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Major Tom on "Actionable Fraud" and More!
by Einsteinia
Tue Nov 30th, 2004 at 15:55:32 PST

Hello Kossacks:

What are our post-mortem election rights?  Specifically, what constitutes "actionable fraud"?  

Also, did you know there is a fascinating historical parallel to our recent election madness?

This and more I found in a comment posted by Major Tom just before the pre-Thanksgiving bustle.

I think the free legal opinion here is worthy of the several minutes you'll need to thoroughly read this enjoyably written mini-treatise by Major Tom.  

BTW, I suggested to Major Tom that he re-post this as a diary because it was far too dense and difficult to read--not to mention easily missed--as a mere comment.  Major Tom graciously declined, but gave me permission to post it and make formatting changes.  And changes I did make.  You can blame the annoying italics, bolding, subject headers, etc., all on me.  My intention was to make it easier to read on the computer--forgive me if you find it distracting.

Enjoy and Learn:

If History is always good prologue when it comes to politics. Back in 2000, nearly all of America (Republicans as well as Democrats) became uncomfortably aware that that our election system was severely broken in numerous places around the country. Of course, nowhere was that more clear than in Florida with its hanging chads and butterfly ballots. In fact, it was so terribly broken in Florida that the election was actually handed over to the loser, GW Bush. Months following the election, and after an exhaustive review of all the state's voting precincts, a number of reputable news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal (hardly a bastion of liberalism), concluded that Al Gore had in fact won Florida and should have taken all its electoral college votes and been elected President of the United States, if all the votes would have been counted based upon the intent of the electorate.

But heck, we knew that by just considering all the lost votes due to the infamous "butterfly ballot." Remember, Bush ended up winning the state by less than 600 total votes, while the votes lost by Gore by reason of the "butterfly ballot" exceeded 10,000 in number (all those Jewish people in Palm Beach certainly weren't voting for Buchanan, a candidate who loudly proposed giving less financial and military support to the State of Israeli). By the way, the irony is that Gore would have picked up thousands of votes in central and northern Florida (including the Panhandle) had he been sage enough to request a hand count in all of Florida's counties when he first requested a recount.

Well, when the outrageous U.S. Supreme Court (using incredibly spurious logic and reasoning, breaking many well established legal precedents, and smashing entirely the seminal concept of "res judicata"), subsequently pulled the plug on the statewide recount that was well in progress, it seemed everyone sought of just went home and completely forgot about the outrageous miscarriage of justice that had just occurred in our nation. For me, I can tell you, the resulting silence was disturbingly deafening.

Justice in the Supreme Court?

By the way, if the U.S. Supreme Court had orally informed the attorneys for Gore and Bush of their vote count deadline at the end of their oral vote, and not have waited the few days for the official opinion to be written up, the Florida statewide recount could have been hastened and might have been fully completed in time for the false, statutory imposed deadline of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thus, following the U.S. Supreme Court's incredibly partisan ruling in a case of such national enormity, I began asking myself: Where is the OUTRAGE? Where is the righteous indignation of the American people!!! When are they going to rise up, even if it's only half of them. Of course, there was none; or should I say, there was very little, considering the very high stakes involved. I know, Al Gore had a lot to do with the lack of deep concern and wide public discontentment as well as clarion calls for instant change. Yep, he simply moseyed off into the sunset, and the Democratic powers that be at the time simply followed in his steps. And, of course, we sheepishly followed them. For me, that is when I lost all respect for Al Gore and when the silence became even more deafening to me.

Historical Precedent for the Taking

Yet there was precedent for Al Gore not to give up so easily and scream "foul" to the top of his lungs. Back in the Presidential Election 1876, there was close election where vote fraud had been claimed and which involved no less, the State of Florida. That election was between Samuel Tilden (Dem) and Rutherford Hayes (Rep). Tilden had received 250,000 more votes than Hayes, and he needed just one (1) electoral vote from the four disputed states of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Oregon to win office. On the other hand, the very determined Rutherford B. Hayes needed to take the electoral votes from all four of those states in order to win the Presidency. Because the Constitution did not give the U.S. Supreme Court the relegated power to decide the election controversy, the dispute eventually fell to the Republican Congress which swiftly voted along party lines and awarded the election to their brethren, Rutherford Hayes. At that point in time, Tilden and his brethren could have sheepishly walked away like Al Gore had done in 2000, as appears Kerry is doing now; however, they didn't.

The Democrats were so outraged and DETERMINED not to be defrauded, they fostered nationwide threats of civil war. With the country in such grave turmoil, the two parties subsequently entered into negotiations and finally reached the famous "Compromise of 1877" by which the Republicans acceded to several hard demands of the Tilden forces which included guaranteed appointments of Democrats to certain Federal offices and posts as well as a promise that Hayes would not seek a second term of office as President. Gosh, if only Gore had been more like Tilden.

The main point of the above history lesson is that Democrats should not be afraid to stand up at any cost and declare they will not be hoodwinked by Republicans fraudsters. Incidentally, Rutherford B. Hayes kept his promise and did not run for re-election in 1880.

What is the Legal Concept of "Reasonable Suspicion"?    

There is something else of import that all of us should keep in mind. It is the concept of "reasonable suspicion."  In brief, it's a standard that law enforcement authorities need to meet in order to stop and search a citizen, a car and so on; and it can be the valid basis of an eventual arrest.  Indeed, it is less than a "probable cause" or "more likely than not" legal standard. Thus, a twenty or thirty percent likelihood of a given event or fact would meet the "reasonable suspicion standard."  

Furthermore, hearsay can be the basis of a "reasonable suspicion" threshold finding, while an actual warrant issued by a judge or magistrate is not necessarily required. Certainly, it is a much less stringent minimal bench mark than "actual proof." Unquestionably, if actual proof were always required, there would be very few legitimate searches conducted across the country on the part of law enforcement authorities. 

The point that should be garnered from the brief recital of law set forth in the previous paragraph is that absolute guarantees of proof are never required in the law before a search of anything can be conducted. Furthermore, under our legal system, this basal or minimum standard of "reasonable suspicion" is quite sufficient in the criminal law arena where rights are more greatly coveted and protected than in the civil law arena in which considerations of recounts would more generally apply. Therefore, a suspicion legitimately based upon any facts and inferences, including hearsay, are enough to base a civil or quasi-civil case (which a recount case is), even if those facts represent only a small percent of actual likelihood or probability, so long and on the condition that it is made in good faith.

Do We Have Sufficient Grounds?

So to all those who are screaming "where is the indisputable facts or truth, because I haven't heard any yet," I say to them, "that at this point in the proceedings, indisputable proof is not required whatsoever."

In fact, because we are not suggesting that a criminal action be brought, the standard of proof is even less than "a reasonable suspicion." Don't we at least have some of that from what we have thus far heard? OF COURSE, WE DO. Just think about what we now know to have occurred in Volusia County, Florida; or what has occurred in South Carolina; or what has occurred in Ohio, and so on and so on. Even the enormous
improbabilities regarding the discrepancies between the exit polls and the actual poll results should raise within all reasonable people a "reasonable suspicion" that something is definitely awry concerning many of the 2004 poll results. Wasn't the odds 250,000,000 to 1?

Actually, with regard to some of the reports we have been hearing from here and there, I would respectfully suggest that the criminal law, "reasonable suspicion standard" has also been met concerning some of the activities that we have been informed about - destroying original polling tapes. At least, that is my view. Again, however, we are not suggesting that someone bring a criminal action at this point in the continuing controversy.  We're talking about a "quasi-civil action" here.

What "Civil Discovery" Would Allow:

There is also the matter of "civil discovery." When someone begins a civil action, the parties then have a corresponding right to request an inspection of documents and or other evidence, including equipment, admissions, and answers to specific questions under oath (interrogatories or depositions) from the other party or parties to a civil action. All of these rights are set forth to assist and aid each party in proving their base allegations as set forth in their complaint or petition.

In our particular situation, we would greatly appreciate a look into the brains and guts of some of the voting machines and voting tabulators, wouldn't we? Yet, unless and until we request a formal recount, or we challenge an election outcome itself, we will never be allowed that right and opportunity to analyze what these machines actually do and don't do.

"Res Ipsa Loquitor," What It Means:

There is something else that I should discuss at this point. There is an old legal doctrine on the books known as "Res Ipsa Loquitor." It is a Latin phrase which basically means, "Let the object speak for itself."  

Where's the Burden of Proof?

How is Res Ipsa Loquitor applicable here? Well, in theory, when something goes awry concerning an object or instrumentality which is in the exclusive control of a person or persons, be it equipment or the like, and that failure does not normally occur without fault or without negligence, then the burden to prove that the object or the machine did not malfunction in a certain way then legally shifts to the owner or exclusive possessor of that very object or machine.  

Respectfully, under the principles of this specific, time-tested legal doctrine, I would contend that Diebold, et al., should be required to prove how any of its vote machines malfunctioned in any given instance, or put another way, they should have the burden of proof to demonstrate that all of its machines functioned properly, just as they were intended to function. You know, when you really think about the fact that our democracy itself happens to be at stake, that isn't asking a whole lot.      

About "Trade Secrets"

Finally, I should discuss the semi-privileges of  "proprietary interests" and "trade secret" holders. Friends, they are not absolute. Everyday within our courts throughout the land, trade secrets and proprietary rights cases are litigated. Famous cases involving KFC, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Disney and IBM are just a few examples from many thousands I could mention. Indeed, I could go on and on. Furthermore, parties are frequently ordered by the courts to give up trade secrets and make them known to the court and the opposing party's experts, if justice cannot be served otherwise.

In the case of proprietary interest companies like Diebold, I would predict that a judge would likely order that the secret codes underlying all functions of these voting machines or tabulators, as well as some the voting machines and tabulators themselves, be given over to a candidate's experts, so that they might have a reasonable opportunity to test for themselves whether or not these machines do exactly what they are legally supposed to do and nothing else.

Likely, the court would safeguard the limited release of those trade secret codes by swearing an expert to strict confidentiality. That same court would also likely require the candidate to pay Diebold whatever its reasonable costs might be incurred in order to recode the voting machines and tabulators. That's right, my friends, these voting contraptions simply need to be recoded in order for them to be fully functional and operational again. And I suspect we're not talking about an enormous recoding expense. Really, it's not like Diebold would have to throw all their machines away and start all over again.  

Absolute Proof--Nonsense!

So to all those who demand absolute proof, I once again state that absolute proof of fraud (or a smoking gun) is not needed at this point in the proceedings. However, for those who still want to hear about some quite definitive fraud, please consider the following:

(1)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have counted all ballots, when they have in fact tossed huge batches of ballots in the trash canisters, then that is actionable fraud.  

(2)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have counted all ballots, when they have in fact loaded huge batches of ballots in the back of a pickup truck that just happens to have a pro-Bush sticker on it, then that is actionable fraud.  

(3)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have turned over all official voting tallies, when they have in fact tossed some official vote tallies that they said didn't exist into trash containers, then that is actionable fraud.  

(4)  That when voting officials state that they have turned over all official records pursuant to an appropriate Freedom of Information Request (FOIR), when they have in fact not done so, then that is actionable fraud.  

(5)  That when voting officials secret or destroy public voting records in order to conceal it from the public, then that is actionable fraud.  

(6)  That when voting officials dissemble anything of significant import concerning an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(7)  That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(8)  That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information concerning where a person can or cannot vote, then that is actionable fraud. 

(9)  That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot register to vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(10)  That when individuals, under the color of authority, accept voter registrations from members of the voting public and promise to bring them to the Registrar of Voters, but instead tear them up or throw them away, then that is actionable fraud.  

(11)  That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(12)  That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about where a person can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(13)  That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about when a person can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.  

(14)  That when members of the opposing party tell the voting public that they will be arrested for overdue parking tickets at the polling site when they vote, then that is actionable fraud.  

(15)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they do not have any additional machines to put on site, when they know there are another 87 of them sitting in their warehouse, then that is actionable fraud.  

(16)  That when Blackwell states in a media interview that there were only a few minor problems during the Ohio election, when he knows the statement to be completely false and untrue, then that is actionable fraud.  

(17)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have enough voting machines on site, when they know that they do not, then that is actionable fraud.  
    
(18)  That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have sent out by mail, as per individual request, 50,000 absentee ballots, when in fact they did not, then that is actionable fraud.
 
(19)  That when voting officials hide from the voting public the fact that they have thrown out thousands of provisional ballots, then that is actionable fraud.  
  
(20)  When voting machine manufacturers actively hide the fact that their key people who generate the secrets codes for their voting machines and tabulators are convicted embezzlers, hackers and felons, then that is ACTIONABLE FRAUD.  

I could go on and on, depending upon which particular state or jurisdiction I happened to be talking about. Friends, it is important to remember that an election does not begin and end with a vote being cast on election day; instead it begins when one registers to vote and ends when all legitimate votes cast in a specific election are counted in full.    

Perhaps the word "fraud" scares too many people? Well, if that is the case, then simply do not use the word "fraud" in any civil complaint, or any recount justification, or in any news article or internet post. Instead, use the term irregularity, impropriety, dysfunction and even error or mistake. In the twenty listed statements above relating to fraud, simply insert in lieu of the word "fraud" whatever word you happen to prefer, i.e. irregularity, impropriety, etc.

However, my advice to you is to scream out as loud as you can whatever word you choose to use, if you wish to have any reasonable expectation that the right people are going to listen and do something about your grave concerns.    

A Few Other Important Considerations:

While I'm discussing improprieties, I should also mention a few other actionable grounds which can be used to base a recount or a election challenge upon. How about: voter suppression, voter intimidation, and voter disinformation. Or how about the fact that minority precincts and college precincts have half the operational voting machines in like precincts that happen to be located in Republican districts?

Do you think there is a legitimate case there?

Sure there is. And perhaps a Civil Rights Voting Act Case. You know, the problem is that there has been far too few legal cases authorized by Democratic leaders and filed in America over the last decade to correct these rampant voter inequities that seem to reoccur without fail each and every election cycle.

Do you realize that perhaps the votes of 60 people PER Ohio PRECINCT, who simply didn't have their vote counted because of intimidation, misinformation, long lines, hanging chads, undervotes, and overvotes or whatever, could mean the difference between Bush or Kerry being in the White House for the next four years.

Too Little, Too Late?

Within the next year or two, I fully expect some newspaper to come along, and after studying the Ohio vote in depth, write an illuminating and riveting column stating that if all the votes of the people who had intended to vote for Kerry in Ohio had been counted in full, then Kerry would have been duly elected President of the United States in the election of 2004. Isn't this more Deja Vu All Over Again? Just how much more of this can we all take or be expected to take?    

Listen, I know I've gone on far too long already. I didn't mean to; but I felt I needed set forth some legal precedent and history. I say this because I fully agree with Tocque DeVille that the media as well as the blog masters have been so deafeningly silent when they should be our rally leaders.

Frankly, I don't understand the silence; but it is there. And I don't really know the exact reasons why. However, I do know  that if we do not make this cause the most preeminent issue of the day right now, then we are going to have the same situation repeat itself in 2006 and 2008, and God only knows how long after that. Yep, it'll be that Deja Vu Stuff All Over Again.

You know, because seemingly passive Democrats and the National Media did NOT scream to high heavens about the Florida election irregularities right up until the time of the passage of "The Help America Vote Act" (HAVA), what we actually got was something even worse than what we already had.

Help America Vote Act Madness:

For those who do not know, the act actually financially rewards companies like Diebold that introduce "Direct Electronic Voting Machines Without Paper Trails" to new voting districts that formerly utilized a different voting system or operational format, including the OP-Scan System. Beyond that, HAVA has not changed much of anything else of any significant import or improvement. Yep, the Democrats simply got hoodwinked again. Hell, haven't we all figured that out by now? What else is new? "But damn the torpedoes, and full steam ahead," shouldn't WE bloody well now change OUR Modus Operandi before it's way too late?

Some Laughs?

You know, it's so painfully hilarious to think about it. In 2000 we have Bush in reality losing not only the total national vote count but also losing the real Electoral College Vote count; and yet he has the unmitigated gall to claim a mandate (through none other than Mr. Cheney)  from that catastrophic election. And yet he gets completely away with it. Where the hell was the Democratic outrage when Bush claimed that phony mandate back in 2000? Also, just look what we got as a result of the fraudulently claimed mandate. Finally, what are we to be served up as a result of Bush's newest mandate proclamation? Is it too unbearable to even think about it? Only time will tell.

Now matter how you view it, the inescapable fact is absolutely clear: Whether or not Kerry can actually pull out this election is suddenly irrelevant to whether or not an exhaustive, post-mortem examination of the 2004 election should now be conducted post haste.

You know, friends, if the shoe were on the other foot, do you really believe the Republicans would have faded away so conveniently and so quietly? I think not. Perhaps, the Republicans are right about something: Because Democrats are not fighters, "they would constitute a great risk to our national defense, if they happened to be in power in a time of war."  

Doctor in the House?

Finally, if you are a medical person or technologically oriented, then please think of this election as a suspicious poisoning death. In that case, don't you think an autopsy might be in order and like pronto.  

Huh, no matter how it cuts, I guess it's just Deja Vu All over Again. Great song, isn't it?
However, it gets more than a bit stale after a while, doesn't it?

DNC chair ongoings
by kos
Tue Nov 30th, 2004 at 16:49:17 PST

So Michigan's Democratic Party chief says the following Democrats have been making calls to DNC members gauging support for a run: ousted Rep. Martin Frost, former Clark campaign manager Donnie Fowler, businessman Leo Hindery, and Howard Dean. Donnie Fowler is looking to run from the Reform wing of the Democratic Party.

Democrats must stand up for our beliefs and take risks.  Democrats must be defiant in defeat.  When we lie down, we get run over [...]

Democrats must remember that voters don't live in Washington. Conventional wisdom and an aristocracy of consultants have created a national party that has lost the handle on what is truly important to voters and what is really happening in their lives. Local people know better. Let them lead.

The Democratic Party must increase its communications capability. Democrats must communicate year round with voters where they live, through their local news outlets, and by using trusted local opinion leaders. Regional political and communications offices plus a true understanding of new media and new technologies are essential.  

We must form a shadow government. The DNC should coordinate the Party's leadership, not just our congressional members but also our governors, party chairs, DNC members, and leading thinkers. The Democratic Party needs a single entity, acting as a clearinghouse, so that the resources and message of the progressive movement do not duplicate each other or directly conflict.

"Aristocracy of consultants"? Be still my beating heart!

Meanwhile, Trippi argues that the netroots are the vehicle to a new Democratic majority in this powerful WSJ op-ed.

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party, and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the nation's youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger electoral defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

Mr. Kerry raised nearly half of his campaign war chest over the Internet. He was so successful at online fund-raising that he actually outspent the Bush campaign in this election. But it was the outsider campaign of Howard Dean, reviled by most of the Democratic establishment, which pioneered the use of the Internet to raise millions in small contributions; Mr. Kerry was just the beneficiary as the party nominee.

And it was the risk-taking and aggressive Dean Campaign that forced the risk-averse Kerry campaign to opt out of the public financing system. Had that decision not been forced on Mr. Kerry, he would have been badly outspent by George Bush; he would not have been competitive at all throughout the long summer of 2004.

Is that a Trippi endorsement for Dean's candidacy? Remember, those two aren't exactly best friends these days.

While I am a fan of Frost -- a tough Dem in red Texas -- he's status quo. As for businessman Leo whatever, he's an unknown with no chance in hell.

Simon Rosenberg isn't actively campaigning for the job. If I had to guess, I'd say he's laying low, ready to emerge as a concensus candidate if the DNC battle gets ugly between Dean and the anti-Dean consensus candidate.

Kerry, after being spurned by a Vilsack who suddenly lost his taste for a brawl (was he promised an easy ride by the presumptive leader of the Democratic Party?), looks to be boosting his old NH ally, Jeanne Shaheen.

What Electability Has Wrought by Chris Bowers Electability is the most pernicious of all lies to penetrate the Democratic psyche. Electability, as frequenter commenter JollyBuddah termed it, is "a fairy tale told by bloviating pundits." It is the sort of mendacity used by swindlers and tyrants: a few simple gimmicks can solve all your problems. Find the right person, from the right state, in the right region, with the right resume, and presto, that is all you need. Simple falsehoods of this sort can appeal to desperate people who, like Democrats, seek immediate relief to crushing problems. We want to believe that all it takes are a few simple tricks, especially when times are at their worst. We want to believe this because we need hope. What has electability wrought? What do we have now that John Kerry has been defeated? Do we have a network of volunteers who, now that the election is over, are available to work on projects other than the 2004 election? Not really, as our massive volunteer efforts were geared toward a single purpose that has now passed, and many were not even from the areas where they were volunteering. Do we have down-ticket Congressional and gubernatorial success to celebrate apart from the Presidential race? No, as the current congressional makeup is very similar to 1994 and 1996. Do we have stronger local organizations anywhere outside of Montana and Democratic areas of swing states? Not really, as we have no new grassroots structures from the campaign. Do we have any new issues raised during the campaign that we can seize on as part of a developing national message that can be used to raise the level of debate and bring more people to our side in the future? Not really, unless you count Edwards and Obama. For the majority of the campaign, Kerry's message was his bio. We do not have a single ideological narrative with any national resonance. No, no, no and no. Kerry's campaign, and subsequent defeat, left us with few improved outlooks on the future. We do have improved netroots, massively improved small donor fundraising, much better voter registration in important Democratic areas and our most favorable partisan index map in decades. There were some long-term victories, but not many. Further, what we did gain, long-term, was entirely as a side-effect of our all-out effort to win at any cost. We improved in swing states because we saw swing states as the key to defeating Bush in 2004. We improved in small donor fundraising because the campaign needed the money. We registered more voters in swing states purely in an attempt to win in 2004. If there was a long-term project we ignored, it was ignored because it was not seen as central toward victory in 2004. In other words, because we are a party in the death-grip of electability, we consistently fail to work on engaging in the long-term structural organization needed in order to improve our fortunes, long-term. More after the jump.

Last week I got into a pretty heated argument with my roommate (commenter Spartacus) over my Evolving Partisan Strength series. Near the end of the argument, he said something along these lines: I can't believe that in an article that long your entire point was that Southerners cannot improve on Democratic chances in the South in Presidential elections just by virtue of their very southern-ness. That is a pretty small point to make for an essay of that length. I was trying to make a few other points in the essay, but he was correct in identifying my central argument. My response was that that was not a small point at all, and the notion that the South can still swing to Democrats if and only if we nominate a Southerner is was one of the central misconceptions fueling the electability argument. Like many other "electability" misconceptions, it is so hard-wired into our national psyche and repeatedly reified by bloviating pundits. When the lie runs deep, it takes a lot of work to demonstrate that it is, in fact, a lie. There are several other electability myths that I would like to work to debunk, because from what I can tell over two years of blogosphere bickering surrounding the term, every aspect of the electability argument is untenable. Here are a few more: A line on a resume will compensate for a person's ideological and/or popularity weakness on a given policy issue (veterans will help us on the military, doctors will help us on health care, ministers will help us on religion, teachers will help us on education, etc). I don't buy this. Quite frankly, it assumes that people are idiots and blank slates dazzled by resumes and bright shiny things more than ideas. A moderate will increase our appeal among moderates, or a liberal will increase our appeal among liberals. Winning "this election" as all that matters. This is the big one, and it need to be discussed in full. Winning "this election" is never all that matters. What we do, or do not do, in any given election alters our chances in future elections. If we do not build local grassroots structures in all fifty states during a Presidential election because everything is sacrificed at the alter of swing states, then we will have serious problems in congressional, state legislature, gubernatorial, and senatorial elections outside of swing states in future elections. If we do not work on a national message, and seek instead only to appeal on the given potluck of issues in a single cycle, we will still be lacking a national message in future elections. If we believe that a line on a resume, even if that line is a place of birth, can swing people more than message, we will be lacking in message altogether, which spells permanent electoral doom. If we think that simply being "moderate" will swing people, without ever explaining to people what "moderate" is, then we will be actively working to push more people into the conservative camp, and participating in our own destruction. What do we have now that the election is over? Why should we be optimistic about our future? What has electability wrought? Trippi has one answer: Mr. Kerry was a weaker candidate than Mr. Gore. He lost so much ground among women, Hispanics, and other key groups, that the millions in Internet money, the most Herculean get-out-the-vote effort in party history, and the largest turnout of young voters in over a decade, couldn't save him. Had the young stayed home, the sea of red on the map would have grown to include at least Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire--perhaps one or two more.(...) Since the Democratic Leadership Council, with its mantra of "moderate, moderate, moderate," took hold in D.C., the party has been in decline at just about every level of government. Forget the Kerry loss. Today the number of Democrats in the House is the lowest it's been since 1948. Democrats are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority party. What do we have in return? Pretty much, just money: A Republican sweep of the White House and control of Congress hasn't stopped the Democratic National Committee's fund raising. The DNC announced Tuesday that it had raised at least $13 million in November. The total includes $10 million collected after the Nov. 2 election in which President Bush won a second term and Republicans strengthened their House and Senate majorities. Due in part to growth in fund raising over the Internet, the DNC raised more this election cycle than it did before corporate, union and big individual donations known as soft money were outlawed by a 2002 law. The committee raised at least $400 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, compared to $210 million in 1999-2000, the last presidential election cycle in which it could collect unlimited donations. The party's fortunes are crashing, and we are still controlled by the electability mindset, and the sychophantic mendacity of the chattering classes currently manifested in an Anyone But Dean movement for DNC chair. It might as well be phrased as an Anything But a Fifty-State Strategy movement, an Anything But A National Message or Ideological Narrative movement, or an Anything But Change and Grassroots Movement. The electability mindset has almost single-handedly ripped our party to shreds, but unfortunately for us, many Democrats out there seem unwilling to try something new, something difficult, and something long-term. Any reality based community would properly reject "electability" as the lie that it is. To bad more of us are not doing the same. Howard Dean for DNC chair.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/11/30/143728/70

Trippi today writes a Wall Street Journal Column on the Future of the Democratic Party, Only the Grassroots Can Save The Democratic Party today. Does it signal that Joe is backing Howard Dean's candidacy for the DNC Chair?

Donnie Fowler is a candidate for the DNC position. Want to see his position paper?  I'll include it in the extended entry. Maybe this will awake the mighty Stirling Newberry to write something about those Clark days last Fall.  

From Vilsack on CNN via NJ's Hotline: I was asked to consider it. And out of respect for those who were making that request, I gave it some consideration. That was Kerry, whom it now appears is turning to his NH backer, as the ABD candidate. Says Vilsack:

"There are a lot of people that would be able to do a good job as the DNC chair. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's really not as much about the chair as it is about the rest of us willing to help the chair. This party has some significant challenges ahead. We've got to rebuild the grassroots. We've got to make sure that neighbor to neighbor are talking about Democratic ideals and policies and programs and politicians. That's going to take a lot of effort on the part of a lot of people. Not just the chair. Howard [Dean] is certainly someone who energized the grassroots. There's other folks, Jeanne Shaheen, a variety of other people that have been mentioned that I know could do the job. So I'm confident we're going to have a good chair. But I want to make sure that the rest of us help carry this rather significant heavy load that we face"

Finally, I'll head down to Orlando for the Exec. Directors DNC meeting in mid-Dec, not that I'm invited...  

The Democratic National Committee

Embracing the New Politics and Perfecting the Old
Donnie Fowler, Candidate for DNC Chairman  /  November 2004

In a time where America's progressive movement and the Democratic Party feel the pain of defeat, Democrats must reaffirm our soul and commit ourselves to the new politics while perfecting the old.  Today's Democratic Party is the legacy of our nation's greatest accomplishments - the American Revolution, abolition of slavery, giving women the vote, the right to organize, winning two world wars, and the civil rights movement.  Standing up for this tradition is the charge of the DNC and progressives everywhere.

Democrats must stand up for our beliefs and take risks.  Democrats must be defiant in defeat.  When we lie down, we get run over.  

Democrats must cross the values threshold.  Democrats love issues, but we must remind voters we have a soul before we convince them that our policies make sense.  

Democrats must find new voters.  To return to power, Democrats must maintain the loyalty of traditional Democrats and recognize that huge parts of the electorate have arrived, changed, or shifted in our country over the last forty years.  

Democrats must remember that voters don't live in Washington.  Conventional wisdom and an aristocracy of consultants have created a national party that has lost the handle on what is truly important to voters and what is really happening in their lives.  Local people know better.  Let them lead.

The Democratic Party must increase its communications capability.  Democrats must communicate year round with voters where they live, through their local news outlets, and by using trusted local opinion leaders.  Regional political and communications offices plus a true understanding of new media and new technologies are essential.  

We must form a shadow government.  The DNC should coordinate the Party's leadership, not just our congressional members but also our governors, party chairs, DNC members, and leading thinkers.  The Democratic Party needs a single entity, acting as a clearinghouse, so that the resources and message of the progressive movement do not duplicate each other or directly conflict.

We must raise money.  Continued fundraising success requires a message that attracts donations and proof that the money produces real results.  

We must measure what we do, hold ourselves accountable, and review our progress.  The DNC must perform more like a business by setting measurable goals, quantifying its progress, holding staff accountable, and reviewing its activities on a semi-annual basis.
- - -

Donnie Fowler has achieved a leading role in political and high technology circles through his work in Silicon Valley and at the Federal Communications Commission, service in the Clinton White House, and work on six presidential campaigns.  He has advised dozens of companies, policymakers, public advocacy groups, and political campaigns on how to manage their media, policy, business development, & technology agendas.

Six Presidential Campaigns / Four Presidential Cycles
o    Gephardt '87-'88, Jackson '88, Clinton/Gore '96, Gore/Lieberman '00 (National Field Director), Wesley Clark '03 (Campaign Manager), and Kerry/Edwards '04 (Michigan State Director)

Political and Campaign Work in Fourteen States on the Ground
o    S.Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Wyoming, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Virginia

Technology & Telecommunications Background
o    Federal Communications Commission ('97-'99)
o    TechNet, Silicon Valley ('01-'03)

Only the Grassroots Can Save The Democratic Party

By Joe Trippi

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party, and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the nation's youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger electoral defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

Mr. Kerry raised nearly half of his campaign war chest over the Internet. He was so successful at online fund-raising that he actually outspent the Bush campaign in this election. But it was the outsider campaign of Howard Dean, reviled by most of the Democratic establishment, which pioneered the use of the Internet to raise millions in small contributions; Mr. Kerry was just the beneficiary as the party nominee.

And it was the risk-taking and aggressive Dean Campaign that forced the risk-averse Kerry campaign to opt out of the public financing system. Had that decision not been forced on Mr. Kerry, he would have been badly outspent by George Bush; he would not have been competitive at all throughout the long summer of 2004.

Mr. Kerry's lead among young voters hid just how bad Election Day really was for Democrats. In the 2000 election, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 split their votes evenly; nine million each for Mr. Bush and Al Gore. But in 2004, two million more voters in this age group turned out to vote. And while Mr. Bush won the same nine million votes, 11 million voted for Mr. Kerry. But when we set aside his two million new younger voters, the true disaster of 2004 is revealed. In 2000, Mr. Gore and Ralph Nader won a combined total of 54 million votes. This year Mr. Kerry and Mr. Nader got 53 million (ignoring the two million new young voters).

It turns out that Mr. Kerry was a weaker candidate than Mr. Gore. Mr. Kerry lost so much ground among women, Hispanics, and other key groups, that the millions in Internet money, the most Herculean get-out-the-vote effort in party history, and the largest turnout of young voters in over a decade, could not save him. Had the young voters stayed home, the sea of red on the electoral map would have grown to include at least Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire-perhaps one or two more.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush, received 50 million votes in 2000, and 59 million in 2004. He added nine million votes. That is because Karl Rove had a plan and the Bush campaign stuck to it. There is no doubt that they executed it brilliantly. But the problem for Democrats is not Mr. Rove; it is that they're doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. That's the definition of insanity.

* Since the Democratic Leadership Council, with its mantra of "moderate, moderate, moderate," took hold in Washington, the Democratic Party has been in decline at just about every level of government. Forget the Kerry loss. Today the number of Democrats in the House is the lowest it's been since 1928. Democrats are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority party. Can the oldest democratic institution on earth wake from its stupor? Here are some steps to pull out of the nose-dive:

* Democrats can't keep ignoring their base. Running to the middle and then asking our base at the end of the campaign to make sure to vote is not a plan. It sure hasn't worked. And to those who say talking to your base doesn't work-Read the Rove 2004 playbook!

* Democrats must reconnect with the energy of our grass roots. One of the failures of the DLC was that its ideas never helped us build a grass-roots donor base. As a result Democrats held a lead over Republicans in only one fundraising category before this election cycle: contributions over one million dollars. That shows how far the party had strayed from grassroots fundraising before the Dean campaign. We must build a base of at least seven million small donors by 2006. With the Internet it's possible. But it can't just be about the money, it also has to be about ideas.

* The one thing we learned in the Dean campaign was that the 30 or so people in Burlington, Vt., were not as smart as the 650,000 Americans who were part of our campaign. Instead of a DLC in Washington, Democrats should be holding Democratic Grassroots Councils in every county. Democratic National Committee members in each state, along with the state party, should host and moderate these meetings to help develop ideas that come from the people, instead of the experts in Washington.

* A party that ignores the needs of state and local parties is doomed. We must begin to invest aggressively in states we continually write off in national elections. If we don't, the decline of the Democratic Party in these states will continue until we are non-existent. It's already occurring in many southern states.

* In a world in which companies like Wal-Mart pay substandard wages with no real benefits, our party has got to find innovative ways to support organized labor's growth. A declining union membership is not good for the country, it's not good for working people, and it certainly is not good for the Democratic Party.

* The Democratic Party has to be the vehicle that empowers the American people to change our failed political system. We all know the damn thing is broken. Democrats should lead the way by placing stricter money restrictions on candidates than the toothless Federal Election Commission does. A party funded by contributions from the people can do this. A corrupted and corroded party cannot. The Democratic Party shouldn't wait for campaign-finance reform-it should be campaign-finance reform.

* Finally, What is the purpose the Democratic Party strives for today? What are our goals for the nation? You couldn't tell from the 2004 election. The fact is, very few good ideas come from the middle. Ideas in the middle tend to be mediocre. Political consultants have become adept at keeping their candidates in that safe zone. But the time has come to develop bold ideas and to challenge people to sacrifice for the common good. Experts will tell you that you can't ask the American people to sacrifice individually for the common good. Those experts are wrong-it's just been so long since anyone has asked them.

Mr. Trippi, who managed Howard Dean's presidential campaign, is a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and an MSNBC commentator.

Center for Constitutional Rights

Center For Constitutional Rights Seeks Criminal Investigation in Germany into Culpability of U.S. Officials in Abu Ghraib Torture


German Prosecutor Asked to Meet Obligations under Law Requiring Investigation into Torture and War Crimes. Doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction Permits Prosecution of Suspected War Criminals Wherever They May Be Found


Synopsis

In a historic effort to hold high-ranking U.S. officials accountable for brutal acts of torture including the widely publicized abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib, on Tuesday November 30, 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and four Iraqi citizens filed a criminal complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office at the Karlsruhe Court, Karlsruhe, Germany.  Under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, suspected war criminals may be prosecuted irrespective of where they are located.

The four Iraqis were victims of gruesome crimes including severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation, hooding and sexual abuse.  (Further details of the treatment of the complainants are attached.)

CCR President Michael Ratner, who traveled to Berlin to file the complaint, said “From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of Iraq policy must be investigated and held accountable. It is shameful that the United States of America, a nation that purports to set moral and legal standards for  world, refuses to seriously investigate the role of those at the top of the chain of command in these horrible crimes.”  “Indeed,” Ratner added “the existence of ‘torture memos’ drafted by administration officials and the authorization of techniques that violated humanitarian law by Secretary Rumsfeld, Lt. General Sanchez and others  make clear that responsibility for Abu Ghraib and other violations of law reaches all the way to the top.”

The U.S. officials charged include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Former CIA Director George Tenet, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Major General Walter Wojdakowski, Major General Geoffrey Miller, Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry L. Phillabaum, Colonel Thomas Pappas, and Lieutenant Colonel Stephen L. Jordan. 

The criminal complaint was brought under the German Code of Crimes against International Law (CCIL) and seeks an investigation into war crimes allegedly carried out by high ranking United States civilian and military officials, including the incidents which occurred in Iraq. 

[Please join our effort!   The German Prosecutor has discretion to decide whether to initiate an investigation.  It is critical that he hear from you so he knows that people around the world support this effort.Send a letter here]

CCR is represented in Germany by Wolfgang Kaleck, a Berlin-based lawyer who has been involved in similar efforts on behalf of victims of the Argentine “dirty war.”

The charges include violations of the German Code, “War Crimes against Persons,” which outlaws killing, torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, sexual coercion and forcible transfers.  The Code makes criminally responsible those who carry out the above acts as well as those who induce, condone or order the acts. It also makes commanders liable, whether civilian or military, who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts.

The German Code of Crimes against International Law grants German Courts what is called Universal Jurisdiction for the above-described crimes. Article 1, Part 1, Section 1 states: "This Act shall apply to all criminal offenses against international law designated under this Act, to serious criminal offences designated therein even when the offence was committed abroad and bears no relation to Germany.” This means that those who commit such crimes can be prosecuted wherever found: they, like pirates of old, are considered enemies of all humankind.

The German CCIL places a prosecuting duty on the German prosecutor for all crimes that constitute violations of the CCIL, irrespective of the location of the person, the crime, or the nationality of the persons involved. Complaints can be filed with the German prosecutor to seek an investigation of specific crimes, as was done here.  While outside parties can bring complaints to the attention of a prosecutor in the U.S., there is no duty to prosecute such complaints and they do not become part of an official court procedure. In Germany, the prosecutor is under a duty to determine if an investigation and indictments are warranted; if he fails to do so, the complainants can appeal to the court.

According to CCR lawyers, in this case there are particularly compelling reasons the prosecutor should exercise his duty. Three of the defendants are present in Germany: Lt. General Sanchez and Major General Wodjakoski are stationed in Heidelberg, and Colonel Pappas is in Wiesbaden. Others, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, often travel to Germany. In addition, the military units that engaged in the illegal conduct are stationed in Germany.  Although such links to Germany are unnecessary for the prosecutor to fulfill his duty, when the alleged perpetrators are actually on German soil the duty to investigate is even stronger. Their presence in Germany gives the prosecutor an important avenue to investigate these cases. Last, since the complainants are also victims, this places an additional duty on the prosecutor to investigate.

 “We view Germany as a court of last resort,” said CCR Vice President Peter Weiss, “We file these cases here because there is simply no other place to go.  It is clear that the U.S. government is not willing to open an investigation into these allegations against these officials.”  Weiss also pointed out that Congress has failed to seriously investigate the abuses and none of the various commissions appointed by the military and the Bush administration has been willing to look unflinchingly up the chain of command to consider what criminal responsibility lies with the military and political leadership. Instead, they asserted that the abuses and torture were the exclusive responsibility of rogue lower-level military personnel. 

There are no international courts or courts in Iraq that can carry out investigations and prosecutions of the U.S. role, either: the United States has refused to join the International Criminal Court, thereby foreclosing the option of pursuing a prosecution in international courts; Iraq has no authority to prosecute; and the U.S. gave immunity to all its personnel in Iraq from Iraqi prosecution. Says Weiss, “We are doing what is necessary and expected when other systems of justice have failed: we are asking the German prosecutors, who have available one of the most advanced universal jurisdiction laws in the world, to begin an investigation that is required under its law.”

List of Defendants:

1. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez

2. Major General Walter Wojdakowski

3. Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski

4. Lieutenant Colonel Jerry L. Phillabaum

5. Colonel Thomas Pappas

6. Lieutenant Colonel Stephen L. Jordan

7. George Tenet

8. Major General Geoffrey Miller

9. Dr. Stephen Cambone

10. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Introduction to Complaint in English (PDF)186kb
Complaint in German part 1 (PDF)500kb
Complaint in German part 2 (PDF)323kb
List of Defendants (PDF)1.56KB
List of Plaintiffs (PDF)98KB

Compelling: Ohio recount: Stealing votes in Columbus-- INVESTIGATE DAMSCHRODER
by concernedamerican

Tue Nov 30th, 2004 at 04:19:35 PST

I am on an Ohio recount update listserve, and this was sent around to the list recently. It's compiled by Richard Hayes Phillips, of New York; he has done an exacting and fascinating series of calculations analyzing wards, precincts and voting machines with various ratios and runnings of the data.  The calculations indicate that the refusal to supply adequate voting machines to democratic and minority areas was a deliberate strategy.  The information is worth reading in its entirety.

Something of interest at the bottom of the calculations is the call for the investigation of Mr. Damschroder, who is a bigwig Republican in Columbus who worked closely with Kenneth Blackwell in vote suppression on election day.

*****************

OHIO RECOUNT
STEALING VOTES IN COLUMBUS

The Free Press on Election Day posted a disturbing
story, later confirmed by the Columbus Dispatch.  

The Free Press reported that Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder deliberately withheld voting machines from predominantly black Democratic wards in Columbus, and dispersed some of the machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County.

Damschroder is the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party.  Sources close to the Board of Elections told the Free Press that Damschroder and Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell met with President George W. Bush in Columbus on Election Day.

The idea was to discourage turnout in Democratic wards by forcing voters to wait in long lines at the polling places.  Such a strategy would be far more effective than encouraging turnout in Republican wards.

Elections are all about margins.  There are 74 wards in Columbus.  George W. Bush won 12 wards, with a margin of 7.35%.  John F. Kerry won 62 wards, with a margin of 37.62%.  Affecting Kerry’s turnout would greatly reduce his margin of victory in Columbus, giving the Republicans a much better chance of overtaking Kerry given a strong enough showing in suburban and small town Republican strongholds.

COLUMBUS POPULAR VOTE (EXCLUDING PROVISIONAL BALLOTS)

Location      Kerry           Bush         Others
Kerry Wards  141520 68.40%   63693 30.78%  1704 0.82%
Bush Wards    36228 46.01%   42015 53.36%   496 0.63%
Grand Total  177748 62.22%  105708 37.01%  2200 0.77%

In order to investigate this matter, I obtained from the Franklin County Board of Elections all the data I needed in order to calculate, ward by ward, and precinct by precinct: (1) The ratio of registered voters per voting machine. (2) Percent turnout, calculated as total ballots cast divided by the number of registered voters. (3) Percent for Kerry, calculated as votes cast for Kerry divided by votes cast for president. (4) Margin of victory or defeat for Kerry, calculated as the difference between the vote totals for Kerry and Bush.

The first thing I noticed was the distribution of turnout.  There is a statistically significant difference between the turnout in the Bush precincts and the turnout in the Kerry precincts.

DISTRIBUTION OF TURNOUT

Percent    Bush       Kerry
Turnout  Precincts  Precincts

 > 60        68        57
55-60        32        55
50-55        17        73
45-50         7        78
40-45         1        49
< 40         0        34
Total       125       346

Median Bush Precinct:  60.56%
Median Kerry Precinct: 50.78%

Best Bush Precinct: Ward 57, Precinct F
Bush 64.97%  Kerry 34.82%  Margin 30.05%

Best Kerry Precinct:  Ward 17, Precinct D
Kerry 97.66%  Bush 1.98%  Margin 95.68%

Note: Ward 22, Precinct H was a tie.

As the above table shows, turnout was over 60% in 68 of 125 Bush precincts (54.4%), and over 50% in 117 of 125 Bush precincts (93.6%).  By contrast, turnout was over 60% in only 57 of 346 Kerry precincts (16.5%), over 50% in only 185 of 346 Kerry precincts (53.5%), and under 40% in 34 of 346 Kerry precincts (9.8%).

Was the uneven distribution of turnout due to a lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate?  Or was it due to an uneven distribution of voting machines? To answer this question, I arranged the data, ward by ward, according to the ratio of registered voters per voting machine.

DISTRIBUTION OF VOTING MACHINES, TOP OF THE LIST

Ward      Voters/  Percent  Kerry    Kerry
          Machine  Turnout  Percent  Margin

WARD 19   261.2    67.99    63.33    + 1491
WARD 65   265.1    60.10    44.33    -  496
WARD 30   266.4    56.25    52.50    +  147
WARD 72   267.4    62.33    39.42    -  774
WARD 22   274.1    60.21    54.89    +  465
WARD 28   276.2    58.48    82.04    + 2371
WARD 63   278.7    56.10    47.37    -  242
WARD 48   278.9    52.84    82.37    + 1909
WARD 46   279.8    58.22    55.19    +  981
WARD 70   285.5    61.17    50.95    +   79
WARD 06   292.9    47.44    91.29    + 2494
WARD 21   293.9    57.92    58.45    +  719
WARD 34   295.8    55.85    65.05    + 1051
WARD 69   296.4    57.97    41.98    - 1030
WARD 60   296.7    55.97    44.27    -  478
WARD 66   300.0    53.01    52.32    +  203
WARD 05   302.9    46.24    94.34    + 1854
WARD 62   303.2    57.96    55.68    +  760
WARD 45   303.8    57.89    55.47    + 1208
WARD 47   304.8    52.85    73.83    + 1534
WARD 20   306.2    61.96    71.46    + 1077
WARD 53   307.2    53.66    55.01    +  499
WARD 15   308.4    51.88    60.71    +  291
WARD 27   308.4    53.06    68.63    + 1283
WARD 56   308.6    55.71    82.75    + 4065
WARD 52   308.7    53.68    68.52    + 1610
WARD 10   311.5    57.18    47.58    -  560
WARD 67   313.1    54.17    48.03    -  221
WARD 64   313.6    52.73    47.88    -  153
WARD 57   314.2    56.81    48.74    -  155
WARD 50   316.4    59.54    77.14    + 1447
WARD 58   317.6    55.04    49.82    +   41
WARD 07   318.1    44.24    94.21    + 2332
WARD 36   318.7    53.31    50.57    +   91
WARD 43   319.9    56.27    58.53    +  475
WARD 73   320.6    58.23    44.18    - 1032
WARD 71   322.2    53.93    47.58    -  307
WARD 74   322.8    55.02    46.19    -  339

As the above table shows, the 38 wards in which the number of registered voters per voting machine was the lowest enjoyed high voter turnout.  All but 3 of the 38 wards at the top of Damschroder’s list had a turnout above 50%, and 6 of the 38 wards at the top of the list had a turnout above 60%.  All 12 of the Bush wards are included in the top of the list.  The 26 Kerry wards in the top of the list are not his biggest strongholds.  In only 13 of the 26 wards did Kerry exceed his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote, which makes 13 of 38 wards altogether. However, these Kerry wards did enjoy a high voter turnout.  In 23 of the 26 wards, Kerry’s turnout exceeded that of his median precinct, 50.78%. Turnout exceeded 55% in 14 Kerry wards, and exceeded 60% in 3 Kerry wards.  Clearly, Kerry enjoyed a higher turnout where the polling places had enough voting machines.  What about the bottom of the list?

DISTRIBUTION OF VOTING MACHINES, BOTTOM OF THE LIST

Ward      Voters/  Percent  Kerry    Kerry
          Machine  Turnout  Percent  Margin

WARD 38   324.4    48.15    67.32    +  546
WARD 35   327.5    50.90    92.36    + 2104
WARD 17   330.6    48.67    93.12    + 2465
WARD 42   330.6    46.34    70.77    +  966
WARD 14   333.4    49.37    81.31    + 2068
WARD 13   338.6    44.91    93.36    + 1702
WARD 44   340.7    48.87    72.98    + 3212
WARD 18   342.4    55.15    76.84    + 2043
WARD 51   343.6    46.93    88.59    + 1857
WARD 61   345.6    49.28    62.35    +  594
WARD 68   347.3    44.61    75.43    +  950
WARD 04   348.6    37.69    91.75    + 1643
WARD 32   348.7    55.11    58.82    +  456
WARD 26   349.3    41.34    89.69    + 1692
WARD 33   350.1    52.64    69.19    + 1803
WARD 54   350.6    52.77    59.82    +  668
WARD 49   353.9    50.76    54.45    +  370
WARD 25   354.6    52.90    91.57    + 3872
WARD 24   356.9    48.99    68.47    +  991
WARD 37   356.9    44.37    58.99    +  441
WARD 02   357.1    52.56    69.94    + 1517
WARD 11   365.4    49.14    58.80    +  531
WARD 31   367.0    45.05    69.86    + 1000
WARD 29   369.2    45.65    61.09    +  417
WARD 16   369.5    44.61    75.98    + 1732
WARD 09   373.4    35.06    68.71    +  497
WARD 39   374.4    46.29    70.06    +  711
WARD 55   377.3    43.55    88.64    + 1644
WARD 59   381.2    48.32    54.16    +  288
WARD 08   381.8    41.52    68.99    +  974
WARD 40   381.8    42.41    78.15    + 1205
WARD 03   396.9    44.69    84.66    + 1728
WARD 41   400.5    40.22    65.95    + 1110
WARD 23   400.9    47.57    73.47    + 1252
WARD 01   407.1    44.37    68.50    +  744
WARD 12   423.9    41.81    86.47    + 1557

As the above table shows, the 36 wards in which the number of registered voters per voting machine was the highest suffered low voter turnout.  All but 8 of the 36 wards at the bottom of Damschroder’s list had a turnout below 50%, and 2 of the 36 wards at the bottom of the list had a turnout below 40%.  All 36 of the wards at the bottom of the list were won by Kerry, and they include most of his strongholds.  In 29 of the 36 wards, Kerry exceeded his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote.  However, these wards suffered a low voter turnout.  In only 7 of the 36 wards did Kerry’s turnout exceed that of his median precinct, 50.78%.  Turnout was below 45% in 14 of the 36 wards, and was below 40% in 2 Kerry wards. Clearly, Kerry suffered a lower turnout where the polling places did not have enough voting machines.

A similar pattern is evident when examining the data for individual precincts.  I have arranged the data in the same manner as above, precinct by precinct, according to the ratio of registered voters per voting machine.  The 61 precincts with the lowest ratio of registered voters per voting machine are shown below:

PRECINCTS WITH THE MOST VOTING MACHINES

Ward &    Voters/  Percent  Kerry    Kerry
Precinct  Machine  Turnout  Percent  Margin

60-G      166.0    65.06    40.99    -   56
22-H      176.3    63.52    49.23         0
63-I      180.0    53.52    52.10    +   14
28-G      185.7    57.99    76.34    +  170
69-G      190.0    53.16    48.33    -   10
63-E      192.3    62.05    43.75    -   41
52-H      192.7    52.08    70.76    +  133
70-C      199.5    63.73    50.47    +   12
67-K      212.7    64.58    42.16    -   61
65-G      213.8    61.57    40.15    -  153

46-F      215.7    65.84    39.71    -   85
30-C      216.7    66.00    50.95    +   10
65-D      219.3    65.65    44.08    -   50
33-H      221.7    52.48    78.03    +  195
72-D      228.0    67.21    38.30    -  136
46-I      228.2    64.68    54.96    +   76
69-D      228.6    64.48    47.81    -   29
28-E      229.0    69.98    88.23    +  488
21-E      231.0    68.57    58.93    +  142
19-D      232.0    66.55    58.87    +  142

64-D      235.3    58.50    47.33    -   20
46-A      235.7    61.53    48.85    -   10
71-A      236.3    67.14    42.19    -   69
10-E      238.6    67.73    36.63    -  211
56-C      239.3    63.51    74.67    +  224
57-D      240.0    67.33    43.50    -  102
19-G      241.0    68.36    58.66    +  117
21-F      242.0    66.63    57.98    +  105
57-H      242.3    63.82    50.22    +    6
15-B      242.5    62.47    54.62    +   68

34-E      242.7    63.32    59.04    +   90
60-F      242.8    64.37    37.18    -  155
10-H      244.0    64.07    49.46    -    2
66-F      244.3    66.85    46.42    -   32
57-K      245.0    68.42    46.31    -   75
18-D      246.7    67.97    71.49    +  217
72-A      247.0    64.68    40.13    -  122
18-E      247.3    62.89    75.84    +  308
65-H      247.3    50.27    54.86    +   40
48-D      247.5    56.67    83.70    +  380

14-D      249.7    56.88    79.48    +  252
19-C      250.0    72.00    59.55    +  139
70-E      250.0    51.11    65.83    +  167
46-B      250.8    58.13    51.94    +   27
60-D      251.5    63.62    45.02    -   61
45-I      251.6    52.31    56.31    +   85
64-H      252.8    54.70    52.28    +   26
48-E      253.0    58.50    62.33    +   78
73-E      253.1    60.78    49.67    -    1
06-E      254.0    50.49    94.43    +  453

70-D      255.3    66.41    50.30    +   11
66-D      255.6    55.79    48.52    -   18
69-C      255.8    54.50    36.10    -  186
42-C      256.0    61.98    57.14    +   74
46-L      256.0    66.54    57.84    +  162
10-P      256.5    65.30    35.33    -  190
47-F      257.7    50.84    76.96    +  211
45-H      259.8    60.59    44.03    -  183
19-B      261.0    70.11    60.80    +  164
52-B      261.5    62.43    62.21    +  159
69-I      261.5    68.36    37.80    -  169

As the table above shows, of the 61 precincts with the most voting machines per registered voter, 26 were won by Bush, 34 were won by Kerry, and one was a tie.  Again, Bush enjoys disproportional favoritism. Bush won 125 precincts and 26 of them (20.80%) are represented here.  Kerry won 346 precincts, only 34 (9.8%) are represented here, and they are not his major strongholds.  In only 12 of the 34 Kerry precincts did he exceed his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote, which makes 12 of 61 precincts altogether.  Most of these precincts enjoyed high voter turnout.  In all 61 precincts, turnout was above 50%.  In 42 of the 61 precincts, turnout was above that of Bush’s median precinct, 60.56%.  Of these 42 precincts, 22 were won by Bush, and 20 were won by Kerry.  This proves once and for all that the Kerry precincts could have enjoyed a voter turnout similar to that of the Bush precincts, if only they had been supplied with enough voting machines.

And what of the precincts with not enough voting machines?  The 60 precincts with the highest ratio of registered voters per voting machine are shown below:

PRECINCTS WITH THE FEWEST VOTING MACHINES

Ward &    Voters/  Percent  Kerry    Kerry
Precinct  Machine  Turnout  Percent  Margin

12-A      551.7    34.50    84.96    +  407
01-B      540.0    34.57    68.41    +  211
25-B      507.7    41.56    91.33    +  522
23-B      501.0    41.38    79.13    +  363
41-C      490.0    38.91    60.53    +  127
60-E      481.0    40.47    51.05    +   15
11-A      476.7    35.24    74.80    +  252
18-A      475.0    48.77    80.46    +  430
59-D      464.3    45.51    59.46    +  123
03-D      462.3    46.21    79.15    +  374

03-A      461.0    37.09    92.37    +  442
54-C      459.7    40.54    63.82    +  159
40-A      458.0    40.90    77.10    +  312
10-U      455.0    52.00    53.15    +   85
12-B      453.3    38.60    92.31    +  445
61-C      449.7    43.66    70.31    +  234
49-E      447.3    38.75    52.70    +   30
55-B      446.0    42.38    91.80    +  473
23-A      444.0    45.12    81.76    +  381
09-B      439.8    28.82    68.66    +  195

02-A      439.7    38.06    80.32    +  308
57-A      437.3    42.91    65.41    +  176
31-C      437.0    39.97    65.07    +  160
16-E      436.7    41.98    68.50    +  205
32-C      436.3    43.54    60.99    +  128
74-F      436.3    45.23    51.86    +   25
54-A      435.7    46.82    67.77    +  218
11-D      435.0    47.28    55.67    +   81
69-H      433.8    54.76    40.93    -  167
53-G      432.7    45.30    68.49    +  219

10-C      431.0    39.68    81.80    +  321
69-J      428.8    47.00    47.44    -   38
67-A      427.3    54.37    41.99    -  108
16-C      427.0    40.28    77.13    +  475
29-A      426.0    36.85    70.81    +  196
04-C      423.3    32.44    89.46    +  332
41-D      423.0    42.47    64.75    +  165
36-G      421.0    37.29    66.52    +  156
08-D      419.7    51.55    69.47    +  253
42-A      417.7    40.30    81.64    +  321

57-B      417.0    48.28    57.87    +   97
73-B      415.0    41.69    46.41    -   29
26-A      413.0    41.81    89.88    +  403
02-B      412.3    53.27    69.54    +  263
52-E      412.0    46.60    87.39    +  431
08-A      411.6    30.95    79.75    +  381
73-J      411.6    63.56    42.62    -  189
44-A      409.7    48.90    86.36    +  434
57-G      409.0    43.60    50.00    +    7
33-C      407.0    47.42    64.11    +  170

46-J      405.7    47.99    66.38    +  197
44-B      405.3    45.97    81.37    +  348
44-G      405.0    37.22    79.02    +  348
71-B      404.3    42.04    49.80    +    1
49-D      403.7    45.33    51.58    +   22
24-B      402.7    45.45    65.50    +  174
39-A      401.0    46.05    67.51    +  398
55-D      400.7    42.43    87.38    +  382
10-A      400.3    39.72    55.91    +   60
45-J      398.8    57.30    58.77    +  165

As the table above shows, of the 60 precincts with the fewest voting machines per registered voter, only 5 were won by Bush, and 55 were won by Kerry.  Again, Bush enjoys disproportional favoritism.  Bush won 125 precincts, and only 5 of them (4.00%) are represented here.  Kerry won 346 precincts, 55 (15.9%) are represented here, and they include his major strongholds.  In 41 of the 55 Kerry precincts, he exceeded his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote. None of these precincts enjoyed high voter turnout. In only 7 of the precincts was turnout was above 50%. Of these, 4 were won by Kerry, and 3 were won by Bush.  Turnout was below 45% in 34 precincts, below 40% in 16 precincts, below 35% in 5 precincts, and below 30% in one precinct.

It is important to understand what these numbers mean.  The polls in Ohio were open from 6:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M.  That is 13 hours, or 780 minutes.  If there are 400 registered voters per voting machine, and turnout is 60%, each voter has less than 3.5 minutes to vote, and that is assuming a steady stream of voters, with no rushes at certain hours.  It also assumes no challenges to voters at the polls.  If there are 550 registered voters per voting machine, and the turnout is 60%, each voter has 2.4 minutes.

All of this amounts to theft of votes.  It has been shown above that the Kerry precincts enjoyed a voter turnout similar to that of the Bush precincts when supplied with enough voting machines.

It is an easy matter to calculate, assuming the same vote percentages for each ward, how many more votes John Kerry would have gotten with a 60% voter turnout.  This is not an unreasonable number.  The median Bush precinct enjoyed a turnout of 60.56%. The turnout was 66.31% for Cincinnati, city wide.

I am aware that because the Franklin County Board of Elections did not purge its voter rolls, there are more registered voters than adults listed as living in Franklin County by the United States Census. There are many “registered” voters who are dead or have moved away.  One might expect, therefore, a lower percentage of voter turnout in Columbus than in Cincinnati.  However, 60% of the voting age population is a reasonable figure.  Presidential elections have surpassed this figure four times in my lifetime: 1952 (61.6%), 1960 (62.8%), 1964 (61.9%), and 1968 (60.9%).  In 1992 the figure was 55.9%, and the 2004 election was probably more hotly contested. PROJECTED COLUMBUS RETURNS WITH 60% TURNOUT

Ward or   Percent  Kerry   With 60%  Gain or
Precinct  Turnout  Margin  Turnout     Loss

WARD 01   44.37    +  744   + 1006   +  262
WARD 02   52.56    + 1517   + 1732   +  215
WARD 03   44.69    + 1728   + 2320   +  592
WARD 04   37.69    + 1643   + 2616   +  973
WARD 05   46.24    + 1854   + 2406   +  552
WARD 06   47.44    + 2494   + 3154   +  660
WARD 07   44.24    + 2332   + 3163   +  831
WARD 08   41.52    +  974   + 1408   +  434
WARD 09   35.06    +  497   +  851   +  354
WARD 10   57.18    -  560   -  588   -   28
WARD 11   49.14    +  531   +  648   +  117
WARD 12   41.81    + 1557   + 2234   +  677
WARD 13   44.91    + 1702   + 2274   +  572
WARD 14   49.37    + 2068   + 2513   +  445
WARD 15   51.88    +  291   +  337   +   46
WARD 16   44.61    + 1732   + 2330   +  598
WARD 17   48.67    + 2465   + 3039   +  574
WARD 18   55.15    + 2043   + 2223   +  180
WARD 19   67.99    + 1491
WARD 20   61.96    + 1077
WARD 21   57.92    +  719   +  745   +   26
WARD 22   60.21    +  465
WARD 23   47.57    + 1252   + 1579   +  327
WARD 24   48.99    +  991   + 1214   +  223
WARD 25   52.90    + 3872   + 4392   +  520
WARD 26   41.34    + 1692   + 2456   +  764
WARD 27   53.06    + 1283   + 1451   +  168
WARD 28   58.48    + 2371   + 2433   +   62
WARD 29   45.65    +  417   +  548   +  131
WARD 30   56.25    +  147   +  157   +   10
WARD 31   45.05    + 1000   + 1332   +  332
WARD 32   55.11    +  456   +  496   +   40
WARD 33   52.64    + 1803   + 2055   +  252
WARD 34   55.85    + 1051   + 1129   +   78
WARD 35   50.90    + 2104   + 2480   +  376
WARD 36   53.31    +   91   +  102   +   11
WARD 37   44.37    +  441   +  596   +  155
WARD 38   48.15    +  546   +  680   +  134
WARD 39   46.29    +  711   +  922   +  211
WARD 40   42.41    + 1205   + 1705   +  500
WARD 41   40.22    + 1110   + 1656   +  546
WARD 42   46.34    +  966   + 1251   +  285
WARD 43   56.27    +  475   +  506   +   31
WARD 44   48.87    + 3212   + 3944   +  732
WARD 45   57.89    + 1208   + 1252   +   44
WARD 46   58.22    +  981   + 1011   +   30
WARD 47   52.85    + 1534   + 1742   +  208
WARD 48   52.84    + 1909   + 2168   +  259
WARD 49   50.76    +  370   +  437   +   67
WARD 50   59.54    + 1447   + 1458   +   11
WARD 51   46.93    + 1857   + 2374   +  517
WARD 52   53.68    + 1610   + 1800   +  190
WARD 53   53.66    +  499   +  558   +   59
WARD 54   52.77    +  668   +  760   +   92
WARD 55   43.55    + 1644   + 2265   +  621
WARD 56   55.71    + 4065   + 4378   +  313
WARD 57   56.81    -  155   -  164   -    9
WARD 58   55.04    +   41   +   45   +    4
WARD 59   48.32    +  288   +  358   +   70
WARD 60   55.97    -  478   -  512   -   34
WARD 61   49.28    +  594   +  723   +  129
WARD 62   57.96    +  760   +  787   +   27
WARD 63   56.10    -  242   -  259   -   17
WARD 64   52.73    -  153   -  174   -   21
WARD 65   60.10    -  496
WARD 66   53.01    +  203   +  230   +   27
WARD 67   54.17    -  221   -  245   -   24
WARD 68   44.61    +  950   + 1278   +  328
WARD 69   57.97    - 1030   - 1066   -   36
WARD 70   61.17    +   79
WARD 71   53.93    -  307   -  342   -   35
WARD 72   62.33    -  774
WARD 73   58.23    - 1032   - 1063   -   31
WARD 74   55.02    -  339   -  370   -   31

GRAND TOTAL                          +16788

Thus I conclude that the withholding of voting machines from predominantly Democratic wards in the City of Columbus cost John Kerry upwards of 17,000 votes.  A more detailed calculation could be done on a precinct by precinct basis, but that is not necessary here.  The purpose is to illustrate the magnitude of the conspiracy.

Matt Damschroder did not act alone.  There are 74 wards and 472 precincts in Columbus, Ohio.  It is not possible for one person to have delivered all the voting machines, and it is unlikely that nobody else was involved in planning where to deliver them. Anyone who associated with Mr. Damschroder on or shortly before Election Day should be investigated for possible complicity.

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
4 Fisher Street
Canton, New York 13617

Wow:These Ohio Maps Show Supression...
by pronin2

Mon Nov 29th, 2004 at 22:13:02 PST

Hi
Got this today from the caseohio group. these two maps really help bring home visually of where the long lines were, gives percentages of blacks etc.. it correlates and possibly confirms that there was real voter supression. look at the heaviest blackprecincts. and who reported long lines? mostly all black precincts, maybe one bush pct.  I think this should go to the black caucus etc.. what do you think? If the party fails to act then its betrayl of the black vote. we cannot allow our african-american brothers and sisters to be treated in this. Im sending this to kerry, dean, and whoever else may be of use....

Here are a couple of charts showing how the distribution of voting problems
(machine problems and long lines) reported to voteprotect.org tends to
concentrate in black areas of Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties:

http://www.copperas.com/fcweb/fcprobs.gif

http://www.copperas.com/cuyahoga/cuyprobrace.gif

Certainly could help use visually back up our allegations of intimidation!

10 Ideas for 2008
by Pericles
Mon Nov 29th, 2004 at 19:24:45 PST

[Elevated from the Diaries - MB]

By the time a campaign starts, it's too late to put a completely new idea into the heads of a majority of the electorate -- especially a broad new theme or a major reframing of an issue voters think they already understand. At that stage, a candidate can do little more than agree or disagree with ideas that the public already knows. President Bush, for example, didn't invent the family-values theme or the strength-makes-you-safe theme or the tax-cuts-create-jobs theme. He just aligned himself with them; that's why his campaign seemed so simple.

So what ideas will liberal candidates be able to campaign on in 2008? The ones we start developing and promoting now. I have ten suggestions.

None of the ideas in my list is original, and in some sense that's the point: These ideas are already gestating somewhere in the community, but they need your help if they're going to become part of a majority platform. Some of them are floating freely in the zeitgeist, but I've tried to reference the ones that I stole from particular places.

The ten ideas fall into three groups. The first three ideas are defensive: The Right has been making some dubious claims that we need to start challenging. Ideas 4-6 reclaim major ideological assets that that we have let the Right own without a fight - Christianity, globalization, and capitalism. The final four ideas align the Democratic Party with democracy and the common good.

Fighting Back

We fought the 2004 campaign with one hand tied, because we let the Right get away with a few sweeping assumptions that just aren't true. Some of those assumptions are explicit and some are subliminal. We need to make them all explicit and deny them.

1. 9/11 didn't change everything. A few years ago we kept hearing that the Internet had changed everything. All the rules were different in the New Economy. You didn't have to sell products any more, and you could make money by giving away services for free. We know how that worked out. As big and important as the Internet has turned out to be, it didn't change everything. Nothing changes everything.

For three years now we've been letting the Right get away with ignoring common sense by saying "9/11 changed everything." Kerry was afraid to challenge this assertion in 2004 because he didn't want to appear to be soft on terrorism. We can't let that happen in 2008.

What didn't 9/11 change? Lots of things. The United States still needs allies. The Geneva Convention still makes sense. Imprisoning people without trials is still tyranny. Torture is still wrong. You still need to double-check your intelligence before you start shooting people. Stuff like that. If we take those issues one by one, and let the Right respond with "9/11 changed everything"-- we're going to lose.

2. Morality is not sex. Practice this line: "You keep saying 'morality' but really you're just talking about sex." Homosexuality, promiscuity, and obscenity are just sexual issues. Even abortion turns into a sexual issue if your real goal is punishing promiscuity rather than saving fetuses.

Sex barely scratches the surface of morality. If your moral code instructs you to bring honesty, integrity, and compassion into all your human relationships, it's not clear that you need any special rules about sex at all. When Jesus listed the admission standards for Christians to get into Heaven (Matthew 25), not one of them concerned sex. The key idea was "Who did you help?" not "Who did you sleep with?"

We shouldn't abandon the word morality to the neo-Puritans. Letting the working poor get priced out of the health care system is immoral. Trumping up bogus charges about WMD and terrorism in order to start a war is immoral. The way we treat prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is immoral. We can't be shy about using the language of morality. The Left is the true home of moral values, once you understand that morality is more than sex.

Al Sharpton, for one, gets this. On the November 28 Meet the Press he said:

Many of us have limited this argument to just sex-based arguments: gay marriage, abortion. ... I think that the broad issues of poverty, of disease, of health care -- those are moral issues, too. We're not entering into a values discussion broadly enough.

3. America can't rule the world. The community of nations needs a leader, not a ruler -- and America is the only viable candidate. At this point in history, the world spins its wheels if the US doesn't lead. (Global warming is a prime example.) But we get into trouble when we forget about leadership and try to rule.

After 9/11, when we announced the goal of making the world a less hospitable place for international terrorist organizations, other nations responded with overwhelming support and cooperation. But the world was horrified when we went on to set ourselves up as the ultimate judge of other nations, empowered to decide which governments shall and shall not survive. (Mugabe, pass. Saddam, fail. House of Saud, pass. Kim Jong Il, incomplete.)

As de facto world leader, America has a responsibility promote a vision of global progress. If we do our job well, if our vision really does benefit the world (and not just ourselves), then other nations will line up behind us and good things will happen. But if we try to rule, if we put forward a self-serving vision and strong-arm other countries into supporting it, then ultimately the world will unite against us just as it united against Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Reclaiming the Winners

The Republicans have become the party of Christianity, globalization, and capitalism -- three victorious historical forces. If we can't reclaim those forces for the Left, we lose. The question is how.

The move-to-the-right faction says that we should adopt some or all of the Republican positions, as Clinton adopted welfare reform. In other words, liberalism by its nature is anti-Christian, anti-globalization, and anti-capitalist, so we need to abandon it if we want to start winning elections again. Others take the John-Kerry's-hunting-trip approach: keep our liberal values, but change our imagery and rhetoric so that we look and sound more like Republicans. A southern good-old-boy, they claim, could have won in 2004 without changing any of Kerry's positions on abortion, gay rights, health care, environmental protection, and outsourcing.

Both strategies are short-term fixes to a long-term problem. We don't need to move either the Democratic Party or its rhetoric to the right. We need to move Christianity, globalization, and capitalism to the left. None of the three is conservative by its nature. We need to understand each of them deeply, so that we can present the public with authentically liberal Christianity, liberal capitalism, and liberal globalization.

Sound impossible? A century ago, the idea that conservatives could own Christianity sounded impossible. At the turn of the 20th century, the political face of Christianity was the Social Gospel: help the poor, heal the sick, lift up the working man. Conservatives were greedy Wall Street types, the kind of people that Jesus said would get into Heaven at about the same time that a camel walked through the eye of a needle. How did the conservatives turn that around? Well, they didn't move to the left, and they didn't fiddle with their image and rhetoric. They moved Christianity.

4. The Religious Right are Pharisees. Christianity belongs to us. During the 20th century, the Right took Christianity away from us. They recast the religion of Jesus to stand for aggressive militarism, closed-minded prejudice, and doing everything within your power to make the rich richer. (When did Jesus say, "Blessed are the war-makers" or "Screw Caesar; it's your money"?) By the time Pat Robertson ran for president in 1988, the conquest was complete. He could style himself as "the Christian candidate" without any significant objection.

It was the Pharisees' revenge. For those liberals who don't read the Bible -- that's part of the problem, by the way -- I'll explain. All through the gospels, Jesus is being heckled by the Pharisees, a group that promoted a strict interpretation of Mosaic Law. Again and again, Jesus sides with the spirit of the law against the Pharisees' loyalty to the letter of the law. (For what it's worth, the Pharisees look much more reasonable in Jewish versions of history, where they are not foils for someone else.) The law, Jesus argues, needs to be tempered by compassion and common sense. In the Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), for example, the priest and the Levite who cross to the other side of the road (rather than help the injured man) aren't just being jerks. They're obeying the letter of the law. They're maintaining their ritual purity by not coming into contact with blood or possibly a corpse. But the Good Samaritan ignores all that in favor of a higher law: Love your neighbor as yourself.

See where I'm headed? When Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and their ilk get going, you don't hear much about compassion and common sense; but you hear a lot about the letter of the law. As the bumper sticker puts it: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." That's the Pharisee position; it's not Christian. Jesus would have had no part of it. We need to point that out, again and again. Christianity belongs to us; we shouldn't surrender it to the Pharisees of the Right.

This will be easier than it sounds, because Christianity has never been as uniformly conservative as the media portrays it. A Soujourners community statement of faith, for example, contains numerous liberal statements like this one:

We believe in binding up the divisions that the world often creates, especially those based on race, class, gender, or culture. We are called to combat racism in all its forms and to build a more just and pluralistic society where diversity is respected, freedom is secured, and power is shared. We refuse to accept structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class. We are committed to resisting sexism in all its forms and affirming the integrity and equality of women and men both in the church and in the world.

When he's not talking about sex, the Pope is actually a flaming liberal. In Laborem exercens he writes:

Christian tradition has never upheld this right [to own property] as absolute and untouchable. On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone. [italics original]

Does reclaiming Christianity mean that the Left needs to throw out all the Jews and atheists? Of course not. It also doesn't mean that non-Christian liberals should give lip service to a religion they don't believe. But we need to recognize that Jesus is a cultural icon in this country, and he is on our side. When the Right claims that Jesus is on their side, we need to be able to argue convincingly that they are wrong. That means getting educated about the Bible and learning how to speak its language comfortably -- as Kerry could not. (Check out Forrester Church's God and Other Famous Liberals, John Shelby Spong's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, or John Buehrens' Understanding the Bible.) You don't have to be black to quote Martin Luther King, you don't have to be Hindu to quote Mahatma Gandhi, and you don't have to be Christian to quote Jesus.

5. Globalization belongs to us. Most liberals already know the destructive side of globalization: It has allowed multinational corporations to play governments off against each other, rewarding nations with the lowest wages, weakest environmental protections, and flimsiest standards of workers' rights. But despite its poetic, nostalgic appeal, Wendell Barry style localism is not going to win any national elections for us. We need to have our own vision of globalization.

In the 2004 primaries, several Democrats already did. The idea was called fair trade. Howard Dean put it this way in an interview with the Concord Monitor

Globalization is here to stay whether we like it or not, but the rules for globalization are not. Both NAFTA and the WTO help large multinational corporations but ignore the needs for the people who work for them. In order to make globalization work we also have to globalize worker protection, labor rights, environmental rights and human rights. Free trade won't work under the present circumstances.

The model for liberal globalization is the European Union. As it expands, the EU brings greater freedom and a higher quality of life to the poorer countries it absorbs. The EU pulls up the standards of countries like Poland and Hungary, rather than pulling down the standards of Germany and France. The World Trade Organization (or some new organization) could work the same way: It could be a club of civilized nations. In order to join the club and get favored access to its rich markets, you need to live up to civilized standards -- protect the environment, guarantee workers' rights, allow certain basic political freedoms, and so on.

Republicans have worked for decades to frame the alternative to globalization as "protectionism" (in which the government rewards inefficient but well-connected special interests by banning competing imports). Protectionism is corrupt by its very nature: political hacks and rich lobbyists (union and corporate alike) work hand-in-hand to keep you from buying cheaper, better products made overseas. Both the American consumer and deserving, hard-working foreign laborers are victimized. This framing has been so well established that Kerry did not dare to challenge it head-on. Though I dimly remember hearing the phrase "fair trade" once or twice, Kerry highlighted specific problems with conservative globalization (like outsourcing) without presenting a sweeping liberal alternative.

But we have an alternative. If Indonesians can make cheaper sneakers because their workers are happy with wages that Americans would refuse, then that's just capitalism and we have to live with it. But if Indonesian sneakers are cheaper because their factories are allowed to pollute, their workers can't organize, and their courts value workers' lives cheaply -- that's different. We need to make the public appreciate this difference, so that fair trade doesn't vanish in 2008 the way it did in 2004.

6. Capitalism belongs to us. This is a long-term project that probably won't be ready for 2008, but we need to keep working on it. The Right has become the party of capitalism, which by inference makes the Left the party of what? Communism? Socialism? Big government? Who wants to run on that?

But capitalism is just a technique for organizing production and consumption. It isn't inherently Left or Right any more than assembly lines or double-entry bookkeeping or shopping malls are. Today, capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of the few and distances both corporations and consumers from the destructive consequences of their decisions. But is that capitalism, or is it just right-wing capitalism? Could there be a left-wing capitalism that harnesses the efficiency of market forces to the values of liberal society?

William Greider says yes. He doesn't have it all worked out yet either, but in The Soul of Capitalism he points a finger in the right direction. Without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, we could encourage employee ownership, change the nature of corporate charters to make corporations more responsive to the public good, require (as Europe does) that manufacturers handle the disposal of their used-up products, create community investment funds that make capital available to good corporate citizens, and inject humanist values into the market system in many other ways. Greider still lacks an over-arching theory that pulls all this together, but his book is a welcome reminder that capitalism-as-we-see-it is not necessarily the last word in capitalism.

Another potential prophet of liberal capitalism is the South American economist Hernando de Soto. In The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, de Soto stakes out a position between free-market fundamentalists (who claim that under-developed countries can become rich by setting capital free) and anti-globalists (who see only the potential for multinational corporations to rape and pillage the Third World). He writes:

It makes no sense continuing to call for open economies without facing the fact that economic reforms underway open the doors only for small and globalized elites and leave out most of humanity. At present, capitalist globalization is concerned with interconnecting only the elites that live inside the bell jars. To lift the bell jars and do away with property apartheid will require going beyond the existing borders of both economics and law.

I am not a die-hard capitalist. I do not view capitalism as a credo. Much more important to me are freedom, compassion for the poor, respect for the social contract, and equal opportunity. But for the moment, to achieve those goals, capitalism is the only game in town. It is the only system we know that provides us with the tools required to create massive surplus value.

The curious phrase property apartheid in the above quote is key to de Soto's analysis. Capitalism doesn't lift up the poor in the Third World, he claims, because they can't get into the property-owning game. To fix this, he proposes liberalized rules for recognizing squatter's rights, sweat equity, and the various other extralegal property conventions that exist on the fringes of society. His notion of "the people's law" is quite radical: Property is a social convention that needs to come up from the people, not down from the government. Capitalism only starts to hum after the establishment of a property system with top-to-bottom legitimacy. (In the middle of all this economic and legal analysis is a wonderful bit of neglected history: How did the United States resolve all the conflicting claims of King's grants, purchases from the Indians, and homesteading in order to create the orderly property system that we enjoy today?)

Finally, capitalism does not mean corporatism. (According to Mussolini, fascism does.) Due to a mistake the Supreme Court made in 1886 - damn those activist judges! - corporations were declared "persons" and given the protection of the Bill of Rights. That's why it's so hard to get them under control. The First Amendment protects their political contributions, for example, while their right to privacy limits how much data the government can force them to reveal. (God help us if they ever start testing the limits of their right to bear arms.) Sadly, it will take a constitutional amendment to undo this, and we should get right on it. See Thom Hartmann's Unequal Protection for a summary of the issues (and even more fascinating neglected history).

Greider, de Soto, and Hartmann are not united behind any particular conclusions, but they share an attitude: Capitalism is not a given. Its workings were not established when God went back to work on the eighth day. If we look deeply into the roots of capitalism, we can understand it better than the conservatives do and find a way to make it our own.

The Party of Democracy

The Right may have mastered the art of winning elections, but it lacks a fundamental understanding and appreciation of democracy. A healthy democracy is not a herd of sheep that legitimizes its shepherd by taking a vote. In the long term, democracy requires an active, informed, responsible citizenry that participates in shaping and running its public institutions. Secrecy, propaganda, privatization, and the spreading of fear and distrust all work against democracy. The Left has objected to these developments one by one, but rarely pulls them together into the single issue they are: We support democracy; the Right undermines it.

7. Free citizens must have courage. There's a reason why The Star-Spangled Banner links "the land of the free" with "the home of the brave." Citizens without courage will give up a little more of their freedom every time they get scared. Today, Americans are afraid of terrorism, and so our freedom is slipping away.

In a free society, especially a free society with guns, there's no sure defense against terrorism. (The D. C. snipers showed how much panic two guys with a rifle and a beat-up car can cause.) Good police work helps, but if you're looking for an air-tight guarantee that you or your loved ones won't be victims of terrorism, you need to move to a police state. You may not be brave enough to live in the Land of the Free.

When George Bush says, "We're fighting them over there so that we don't have to fight them over here," his implicit message is that ordinary citizens don't have to be brave -- that's what we hire professional soldiers for. In the Right's vision, America only needs enough courageous citizens to staff the armed forces. The Romans went down this path: Originally they had citizen soldiers, then professional soldiers recruited from the citizenry, then non-citizen professional soldiers. Eventually, they had an army with no particular loyalty to the institutions of Rome. It didn't serve them well.

Somehow, we have let the Right make the topsy-turvy argument that civil libertarians are wimps. Real men, they imply, do whatever it takes to go get the terrorists. Actually, it's the Patriot Act that's wimpy -- a cowardly Congress surrendered our freedom at the first sign of danger. Hit us once, and we start locking people up without trials. Liberals need to turn the language of courage rightside-up. The TV-western heroes of my youth -- the Matt Dillons and the Ben Cartwrights -- had the courage to do things right when more fearful men wanted to cut corners. Heroes stand up to the lynch mobs; they don't lead them.

8. Protect the Commons. I steal this formulation from Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. That book is about copyright protection and the public domain, particularly as it affects the Internet. But in order to make sense of the apparently new problems that the Internet creates, Lessig had to back up and take an abstract look at public property and the public domain.

We all need to do that. Over the past few decades, the Right has taken the word common out of common political usage. We no longer talk about the common good, for example. Society, we are told, is not a real entity; it's just some kind of artificial construct, an abstraction with no definite meaning. As a result, most Americans have lost their sense of ownership of our common property and our public institutions. Public property doesn't belong to us, it belongs to nobody. The government isn't the steward of our common inheritance, it's some strange kind of usurper that keeps real people from owning property.

In the rhetoric of the Right, the government itself doesn't belong to us. (Except for the military. The troops are our troops, and it's patriotic to take pride in having the biggest, baddest team in the Military League.) The word government is used to distance the American people from their property and institutions. The Right talks about our troops, but government schools, government regulations, and government land. To feel the full force of that framing, try the experiment of reversing it: our schools, government troops.

The Left needs to resuscitate the notion of the common good, and even the notion that we form a commonality at all. Americans are united by more than just the fact that we root for the same military team. America, and the communities that make it up, are real entities. We own property, we create institutions, we select a government to represent us, and we protect ourselves with regulations. The air, the water, the parks, the broadcast spectrum, the intellectual property of the public domain -- they don't belong to nobody, they belong to us. They are the Commons. If you want a government that will take good care of all of your property, public as well as private, then you want a liberal government.

9. America is worth paying for. One of the many great examples in George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant! is the ingeniously evil phrase "tax relief." The phrase subliminally puts forward an entire constellation of dubious ideas: Taxes are a harsh burden. People who try to relieve you of that burden are good, and people who stand in the way of your relief are bad. The "relief" framing implicitly justifies doing whatever you need to do to get out of paying taxes: Under-report your income, construct elaborate legal facades, move your corporate headquarters to Bermuda -- whatever. It's an unfair burden; you need relief.

The Left needs a new frame for taxes. If the government is some strange Other, then taxes are a kind of theft. But if the government really belongs to us, then taxes just move our money from one account to another. From our personal accounts we can buy personal goods; from our common account we can buy common goods. If that notion sounds strange, think about stockholders and corporations. When a corporation retains its earnings for future investment rather than paying them out as dividends, the stockholders don't scream about theft. The corporation just owns that money for them; as long as it manages the money well, the stockholders are happy.

Taxes are your fair share of the expense of keeping the country going. And a good country is worth paying for. People who try to get out of paying taxes are denigrating our country. They're saying that America is not worth paying for. They are unpatriotic.

It's all the more appalling that the people who try hardest not to pay taxes are the ones who benefit most from living and doing business in America -- the rich and their big corporations. How many billionaires come from Bangladesh? How many people want to carry the Croatian Express card? A progressive tax system recognizes the obvious fact that the rich gain the most from America; they should pay the most to keep it going.

10. Democracy means trusting the people. Underneath the Right's positive, focus-group-tested phrases (like ownership society) is an ugly message of distrust: You have to own your own, because you can't trust anybody else's. You need to own your own retirement benefits, because you can't trust young people to fulfill the generational contract of Social Security. You need school vouchers, because you can't trust your community to provide a decent public school. You need a gun, because you can't trust the safety of your neighborhood. The legal system needs tort reform, because juries (made up of people like you) can't be trusted. The Constitution needs a long list of amendments, because you can't trust judges. The government can't be trusted to spend your taxes wisely, so you need to take that money back and spend it yourself. It goes without saying that international organizations like the UN or the International Criminal Court are not to be trusted; that's why we need to approach each international crisis de novo and establish a new coalition-of-the-willing.

The Right frequently raises trust as an issue, but they mean personal trust in the candidate. As in: "You can trust me, but you can't trust him." Put together, it is a bizarre and dangerous message: You can't trust your fellow citizens, you can't trust your public institutions, but you can trust your Leader. The Leader demands a lot of trust: Trust him to decide which nations we need to attack preemptively. Trust him to decide which American citizens are enemy combatants, so that they can be locked up without trials. Trust his administration with unprecedented powers of investigation and surveillance. Trust it to operate with unprecedented levels of secrecy.

How long can America survive as a democracy with this configuration of trust and distrust?

Democracy does not just mean elections and a constitution. Democracy is a structure of trusted public institutions through which the people shape their lives. The Right does not understand this. (That's why they consistently underestimate the difficulty of bringing democracy to other countries. We can give Iraq a constitution. We can oversee an election that chooses a government. But we can't make Sunni trust Shia.)

The Democrats need to be the party that promotes public trust -- open government, accountability to the people, support for public institutions. Public trust needs to be coupled with public responsibility. We should not be defensive about the failures of public institutions, but should turn the discussion to remedies that make the institutions better, not ones that eliminate public institutions in favor of private ones. Every problem with a public institution should be an opportunity to impose more openness, more accountability, more democracy.

The Right wants to reduce the people to consumers whose simple buy/don't-buy decisions are amalgamated by the Market to shape society. Consumers have no need to think about the common good or the long-term direction of the nation. They only have to decide what to buy next. The Left needs to inspire people to be citizens, not just consumers. We need to involve them in the processes of government, to have them look up from the purchasing decisions of today and consider the world they want to leave to future generations. Otherwise government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall perish from the Earth.

Don't wait for a candidate

My purpose is not only to encourage you to push and develop these ten ideas, but your own ideas as well. If there's something you're waiting to hear from a candidate, stop waiting and say it yourself. Tell your friends, write letters, start a web site, arrange classes at your local library -- do whatever you can to popularize the next set of liberal ideas. Maybe in four or eight or twelve years, the candidate on the Left can be the one who seems to have clear, simple, common-sense solutions -- because we've worked hard to make the sense of those solutions common.