas.

Labor unions are especially interested in making Penelas pay, believing they cannot allow the police tactics in Miami to be viewed as a success and then be copied by other cities across the country. ''You have no idea how seriously this is being discussed in Washington among senior labor leaders,'' one union official told me.

The first shot in this war was actually fired by Miami Mayor Manny Diaz when he referred to the police tactics as ''a model for homeland security.'' Timoney then exacerbated the situation last week by sending a scathing five-page letter to AFL-CIO officials, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, telling them they were responsible for many of the problems that occurred. Timoney even accused a national AFL official of working in concert with some of the violent anarchists.

So why go after Penelas?

Because if the unions cause Penelas to lose the Democratic primary, they hope any other city thinking about adopting the ''Miami Model'' will realize it also comes with a severe price for its political leaders.

''Penelas was in contention to get labor's support,'' said a senior state labor leader, who asked not to be identified. ``But after the FTAA, the word is going out. I've already gotten calls from national leaders saying Penelas is finished as far as they are concerned.''

More than just political expediency, they also believe Penelas has earned labor's wrath. First, as the mayor of the county, he should have been more active in making sure his community did not look and feel like a police state.

Second, they argue, Miami-Dade police worked with the other police agencies to intimidate and abuse those peacefully protesting downtown on the Thursday of the conference and again on Friday in front of the county jail.

Finally, when complaints of police abuse began pouring in, they believe, Penelas should have come out in favor of an independent investigation. Instead, they noted, Penelas praised the police without raising any concern for the rights of protesters.

''I can tell you we are going to hold people responsible,'' said Monica Russo, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, which has 25,000 active members and retirees in Florida. ``There is still total denial from the authorities and the powers that be, and, worse, they are still celebrating and congratulating each other over what happened during the protests.''

And Penelas' Senate bid? ''It has not gone unnoticed in the labor movement,'' she said. ``We are looking at all of our options.''

Danae Jones, a spokeswoman for the Penelas campaign, said the mayor has always been on the side of seniors and working people in the state. ''It is disappointing that any of these groups, labor or senior citizens, would take their anger out on Alex Penelas, for what I think everyone would like to believe were isolated incidents,'' Jones said. ``He was neither solely nor directly responsible for these isolated incidents. And when I say isolated incidents, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken seriously.''

For seniors and labor, anything Penelas does now may be too little, too late.

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