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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
BREAKING: KERRY MAY UN-CONCEDE IF EVIDENCE IS SOLID
by DerekLarsson
Tue Nov 9th, 2004 at 20:10:53 PST
Posted on Joe Trippi's ChangeForAmerica Blog site, is the message:
There is enough here to warrant investigation and enough to challange the results. It's coming from all corners. Kerry has until the official count certification in Ohio to Un-concede which is several days from now. Anyone who thinks Kerry should un-concede should give the reasons why and send them directly to Cameron Kerry, John Kerry's brother at his law firm at the address: CKerry@Mintz.com.
Please pass this along to your listeners so that we may make Democracy work in America.
ALL OF THE KEITH OLBERMANN's DATA AND INFORMATION SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY FORWARD TO JOHN KERRY THROUGH CAMERON.
HE SHOULD BE URGED TO RETRACT HIS CONCESSION AND TO DEMAND A FULL AND ACCURATE COUNT OF THE VOTES.
Posted at 11:54 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
Why the Democrats Will Continue to Lose
by TocqueDeville
Tue Nov 9th, 2004 at 18:08:16 PST
I wrote this shortly after the defeat of Howard Dean in the primaries. It was originally published on the American Assembler website. According to their logs it has been downloaded over one million times. I have even recieved it in an email from someone who didn't know I was the author.
Though I believe that it's probable that this election was stolen through technology -based largely on exit polls which, as Dick Morris pointed out, are almost never wrong - I still believe, based on the incredible malperformance of this president, that we should have won in a landslide that would have been impossible to steal.
This essay, I believe, explains why the Democratic party is doomed to fail as is. And what we need to do about it.
Below the fold...
Why the Democrats Will Continue to Lose
by Tocque Deville
What does the Democratic party stand for? I've been hearing that question a lot lately. Republicans, people say, have distilled their belief system down to a few basic ideals that they can recite in short phrases: less government, low taxes, free markets and strong defense. Democrats on the other hand, have positions on issues, but an underlying philosophy eludes.
Are these criticisms justified? Yes and no. On social and civil rights issues, the philophy is as clear as Thomas Jefferson's handwriting: everyone is equal under the law, and religion must be seperate from government . These constitutional principles are manifest in almost every position Democrats take on social and cultural issues and for that they should be applauded.
As for the rest of the American government experience, I would have to say these criticisms are spot on.
For three years we watched the Bush administration sell our country off to corporate special interest. And for three years we waited in frustration for a peep from the leadership on the left.
We watched as numerous bills passed -- including Bush's trickle-down tax cuts and a committee green-light for the recent FCC vote -- with only peripheral opposition from our party's leadership.
And slowly the calls for our party to be more aggressive, more oppositional, rose to a fevered pitch. Then came Howard Dean. Dean did a pretty good job of tapping in to that frustration. "I'm from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party", he would yell, and the crowds grew and grew. And then the folks in Iowa decided he was just too risky to bet the farm on.
So now Dean is gone and Kerry's the man and, as far as I can tell, we're right back where we started. I know, everyone is ready to "take Bush on" now and in large part we have Dean to thank for showing everyone how to fight again.
But the fact is, Dean's message wasn't just about fighting Bush. A very large component was about Democrats acting like Democrats again. And in spite of all the unity at last week's Unity Dinner, the divide between the real Democrats that Dean tapped into and the so-called establishment Democrats has closed very little.
It's hard to see that now because Bush is such a unifying force. But you have to wonder what it says when the primary organizing principle is not the affirmation of an internal positive but the defeat of an external negative. In other words, Democratic unity, and this election in general, is all about George Bush.
And meanwhile, the great grassroots are still out there waiting. Waiting for something positive and real to work for instead of just something to work against. And until we find that positive unifying principle, the divide will continue to grow.
I believe that in order to understand that divide, we must first face a pretty unpleasant reality -- our party leadership doesn't really represent us anymore. If that sounds harsh consider this paragraph from John Nichols article, 'Behind the DLC Takeover':
At the national convention of a major political party, an ideologically rigid sectarian clique secures the ultimate triumph. It inserts two of its own as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. Heavily financed by the most powerful corporations in the world, the group's leaders gather in a private club fifty-four floors above the convention hall, apart from the delegates of the party they had infiltrated. There, they carefully monitor the convention's acceptance of a platform the organization had drafted almost in its entirety. Then, with the ticket secured and with the policy course of the party set, they introduce a team of 100 shock troops to deploy across the country to lock up the party's grassroots.
This illuminating article tells the story of a shift in our party's priorities and allegiances. Bill Clinton and the DLC single-handedly turned the Party of the People into a party of corporate special interest.
Of course Bill Clinton worked for the common man. And he did good things for everyday Americans. But always, behind the scenes, big corporate money was changing hands and deals were being made.
The truth is that the corrupting influence of corporate money that has so blatantly infected the Republicans, has infected the Democrats as well. And every piece of legislation that winds its way through congress passes right along with the collection plate -- to both parties.
Of course there's the Machiavellian argument that deals get made and money changes hands and that's the way it works. And if you want to survive the game then you have to play ball. Bill Clinton mastered that rationale.
But are we surviving the game? Considering we've lost all three branches of government, I would argue no. Bill Clinton came into power with a New Democrat message: big government is over, FDR is dead, and personal responsibility would lead us to greater prosperity. And us Democrats, just happy to have the White House, all went along.
But something was lost under Bill Clinton's centrist, New Democrat message that we must get back if we are to ever win the country back: our soul.
The Democratic party is not about personal responsibility. It is about social responsibility. Responsibility to our neighbors. Responsibility to our communities. And responsibility to our fellow Americans.
After the Great Depression Americans developed a deep sense that we are all in it together. The New Deal was more than a set of leglislative initiatives. It was a new compact. Americans came together, using the greatest agent of democracy known to man, the U.S. federal government, and agreed to live together under a covenant of social responsibility.
The free market policies of the 20s and 30s were rejected for progressive, populist policies that drew upon this new sense of cooperation. Monopolies were dissassembled. Workers were protected. The wealthy were taxed. And something new emerged for the first time in the history of civilization: a middle class. Eventually, we even went to the Moon. All under the covenant of social responsibility.
But it would not last. Generations passed and people forgot the Great Depression. And the forces of greed and selfishness chipped away until the covenant was broken. And in the summer of 1992, on the back of a Volkswagon Beetle, a bumper sticker read, 'It's the economy stupid'.
To be fair, after twelve years of Reagan-Bush, who practically invented the age of selfishness, what else could that bumper sticker say? The economy was in shambles. The Republicans had mastered the art of the cultural distraction. White suburbanites were locking themselvews away with their guns while watching blacks rioting in the streets of Los Angeles.
So Bill Clinton felt our pain and the '93 tax hike on the wealthy lowered the debt and Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates and, most importantly, the price of oil became artificially cheap and the economy did well and... the Democrats lost both houses. But we had our boy and he was teflon.
Then came the 2000 election and the fact that we had lost our soul and our principles came back and smacked us in the face. Al Gore, a true environmentalist, lost to a rich kid pretending to be a working class stiff because a bunch of liberal progressives voted for the Green party candidate who was never too big on the environment. This schitzophrenia, egged on by an incompetent --or downright malicious-- press, left the Democrats in Washington confused and divided.
If this wasn't bad enough, then came the 2002 election. And again came the soul searching: education, prescription drugs for the elderly, and protecting social security. What went wrong? The focus groups and the polls could not answer. They never will.
You can poll on issues and speak on issues but you have to lead on principles.
But our Democratic leaders have forgotten principles. Some just don't believe anymore. Some have just gotten awashed in the race from one media cycle to the next. But most, I would suggest, are loath to stick their necks out for what they percieve as unpopular populist rhetoric against the corrupt corporate power structure. They saw what happened to Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich.
But if the leadership has forgotten the principles that made the Democratic party the Party of the People throughout most of the 20th century, everyday Democrats have not.
- We still understand the most fundamental principle of all: social responsibility. September 11 was one of those rare moments when all Americans recognized that we are all in this together; that the fate of each of us individually depends on the fate of us all. But our leadership failed to reinstate the covenant of social responsibility. George Bush told us to shop and let his secret police handle it. And the Democrats positioned themselves tactically to the side.
- We understand that government is the agent of democracy. It's how we make collective decisions and solve collective problems. If you say you are anti-government, you are really saying you are anti-democracy and anti-American. In a government of, by, and for the people, to say that government is the problem is saying that We, the People are the problem. Government may be imperfect but the way to improve it is to make it more democratic and more accountable. Not replace it with the least accountable entities of all -- private corporations.
- We understand that raw unregulated capitalism leads to an unstable economy where a very few have all. We learned this the hard way from the Great Depression. And we still know that monopolies hurt consumers, workers and society whole.
- We understand the need to protect the weakest among us not just for the sake of altruism, but as a matter of practicality. You simply can't sustain a society where the economic system is rigged against a majority of the citizens. It didn't work in the French monarchy and it sure as hell won't work in a democracy.
- And we understand that some things, like electricity, are not optional. These things are fundamental to our survival and are not to be capitalized on like widgets. Free markets may work fine on the non-essentials, but mandatory services like water, and electricity are natural monopolies and cannot be trusted to undemocratic, profit-based private corporations.
- Healthcare, above all else, is a human right. It is essential for life and profiteering on the backs of the sick is immoral. As is allowing 45 million of our citizens to be forced to crowd into emergency rooms just to get medical treatment because they can't afford insurance.
- The corporatization of America must be stopped. None of the principles of social responsibility and democratic cooperation that were established under FDR and continued on through Kennedy can be reconciled with the Darwinistic laissez-faire agenda of corporate economics. None. The simple fact is that if left to their own devices, the Walmarts of America will just continue to spread like a virus. They will completely wipe out small businesses and real wages and living standards will continue to drop until we're all working three jobs just to break even. This is not a theory but merely an extrapolation from what has already occurred.
All of these principles really stem from the basic idea that has been forgotten in our society: that we are not just responsible for ourselves, but for each othe as well. We have let the immoral selfishness of neo-liberal, Darwinsitic capitalism spread like a virus while the leadership and the spokespeople on the left cower.. Social responsibility is not some idealism conjured up by the love generation. It is a fundamental element of survival that even insects seem to comprehend.
The federal government is not some evil force. It is the greatest agent of social change in the history of mankind. Who defends these principles?
We allow our public airwaves to filled with millionaires who have no other interest than to sell us their corporate sponsered agenda while our democratically elected representatives bow before them just to get some airtime. Do they defend the principles of democracy and social responsibility?
Even the Democrats, our beloved representatives of the Party of the People, are so beholden to the big money interest that they've forgotten to speak for the people.
So while pandering to the Big Hand that feeds may keep us at the dance, we're never gonna go home with the bride. We can't. It's not who we are. And the gap between the leadership and the grassroots is symptomatic of the difference between the will of the people and the will of the corporate donors.
I almost feel sorry for Tom Daschle - trying to walk the line between the power of big business and the power of millions of voters. But I can't.
We see our real America -- not the phony flag waiving facade that the right is selling on Fox and company -- but the real America where real people live out their lives and try to extract what little bit of the American dream they can, send their kids to college, and hopefully retire in the comfort of their savings --being devoured by a corporate machine. And year after year, it gets more and more expensive just to live and the quality of the food and products we buy gets worse and worse until the cycle of corporate consumerism puts us on a treadmill we can never get ahead of. This is the real America.
And meanwhile our Democratic leaders are up to their necks in it. In this respect Nader has a point. The real issues that formally distinguished the right from the left --namely cooperation and social responsibility verses free market Darwinism--have been replace by Darwinism verses Darwinism-lite. And both sides have embraced the corporate trough.
Now I will never vote for Ralph Nader and I will never forgive him for helping Kathryn Harris, Jeb Bush and Antoine Scalia throw the election, but this is what I meant by surviving the game. As long as the Democratic leadership serves two masters, they have Ralph Nader or someone like him to look forward to for the foreseeable future.
Posted at 11:42 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
I know many people come here to mock me. I know I have in some way encouraged it by posting goofy thoughts here and sometimes being flip. I know some of you think this site is a joke and some of you have commented that this site doesn’t even sound like me.
Well I am making a little departure today. No joking. No joshing. No Nag Hags. I have spent some time examining how I covered this past election and have decided to write the below letter to my readers. The Times has refused to publish it so here it is:
To: the Reading Public
From Adam Nagourney, New York Times Chief Political Correspondent
Re: Mea Culpa
I have reflected upon my work as the chief political correspondent for the New York Times in covering this past election cycle and I feel it is necessary for me to acknowledge my mistakes and, frankly , to apologize.
I am not apologizing to those who have been so critical of me on the internet, through emails or on radio. That criticism was often too incisive, too passionate and too urgent. I won’t justify such criticism with a response, I would rather leave that to our Public Editor at the New York Times whose job it is to protect the paper’s writers from the complaints of the public.
However, there are people who read the New York Times unquestioningly, there are people who read the Grey Lady without having the proper amount of suspicion. These people are our true constituency, these are our most supportive and as such the most proper of readers. Now that the election has ended, (except for voting irregularities in Ohio, which I plan on writing about just after mid-term elections), it is the proper time for me to acknowledge that my coverage of John Kerry was a bit askew.
I want to make it clear, I am no Judith Miller. I did not help this country into a war for no reason. I did not make things up. I did not push one of the biggest lies upon the US population in modern times. I did not have a ‘relationship” with my only source of this false information, who also happened to be a source for a group of people in the defense department with an agenda for war, and who also happened to be a con man and a spy for Iran, who was also hoping to rape his former home for personal gain and who had promised me, as in Judith, that I would be named queen of Iraq by now. No I, Adam, did not do such things.
With all that said, mea culpa. Over the course of the campaign, beginning with the primaries, because I knew deep down that I supported John Kerry, and through the Presidential election, because I knew his opponent wanted to demonize people like me, I found it necessary to write in such a way that would make people believe the opposite. This is called being objective, I will not apologize for that. However, there were times when I had to sort of exaggerate or report things “imprecisely” in order to be objective and though I will not apologize for that, I will acknowledge that some people might think I should.
However, there were occasions where I derided Kerry for such subjective things as a lack of charisma, even in comparison to myself. This was not objective. Obviously when comparing yourself to a candidate, you may give yourself “extra points”. Please remember though, John Kerry is tall. Studies show taller people generally have an easier time with things- they slide by. When I was at USA Today, before I was at the Times, I was the third shortest person on the political beat. The point is, however, that I was on the Charlie Rose Show at the time of said indiscretion, which, if any of you have ever been on (I’ve been on numerous times), you know, Charlie expects you to have such things to say.
So, again, mea culpa. Know that I am not happy about Bush being reelected either. Believe me, if you knew what I knew about this administration, you’d feel even worse- not to mention, if you knew what I knew about how genuinely impressive John Kerry can be… well anyways…
p.s. please email Charlie Rose and explain to him that I can still be a relevant guest.
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Posted at 11:41 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
11/15/2004 Newsweek
Bob Shrum was brooding over a rough profile in the Style section of The Washington Post. Shrum generally got good press, in part because he was a source and friend to so many top political journalists. But this article went on about the "Shrum Curse," his 0-for-7 record in presidential races, and revealed that Kerry staffers wanted to make up T shirts reading break the shrum curse. The story dwelled on gritty details, like Shrum's habit of parking his Nicorette gum on the rim of Diet Coke cans. Shrum was wounded and wanted to find the campaign mole. He recovered after a few days, but his friends wondered if he might not disengage from the campaign and fade into the background.
11/10/2003 NYT
Now, with Mr. Kerry's campaign battling for survival in New Hampshire and embroiled in turmoil and infighting — his press secretary and deputy finance director walked out the door on Tuesday, following the abrupt dismissal of his campaign manager — the talk is less about Mr. Shrum's gifts and more about what some are acidly describing, in this toxic environment, as the Shrum curse.
As prominent and well-traveled a figure as Mr. Shrum is — alter ego to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, consultant to four presidential candidates and many senators — there is one thing he has never accomplished: advising a successful presidential campaign.
Instead, he has become known as a polarizing figure who dominates and divides a staff, a relentless player of inside politics who will sometimes steamroll colleagues to win an argument, people who have worked with him for years say. 11/12/2003 CNN
SHRUM CURSE": Bob Shrum's political expertise is widely known, but so is his ability to be "a polarizing figure" within a campaign. How much did he have to do with the Kerry campaign shake up?
OnePeople.org, February 27, 2003:
"You have probably never heard of Robert Shrum. He's the most sought-after Democratic strategist right now, and today we find out that he's signed on with Kerry. ABC's The Note refers to this as winning the Shrummy or the Shrum Primary. Last year, Joel Klein wrote a piece prophesying the importance. Why the excitement?
"First, there's a soap opera quality to the choice, since Shrum is friendly with everyone in the field. He's worked for Richard A. Gephardt, John Edwards and Kerry. 'He has close personal relationships with a lot of people involved in this process... And it is very difficult to sort that out, and deal with the very high profile atmospherics of all this. There are friendships and relationships at stake here, and he takes that very seriously,' a close friend of Shrum told The Note.
"Second, Shrum has a Kennedy fetish. He's famous for his 'I'm On Your Side' message -- but lately he's veered towards what Joe Klein calls 'an aggressive, pessimistic, and unsubtle strain of economic populism.' We can expect him to work hard on Kerry's charisma deficit, which is seen as the biggest weakness. In so doing, Shrum will change Kerry's formula, which he's used successfully thus far. It's also possible that Kerry can't be molded in the Shrum image.
"The Edwards campaign has picked up on this, referring to this as an irresponsible 'vanity hire.' Sour grapes, of course, but the argument has merit.
"Third, Shrum doesn't have a great record on these races. He made his name in state races, but his candidates have a tendency to drop out during primaries or lose elections outright."
Posted at 10:37 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
Fairbanks Daily News Miner:
U.S. Senate candidate Tony Knowles has refused to concede in his race against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who's ahead by 10,328 votes with many more than that still to be counted statewide.
The margin has been narrowing since election night, with as many as 30,000 questioned ballots left to be counted. Many of these come from Juneau, where Murkowski failed to win a single precinct.
Posted at 05:19 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
by Chris Bowers
Things are not good for us right now at pretty much any level of government except state legislatures. In the Senate, governorships and the Presidency, things can even get much worse. Fortunately, in the House, that does not appear to be the case. From today's Hotline, subscription only, here are the House races where the incumbent won with less than 55% of the vote:
Total Precincts
Race Candidate Votes %age Reporting
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CA 26 DREIER (R) 116,218 54% 100%
Matthews (D) 92,665 43
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CO 04 MUSGRAVE (R) 144,325 52% 82%
Matsunaka (D) 124,491 44
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CO 07 BEAUPREZ (R) 114,969 55% 100%
Thomas (D) 88,713 43
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CT 02 SIMMONS (R) 165,558 54% 100%
Sullivan (D) 139,987 46
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CT 04 SHAYS (R) 149,891 52% 100%
Farrell (D) 136,481 48
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IN 02 CHOCOLA (R) 140,426 52% 100%
Donnelly (D) 115,470 45
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IN 07 CARSON (D) 121,086 54% 100%
Horning (R) 97,319 44
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IN 08 HOSTETTLER (R) 145,761 53% 100%
Jennings (D) 121,678 45
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KS 03 MOORE (D) 177,525 55% 100%
Kobach (R) 141,302 44
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MN 06 KENNEDY (R) 205,586 54% 100%
Wetterling (D) 174,828 46
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NM 01 WILSON (R) 141,240 55% 100%
Romero (D) 116,821 45
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NV 03 PORTER (R) 161,176 54% 100%
Gallagher (D) 119,564 40
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NC 11 TAYLOR (R) 157,012 55% 100%
Keever (D) 129,462 45
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OR 05 HOOLEY (D) 172,802 53% 100%
Zupancic (R) 144,439 44
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PA 06 GERLACH (R) 156,763 51% 100%
Murphy (D) 150,741 49
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SD AL HERSETH (D) 207,910 53% 100%
Diedrich (R) 178,801 46
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TN 04 DAVIS (D) 138,398 55% 99%
Bowling (R) 109,912 44
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TX 17 EDWARDS (D) 125,220 51% 100%
Wohlgemuth (R) 116,131 47
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Out of eighteen of the closest twelve races that featured incumbents, Republicans won twelve. Although I am not really close to finishing my analysis of the slightly less close races, those also seem to have more Republican victors than Democrats. For example, here are the congressional leaders who did not do much better:
Race Candidate Votes %age Reporting
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IL 06 HYDE (R) 131,229 55.5% 100%
Cegelis (D) 105,205 44.5
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MO 03 Carnahan (D) 146,751 52.9% 100%
Federer (R) 125,012 45.1
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TX 22 DELAY (R) 149,901 55.1% 100%
Morrison (D) 111,741 41.1
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Carnahan is featured because he was taking Gephardt's old seat. It is very sweet to see Hyde and DeLay so vulnerable.
We were beaten, but in the House at least it would appear that we have nowhere to go but up. The same could not be said after 2002, both because both Texas redistricting and because in that cycle, more Democrats won close races than Republicans.
Posted at 03:47 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
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Another Rigged Election? The Elephant in the Voting Booth
by Maureen Farrell
"Citing concerns about potential terrorism, Warren County officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns. County officials say they took the action Tuesday night for homeland security, although state elections officials said they didn't know of any other Ohio county that closed off its elections board. Media organizations protested, saying it violated the law and the public's rights. The Warren results, delayed for hours because of long lines that extended voting past the scheduled close of polls, were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush's re-election." -- The Cincinnati Enquirer
"Bush was to supposed to have watched the election from Crawford but was spirited back to Ohio today [election day] by his jittery advisors. Now he's in Washington. "(Why?!)" -- Max Blum, Nov. 2, 2004
On election night, Peter Jennings looked measurably surprised when he learned that President Bush had provided a tape of himself, sitting in the White House, commenting on his impending victory. It was an unprecedented move. No sitting president had ever addressed the nation while polls were still open. It was just not done. But there was George, exuding confidence, offering an election day reminder of our leader's legitimacy.
It was all so perfectly Rovian, too. And why not? The Bush family filmed a similar made-for-TV moment in 2000, you might recall, when they assured America that Florida belonged to George. "There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying, and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida," Hunter S. Thompson wrote, two weeks before the Supreme Court's fateful decision." Of course Bush would win Florida. Losing was out of the question. Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV."
Election night 2004, however, was not punctuated by any such hooting. It was the end of a long and grueling journey for the President of the United States and his supporters. Tales of voter intimidation, computer glitches and "partisan mischief," were reported during early voting in Florida, but somehow those things usually worked in the President's favor. (Would anyone have complained, do you suppose, if John Kerry's brother had been running the show?).
And luckily for Mr. Bush, he had friends in high places in the Buckeye State, too. After all, Walden "Wally" O'Dell," head of the voting machine company Diebold, had already expressed a commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President" and Ohio Secretary of State Ken "Paper Weight" Blackwell appeared to have Bush's back, as well.
Good thing, too. As early as March, 2004, Ohio had been crowned the #1 potential election day hotspot. "Ohio could become as decisive this year as Florida was four years ago, " Mother Jones reported. "Which is why the state's plan to use paperless touch-screen voting machines has so many up in arms."
In late October, a letter written by former deputy director of Ohio's Auglaize County Board of Elections Ken Nuss revealed why electronic voting machine concerns were well founded. It seems that "against election protocol," former Election Systems and Software (ES&S) employee Joe McGinnis had been "on the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results." < Insert your own fox, hen house and/or "stinking to high heaven" cliche here>.
Why do you suppose Bush's "jittery" advisors whisked him away to Ohio on election day and then back to the White House that night? Why did he appear on TV to assure Americans that victory was his? And why did the federal government advise Ohio's Warren County to prevent the media from watching the vote count? Did it have anything to do with the fact that the Warren results were among the last tallies to help Bush "win"? These questions are as much of a mystery as the bump on Bush's back during the debates.
But the unraveling saga of election 2000-style fraud, suppression and disenfranchisement is becoming clearer by the day.
Everything Old is New Again
"Kerry may never be allowed to be president. All of the plots that were in line during the 2000 election are still there, from the purge list of supposed felons to computer touch screen voting and so on." -- Gore Vidal, Buzzflash, election eve
Despite recent calls for unity, it's impossible to overlook Mr. Bush's past abuses -- particularly since evidence of vote fraud and tampering have yet to be addressed from the last election -- and early warnings about this one have already proven prescient.
Of course, this time, international monitors were dispatched across the country, while thousands of lawyers and more than 1,200 filmmakers traveled to Florida and Ohio to catch signs of voter fraud and corruption.
But, while hacking is not the sort of activity that's readily caught on tape, old-fashioned ballot pilfering is and photos of possible nefarious activity in Ohio made their way to the Internet Wednesday morning. But larger questions of fraud centered mostly on inconsistencies in electronic voting machines -- discrepancies that many had come to expect. Stanford computer specialist David Dill, for example, told Newsweek that the risk of a stolen election was "extremely high," while exit polls raised suspicions that Zogby and the Washington Redskins had gotten it right after all.
The White House, you might recall, discounted early exit polls which showed Kerry winning because they were too heavily skewed by heavy female turnout. Yet Bush supposedly won the election largely thanks to support of married women in the suburbs. Wouldn't the early female vote count in his favor, then? Who was more likely to be voting during the day? Working women or so-called "security moms"?
Coup D'etat?
"First of all, this election was definitely rigged. I have no doubt about it." -- Mark Crispin Miller, Salon.com, Nov. 4, 2004
On Sunday, the New York Times ran an editorial which touched upon the risks associated with voting via computer. "For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, made public so it can be widely reviewed," the Times noted, calling for other democracy-ensuring changes, including measures to make certain that voting roll purges are "accurate and transparent" and that election administrators are "impartial."
In 2000, however, when journalist Greg Palast uncovered the shameful Database Technologies voter roll purge in Florida, the Times refused to carry the story. A little more than three years later, however, the paper admitted: "In 2000, the American public saw in Katherine Harris’s massive purge eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat." Why didn't they publish this information when it might have done some good?
By now, most fair-minded folks realize that the 2000 Florida debacle involved deliberate disenfranchisement of voters and massive civil rights violations and that because of Katherine Harris's efforts, America crowned the wrong king. This time, with all eyes on Ohio, people are wondering: Could it be that the wrong guy once again occupies our White House?
Between iffy e-voting, voter purges, deliberate disinformation, voter intimidation "spoilage" and other kinks, democracy has taken a direct hit. "Web wonders if electronic voting machines stole the election," Slate announced early on, as election day oddities were being reported across the country -- with this election's two most important states, Ohio and Florida leading the way.
While more is sure to come, one week out of the gate, some eyebrow-raising pieces of information have already surfaced:
- Before the election, Greg Palast described "ethnic cleansing of voter rolls" and other odious measures to yank as many as a million votes from John Kerry before voting even began – and later bluntly asserted: "Kerry won. Here are the facts"
- Citing "new information" suggesting "that hackers may have targeted the central computers that are counting our votes," http://blackboxvoting.org/ is conducting "the largest Freedom of Information action in history" and has already asserted, based on "hard evidence" that "fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines." (While a guest on Topic A With Tina Brown, Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris actually demonstrated how easy it would be to tamper with election results. "We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds," she told guest host Howard Dean, after an on-air demonstration. http://www.votergate.tv/)
- Jeff Fisher, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District, told Thom Hartman that he was giving the FBI evidence that voting machines in Florida were hacked in 2002 and 2004, along with information regarding "who hacked it and how." Meanwhile, House Democrats have asked the GAO to investigate voting machine irregularities.
- The day after the election, the AP reported that voters nationwide "reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines" and that in many cases, (particularly in Florida and Ohio), citizens complained that though they intended to choose John Kerry, when the computer asked them to verify their vote, "it showed them instead opting for President Bush."
- Palm Beach reportedly logged 88,000 more votes than voters while thousands of votes were added to Bush’s tallies in Ohio. (Magic ballot theory, anyone?) A previously discovered glitch in Florida's Broward Country caused computers to subtract votes once the absentee tally reached 32,500, casting "doubt on the accuracy of the elections.''
- Despite a post-election CNN puff piece on the success of electronic voting, Wired collected reports of e-voting problems and the organization "Count Every Vote 2004" documented "hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states."
- After officials in Warren County, Ohio "blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns," WCPO-TV (Channel 9) News Director Bob Morford said he's "never seen anything like it." The county cited homeland security reasons for restricting media access to the vote count, to which Morford replied, "Frankly, we consider that a red herring. . .That's something that's put up when you don't know what else to put up to keep us out."
- Prompted by requests from voting rights activists, Ralph Nader asked for a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire due to "irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines." Saying that the discrepancies between exit polls and election results favored Bush, Nader explained that "Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states." His request was rejected, however, due to a technicality.
Mr. Nader's stymied attempt aside, lawyers in Ohio and elsewhere are working diligently to compile cases of vote fraud and disenfranchisement. And as previously mentioned, the GAO and FBI have been made aware of the problem. "Spurred by the unwillingness of the broadcast media to report voting problems during the 2004," citizens are also attempting to expose irregularities themselves.
But chances are, this story, like Florida's 2000 debacle, will remain on the back burner, if it gets much mainstream exposure at all. Because that's how it is in our brave new world, where networks are compromised, journalists are neutered and in comparison to current corruption, Watergate really does seem like a third rate burglary.
In Wednesday's wee hours, before John Kerry conceded, reaction to morning news shows felt all too familiar -- it was like watching a rerun of pre-Iraq invasion WMD hype. There was a story line about unity and concession and doing what’s best for the country – and it pretty much felt like a mushroom cloud lie. How can we possibly overlook the lying and cheating and incompetence of the past four years? Thanks, but no thanks.
Despite Orwellian broadcasts from "Democracy Plaza," it's obvious that democracy is not doing just fine. And more and more, it looks like something is rotten in the state of the union.
Pundits have been asking how exit polls, which have historically been accurate, could have been so wrong. Well, that's easy: There's an elephant in the voting booth. Now, will someone please alert the media? | |
Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure. |
Posted at 03:45 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
NDN's New Majority Coalition
NDN's New Majority Coalition Research Project
To help Democrats chart a new course for 2004 and for years to come, the New Democrat Network launched the New Majority Coalition Project, a multi-year research project to help identify the characteristics and concerns of America's changing electorate; effectively communicate a Democratic message to them; develop a potent critique of President Bush and the GOP; and devise a strategy that energizes our party's base and attracts swing voters in order to build a lasting Democratic coalition. Since 2001, NDN has released numerous polls and strategy memos as part of this project.
Restoring the Promise of America:
Making the Democratic Case in the Home Stretch
NDN's September 2004 strategy memo concluded that the message that Democrats will restore the promise of America can help the party regain a majority. The memo, based on new national polling by Mark Penn, found:
- Democrats Must Put Forward a Positive Agenda for the Future. The strongest message tested for either side was a positive New Democratic agenda that argues that Democrats will restore the promise of America after years of failed Republican leadership. It offers concrete policy plans on security, fiscal discipline, health care, education, and the environment. For example, with this NDN Agenda message, the presidential horse race shifts from 45 percent for John Kerry and 49 percent for George W. Bush, to 53 percent for Kerry and 43 percent for Bush.
- Voters in the Dark About Democratic Agenda. Likely voters believe that the Democratic Party would do a better job in handling the major domestic issues of the day, but a majority do not believe that the Democratic Party or its standard-bearer has made clear its agenda for the future. 56 percent of voters believe that the GOP has a clear agenda for the future; only 45 percent say that the Democratic Party has.
- Key Fundamentals Running Against Republicans. The mood of the country is running against the party in power. 50 percent say that the country is off on the wrong track, and 51 percent say the same about the economy. Democrats still win the generic congressional ballot (43 to 40) and the generic state legislative ballot (40 to 39). And after a nominating convention widely seen as successful, Bush leads Kerry by just 4 points (49 to 45).
- Security and Personality Driving Presidential Support. The Republicans have successfully increased the salience of their strongest issue, security, with the number of voters who say that security is the most important issue facing the country increasing 12 percentage points since May 2004. Also, voters who support Bush overwhelmingly do so for his personal leadership abilities and values. Democrats still have a 20-plus percentage point disadvantage when it comes to whom voters trust on handling the war on terrorism. Democrats cannot concede the issue of terrorism to the Republicans. As part of any long-term agenda, Democrats must put forward a security agenda that is based on smart ideas for keeping America safe, not based on accomplishments of any individual candidate's past.
- Swings Can Be Swung. This data shows that swing voters are ripe for becoming part of a durable Democratic coalition. Swing voters are pessimistic about the future of the economy, and care more about it. Yet, they also have much higher approval ratings of Bush (62 percent approving compared to 54 percent overall approving). To win swing voters into a long-term majority, Democrats must erode Republicans' advantage on leadership, match their toughness on security, and drive home issues on which swing voters favor Democrats: economy, health care, and education.
- Voters Logging On to Politics. As many likely voters use the Internet as their main source of news as use radio. In addition, 25 percent of likely voters visit politics websites, with candidate and party websites being the most visited. Despite the continued dominance of television as a news medium, the Internet is a rapidly rising competitor that stands to be a major news source in the years ahead.
Posted at 03:32 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
NDN's Approach to Narrative
Posted by Matt Stoller at November 9, 2004 02:16 PM
Telling a compelling story is a key component in winning elections. A narrative is the hull upon which messaging is built. NDN used the storyline 'Restoring the Promise of America', connecting the security and prosperity of the 1990s explicitly to the modern Democratic Party:
"The Democrats brought unprecedented prosperity and security in the 90s; the reckless Republican agenda has weakened the nation and failed the American people; and now Democrats have a plan to restore prosperity, security, hope and progress to an anxious world."
There's a historical continuity here, and a glimmer that things that were different and better could be different and better again, under a different political direction.
Posted at 03:30 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
Bush Commissions New Translation of Bible
BREAKING: Bush Commissions New Translation Of Bible
by Joey Dee
Tue Nov 9th, 2004 at 10:19:05 PST
WASHINGTON - Bolstered by his decisive re-election and claiming a "mandate" to boldly reimagine the role of the church in our bedrooms, President Bush announced today that he was commissioning a new translation of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
The new translation, already being dubbed the "King Bush" version, will draw upon some of the most forward-thinking theological minds in the United States -- names such as Rev. Pat Robertson, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Fred Phelps, Pastor Michael Savage, Friar Bill O'Reilly, Sister Ann Coulter and Gurus Alan Keyes and John Ashcroft have been mentioned as possible contributors.
The King Bush translation, according to a statement from the White House, seeks to "revert to the original intent of the author, God, and drive out the demons of more permissive and French translations, by which we mean the King James Version."
Retranslated verses include:
Matthew 19:24 -- "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a gay man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
John 3:16 -- "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not fag out, but be everlastingly het."
Matthew 5:5 -- "Blessed are the rich, for they shall inherit the Senate."
Matthew 22:37-39 -- "Hate the homo as you love yourself."
Matthew 21:13 -- "My temple should be called a house of Republicans, but you have made it a den of bipartisanship!"
James 2:14 -- "Faith without works is the American way."
The Book of Acts has been struck down as "apocryphal."
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said today in a press conference, "The President believes that 9/11 changed everything. We're in a new war -- a war that is being waged within our borders as well as without, and frankly, the more liberal translations of God's Word are only giving comfort to our enemies."
McClellan finished today's press conference by leading the assembled reporters in his rendition of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and was anointed with Crisco by Guru Ashcroft as he left the press room.
Posted at 02:21 pm by blog swarm
Political News Permalink
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I AM QUEEN OF IRAQ YOU LITTLE SHIT!
Comment by Judith Fucking Miller — 11/9/2004 @ 7:05 pm
Adam. Come back on the show. We’ll talk.
PS Hilton Head is lovely this time of year, and the crowds have gone.
Comment by Charlie Rose — 11/9/2004 @ 7:05 pm
Comment by A Times Reader — 11/9/2004 @ 7:09 pm
When you apologized for your election coverage at the Times, you neglected to mention that John Kerry never apologized to the swift boat veterans for truth.
Comment by Nedra Pickler — 11/9/2004 @ 7:17 pm
Will the Times be pissed that you posted this publically after they refused to publish it initally?
Comment by Bradford Benjamin Fassett — 11/9/2004 @ 7:22 pm
It’s okay, Adam. We understand that admitting that you have fallen short in the journalistic integrity department is the first step in recognizing your disease. You see, the problem with most journalists these days is that they don’t report - they provide opinions and inside spin - because they are too lazy to dig in and uncover the truth; so what you’re basically doing here (for me) is providing evidence to this fact. For someone from the proverbial Fourth Estate explaining to us that he was not sincere in his professional endeavor … what the heck? … like your self-absorbent, moronic style didn’t already confirm this in our minds - you are beyond pathological and need a megalomania excavation from yourself. Dearest Adam, repugnant little freak that you are, you are no better than Judith Miller and suffer from the same sickness. Is it no wonder why we ended up in Iraq with pathetic dingbats like you at the helm – and I am sure Murrow is rolling in his grave.
Comment by syntallic — 11/9/2004 @ 7:25 pm
Dear Adam, No need for us to mock you, you’re doing fine all by yourself.
Comment by Gurlll — 11/9/2004 @ 7:26 pm
You might want to append something like this: “I deeply regret that I pulled down my pants and took a crap on Howard Dean. I was blinded by Kerry lerve. Forgive me.”
Comment by Blue Girl in a Red State — 11/9/2004 @ 7:30 pm