http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/28/20200/060

bloggers and citizens
by kid oakland
Tue Dec 28th, 2004 at 17:20:00 PST

Reading ttagaris and blogswarms's diaries regarding the controversy over the Pelosi/Reid nod to Tim Roemer for DNC chair just made me angry at first...kind of like I suppose you all feel.

Which is also how Chris Bowers and Jerome Armstrong (who are doing an excellent job covering the ins and outs of this story at MyDD) feel....

But let me say something here, all Democratic party politics aside, all debate of the horserace pushed off the table, this just brings something home in a crystal clear manner:  

They don't even know who we are.

I remember thinking after Al Gore conceded the 2000 Presidential race..."hey, maybe Al will actually have time to come meet with some of us little people who fought for him as he gathers strength and reformulates for 2004." Needless to say....that vision of sitting at an environmentalist conference and looking at the folding chair next to mine and seeing the former Vice President on a "listening" campaign never materialized.  

In part, that's due to Al Gore being a busy man...ahem...and in part...that was due to Al Gore not realizing that...like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Tim Roemer, and, yes, John Kerry and John Edwards...he was bound to be an "old school" DC Democrat with no idea what the grassroots and the netroots are actually up to...so long as he stayed within his comfortable corridors of power.

They don't even know who we are, much less what we think and who we are fighting for.  

And worse, they are so caught up in their inside the beltway, high-stakes power games that even if we screamed our lungs out over here in our little corner of the universe....we'd still appear as this tiny fraction of the equation.  Be a dear and weight the pro-Dean, blog-driven dissent by any extra factor or two, would you, Harry....

We are bloggers and citizens, and our politics should no longer be about them....our politics should reflect who we are and who we fight for.  In fact, the question I have tonight is not who will be chair of the DNC, but, with all due respect, if all we're doing is shoring up a "business-as-usual party" why should I care?  

When I walk the streets and see my brothers and sisters..I know exactly who I'm fighting for.  When I hold a newborn in my arms and think of my own life half over, I know who I'm fighting for.  When I think of the rainbow of citizens every election day going to and from work at the West Oakland BART station, I realize how hollow the rhetoric coming from our Democratic leadership has been.  When I think of Paul Wellstone, and all that his political life stood for, what direction that life was pointed in, I know the answer to my question.

It's not simply that the heads of Democratic Congressional delegations have seen fit to nominate an anti-choice, "concede before we've begun to fight" on Social Security Democrat...it's that in doing so they've proven to me that they have nothing whatsoever to do with our lives.

And when I say our lives I don't mean some kind of cheesy media version of us netizens.  Anyone who did GOTV this fall knows who we are....we're the folks who give a shit...the ones with extra coffee cups rolling around in the back of our cars...the ones getting up in the early AM to bus to PA or NV or Ohio...the ones who show up...and there's something in each of our personal stories that makes us politically active, that makes us fight.  

And you can't really get much more taken for granted than we are.  It's as if the 500,000 strong march in protest of the Republican National Convention was made up of ghosts...a ghost march of families, the old and the young...of voices peacefully raised up against Bush and his war...marching through the center of our largest city as if we didn't exist.

We are bloggers and citizens.  We stand not just for ourselves, but for those we fight for.  For our ideals, and for a future that we are committed to building and sharing, by fits and starts....not always perfectly or in harmony...but with a core commitment that we share:  our generation will leave an impact on this nation and this world.

We aren't going anywhere.  And our job tonight is different than it was in 2004 in the lead up to the election.  We are reforming and fighting for our collective future.  We are gathering steam for our next move....we're putting the folding chairs in a circle.

If Nancy and Harry don't realize that.....it's time to get a couple userid's and join the conversation.  That conversation will go on with or without them....but that conversation will not be about them.  

Time is short, and we've just begun to fight.

Where's Bush on this?

How's Bush's War on Terror goin'?

It is true that Roemer will have zero credibility in the upcoming Social Security battle because he has already voted to privatize Social Securty. And yes, it is also true that the religious zealots are salivating over his anti-woman, pro-alley stance against choice. The only feather in his hat is that some believe his position on the 9/11 Commission will help Democrats on national security. Which is an interesting angle until you consider that the 9/11 Commission debunked the Al Queda/Saddam link and four months later 63% believed the link existed. So yes, he has national security credentials, but nobody listened to him and his ineffective communication may have cost us the election.

However, the greatest problem with Roemer is that he won't be able to unite Democrats around the DNC. If Roemer is elected it appears that there will be a mass exodus of volunteer and financial support. In the post-modern marketplace of progressive action, Roemer would be unable to compete with Howard Dean's Democracy for America or Simon Rosenberg's New Democrat Network. Don't believe me, see what others are saying.

MyDD has almost hit the 5 million reader milestone. Here is whay Chris Bower's says he'll do with his MyDD soapbox should Roemer be elected Chair:

Colleen:

I assure you that anti-choice on abortion
is indeed a deal breaker for about 20% of the dem electorate. And these aren't people whose reaction will be anything simple like not voting for democrats and refusing to donate money. We will do serious damage. Imagine the reaction of the African-American community if the dems completely rolled on reinstating Jim Crow laws and then amplify that.

LISoundView:

The largest party in the country is actually the group of people registered as Independents. If the Democrats appoint Roehmer, I will become one of them.
And if Pelosi or Reid asks me for any money or time or even my vote the answer is, NO.

cscs:

Perfect!
Roehmer becomes Chair, which sounds like we'll be going down the all-too-familiar road of LOSING once again.
[...]
I'm so sick of Republican-lite.
Pro-life AND pro-privatization? Why don't we just put fucking Tom DeLay in as DNC chair???
If Roehmer is in as Chair, I'm out.

MimiKatz:

I gave thousands in this last election but not one dime for the DNC or his type of candidates if Roemer is the chair.

Boring Dem:

If Roemer is chosen as DNC chair, I will never donate to a democrat or to the party again, nor will I ever vote for one again. I'd say my politics are moderate left of center, but they don't include appeasement, and they aren't defined by sure-fire losing policies. This party has a chance to make something good happen now, but it also has a chance to become completely irrelevant. The choice is theirs---those few people at the top who don't listen to little folks like me. I'm not optimistic.

David in Burbank:

Why would anyone vote for a fake republican when they could vote for a real one?
How is a policy of being more like your opponent going to win us national elections?
If the Demoicrats in DC shove this kind of approach down our throats again, I will really be pissed.

wph:

If Roemer is selected for DNC Chair this will absolutely kill my motivation. Watching Dean crash and burn seeing Bush get back in was heartbreaking to say the least. My only hope now is to get a "reform" chair so we have a realistic chance of winning things back. If they not only go for status quo but veer right to "appease" so called moderates I will lose all faith that the Dems seriously want to win election.

MJB:

Sorry Roemer, no DINOs
If Roemer or any other DINO becomes DNC chair, then it will be time for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to become its own party.

Anderson Republican:

I thought Democrats wanted.....
....to be different from Republicans.
This guy's about as different as a Nestle bar to a Hershey.
God, they really need to get over the fact that the grass roots thinks they're full of shit, swallow their pride, and take either Dean or Rosenberg.

Lestatdelc:

Fuck Roemer with his pants on
[...]
Fuck Roemer and fuck him right now.
This man is a fucking ignoramus and menace to the party and what we rightly stand for.

Alumbrados:

If Roehmer is chair...
...I'm done with the DNC. Not a single dollar will go to them. Until they decide to start representing Democrats, they will not be able to rely on me and I will let me friends know they shouldn't support them as well.
Support is a two way street.
If the Democratic Party isn't going to listen to me, I'm not going to listen to them. They have a choice to make. Represent the people of the Democratic Party, or continue to play CYA with their choices. If they decide to go with people like Roehmer, than I will abstain when requested to vote. If the Democrats can't differentiate themselves from the Republicans on the issues that matter to me the most, than there simply isn't any reason to vote for them at all.

fishwars:

Anti-abortion is a deal breaker for me
I'm seriously considering registering in the Green Party if this trend continues in the Democratic party.

Frederick Clarkson:

The DP will lose alot of people if theu feel sold out on abortion and/or social security. This would be a great big Christmas presdent to Ralph Nader, and probably save the Green party from oblivion.

hardleft:

If the democratic party is dragged further to the right, it will split. It will no longer be able to claim to be the voice of the working families.
It will be the party of the Hollywood agenda and Wall Street. I and most progressives will be gone.

Boring Dem:

We are totally fucked
There's no point even paying attention now.
The fact that Pelosi and Reid, the two biggest leaders in our party, are looking for another anti-abortion candidate, and one who favor SS privatization to boot, shows that Neville Chamberlain's ghost still haunts our party.
I am SOOO discouraged. There really isn't any reason to vote for Democrats any more, or give the party one cent.

Since the soft money ban (which Roemer opposed), political parties have come to rely on small donations from the very people who are making these comments. As the DNC website reminds us:

Really, can we afford it?

DailyKos - Tim Roemer 
MyDD - Tim Roemer
CfA - Tim Roemer

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230006

MISINFORMER OF THE YEAR

Since our launch in May 2004, Media Matters for America has monitored, analyzed, and corrected conservative misinformation in the news media 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our staff recently reviewed the misinformation we've identified and corrected during those eight months in order to choose our first annual "Misinformer of the Year."

Of all the news anchors, columnists, pundits, and reporters whose work we've critiqued and corrected, one stands above all the rest. We're pleased to announce that with at least 75 (we stopped counting) lies, distortions, and mischaracterizations, television host, columnist, radio host, former Inside Edition anchor, man of the people, and Harvard University graduate Bill O'Reilly can now claim the title: 2004 Misinformer of the Year. We've compiled a list of some of his most egregious false and misleading claims of 2004 for your reading pleasure. We've left out comments that were merely offensive, but you can see where he ranks on our list of the Top Ten Most Outrageous Comments of 2004 here.

Without further ado:

1. O'Reilly falsely claimed Bush didn't oppose 9-11 Commission. O'Reilly defended President George W. Bush from a Kerry-Edwards '04 TV ad highlighting Bush's opposition to creation of the 9-11 Commission by denying that Bush had ever opposed the commission. In fact, Bush did oppose the creation of the 9-11 Commission. (10/21/04)
2. O'Reilly falsely claimed Iraq had ricin. O'Reilly responded to a caller to his radio show by defending the Iraq war: "They did have ricin up there in the north -- so why are you discounting that so much?" In fact, the Duelfer report (the final report of the Iraqi Survey Group, led by Charles A. Duelfer, which conducted the search for weapons in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion) indicates that Iraq did not have ricin. (10/19/04)
3. O'Reilly repeated discredited claims on Iraq-Al Qaeda link. O'Reilly interrupted a former Clinton administration official who tried to correct the record on O'Reilly's claim that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi constitutes a direct link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He also allowed a conservative guest to repeat without challenge other discredited claims about Iraq's supposed involvement in terrorism -- claims O'Reilly has himself cited in the past. (9/27/04)
4. O'Reilly fabricated "Paris Business Review" as source for success of French boycott. O'Reilly falsely claimed "they've lost billions of dollars in France according to 'The Paris Business Review'" due to an American boycott he advocated of French imports. Media Matters for America found no evidence of a publication named "The Paris Business Review." (4/27/04)
5. O'Reilly cited phony stats to argue that taxes on rich are excessive. O'Reilly tried to "blow off" the argument that wealthy Americans ought to pay more taxes by citing phony statistics about the tax burden the rich currently bear. (6/30/04)
6. O'Reilly confused on elementary economics. O'Reilly told a caller on his radio show, "We [the United States] have a trade deficit with everybody, because everybody wants our stuff, and we're not wild about snails" -- indicating that he doesn't know the definition of "trade deficit" and implying that the United States runs a trade surplus with France. In fact, in the first four months of 2004, the United States had a $3 billion trade deficit with France. (6/10/04)
7. O'Reilly doctored quotation to suggest Soros wished his own father dead. During his smear campaign against progressive financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros, O'Reilly doctored a 1995 quotation by Soros to make it seem as if Soros wished his own father dead. (6/1/04)
8. O'Reilly questioned if Kennedy would show up to Democratic convention ... as Kennedy spoke behind him. O'Reilly teased an upcoming segment of The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast live from the Democratic National Convention, by saying of convention speaker Senator Edward Kennedy: "When we come back, we'll let you listen to Ted Kennedy for a while, if he shows up." In fact, Kennedy had already shown up and had been speaking for several minutes, as O'Reilly need only have turned around to see. (7/27/04)
9. O'Reilly disparaged Democrats with trifecta of voter falsehoods. In a discussion about what went wrong for Democrats in the November 2 election, O'Reilly claimed that Democrats "lost votes from four years ago"; that "18- to 24[-year-old]s didn't go" to the polls; and that "[c]ommitted Republicans didn't carry the day for the president; independents did." All three claims are false. (11/4/04)
10. O'Reilly on the radio: Three lies, one broadcast. Lie No. 1: Bush tax cuts didn't create the budget deficit. Lie No. 2: "Socialistic" French, Germans, and Canadian governments tax at 80 percent. Lie No. 3: Canadian, British, and French media are "government-controlled," but Italian media is free. (7/7/04)

Posted to the web on Thursday December 23, 2004 at 1:11 PM EST

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412220006

"Somewhere Jesus is weeping" over attacks on Bill O'Reilly

FOX News host Bill O'Reilly declared that "[s]omewhere Jesus is weeping" over criticism of O'Reilly in the print media. O'Reilly issued this lament at the end of his December 20 "Talking Points Memo" segment -- a monologue he devoted entirely to responding to criticisms of him by various op-ed columnists -- on The O'Reilly Factor.

During the segment, O'Reilly falsely claimed that a New York Times article on various controversies surrounding Christmas "blames the dreaded conservatives for causing all the ruckus." He claimed that his critics have launched personal attacks on him because "[i]f these smear merchants can diminish me personally, they don't have to deal with the argument." But far from avoiding the substantive "argument" in favor of attacking O'Reilly, all of the articles O'Reilly cited mentioned him only in passing in the course of addressing various controversies surrounding some holiday celebrations.

O'Reilly began the "Memo" segment by declaring: "Tonight, the media forces of darkness counterattack and go after the defenders of Christmas." But O'Reilly himself is the only "defender" he named in the segment, though he noted that "The FOX News Channel and its commentators stand in the way of the secular agenda."

O'Reilly then claimed that New York Times reporter Kate Zernike "uses the Times' playbook and blames the dreaded conservatives for causing all the ruckus." In fact, Zernike's December 19 article noted that "even many liberals say there is silliness in the way schools in particular try to avoid offending anyone" and that beyond the ever-present conflict between "the A.C.L.U. [American Civil Liberties Union] in one corner and evangelicals in the other ... [t]here is also a more moderate force, asking whether the country has gone too far in its quest to be inclusive of all faiths." O'Reilly insisted that "Ms. Zernike's analysis of my column ... is misleading in the extreme and she knows it," but did not explain how. In fact, Zernike never claimed to offer an "analysis" of O'Reilly's December 13 syndicated column on the subject. Rather, Zernike mentioned O'Reilly in just one sentence of her 1,300-word article, quoting a single phrase from O'Reilly's December 7 "Talking Points Memo" and accurately noting that O'Reilly had linked alleged "anti-Christian stuff" to gay marriage, "partial birth abortion," and legalized drugs.

In the December 20 segment, O'Reilly also cited two other columnists who he claimed personally attacked him to avoid discussing the substance of "Christmas Under Siege": Tim Rutten in the December 18 Los Angeles Times and Joanne Ostrow in the December 19 Denver Post. But these, too, mentioned O'Reilly only in passing in their discussions of the purported attacks on Christmas.

Directly following the segment, O'Reilly asked his first guest: "All right, where am I going wrong here? All these people hate me. ... And all I'm doing is sticking up for is the baby Jesus. So what's the deal?"

On the nationally syndicated Radio Factor earlier that day, O'Reilly went further in casting himself as a solitary, heroic voice: "So, they ["secular forces"], this weekend, have lashed back in a very brutal way against me because I'm the leading general of the anti-secular forces in this country right now. Unfortunately -- I never wanted the mantle. But I have to do it because they're wrong and they're gonna hurt America."

O'Reilly referred to more newspaper columnists whom he claimed attacked him -- Frank Rich of The New York Times, Laura Billings of the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, and Howard Goodman of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, in columns published December 19. Rich's 1,700-word column devoted one sentence to accurately quoting O'Reilly and mentioned his name in passing one other time. Billings's 900-word column devoted even less attention to O'Reilly -- two passing references. Goodman devoted several paragraphs to O'Reilly, accurately quoting his remark on December 3 to a Jewish caller concerned about Christian proselytizing in schools that "if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel" as well as other comments documented by Media Matters for America. Despite his relatively minor roles in the various columns that mention him, O'Reilly declared that he was the columnists' raison d'être. "They wanna hurt me -- they're in business to hurt me," he said.

Yet, despite weeks of coverage of "Christmas Under Siege," O'Reilly never mentioned that News Corporation, which owns FOX News Channel, held an inclusively titled "Caribbean Holiday Celebration." The word "Christmas" is conspicuously absent from the invitation.

— G.W.

Posted to the web on Wednesday December 22, 2004 at 4:04 PM EST

1.  Recount Update

Ohio has been recounting its votes by taking 3% of the ballots in each county, hand count, and if the number doesn't match the previous totals, they conduct a hand recount of all the entire county.

There has been some controversy as to how that 3% is to be counted.  They are supposed to take all the votes in the county, and see how much 3% is.  Then they are supposed to randomly select a precinct or precincts that add up to that number.

The results of the recount, with almost all the counties in, is a net gain of Kerry of a couple hundred votes.

Pfff.  

Ah, but there is more, so much more....

2.  Recount Thwarted

A quick point about the "Random" selection of precincts mentioned above.  Read here and here about how "random" some of the precinct selection were.

Moving on.  Ohio law requires that if the voting machine recount doesn't match the hand recount, you have to recount the whole county.

But who needs to go through that legally-required formality?  If the hand count doesn't match, just change the machine:

Rewrite Ohio election law, eh? Well, it looks pretty black and white to me:

I don't see anything in there saying "If the tabulator count doesn't match the hand count, order a new machine."

This is not an isolated incident. When the machine count didn't match the hand recount, counties just changed the machines, instead of following through with a complete hand recount of the county.

Why?  Well, because the machines are always right.  At least that's what Mr. Barbian, employee of Triad (the vote tabulating company) thinks: "The machine is always right."

3.  About those machines....

I won't take up the space here, but if you want to convince your family that there is something seriously wrong with US elections, print out 20 Amazing facts About Elections in the U.S.

In Ohio, we have not only Diebold to deal with, but Triad, a vote tabulating company.  Read wanderindiana's dairy on the Triad family trifecta here.  Here is a map of Triad's influence on Ohio elections:

How much do we trust Triad?  Let me count the ways...

• Triad had remote access to the voting machines during the elections.
  
•  Triad left unofficial vote totals on PUBLIC SERVERS.
  
• Triad is alleged to have came into Hocking County, put a "patch " on a voting tabulator, and instruct the workers on how to put up a "cheat sheat" to ensure that the hand count matches the machine count.
  
• Triad is caught on tape admitting to the same.

• Its President, Walden Dell, stated in a GOP fundraising letter he was committed to "delivering Ohio's electoral votes to the President."  
  
• Not too close for comfort yet?  How about the fact that Walden Dell is a member of President Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers,'' an elite group of loyalists who have raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race? "I am one, and proud of it," Dell has proclaimed.
  
• Diebold was sued by the State of California for election fraud, it lied to public officials, and had to pay out $2.6 million to the state.
  
• Diebold techs "reprogammed" the voting machines during the Ohio recount.

4.  About the guy ordering the machines...

Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has been referred to as the 'Katherine Harris' of the 2004 election.  He was Chair of the Bush-Chenery 2004 Campaign in Ohio.  Not at all a conflict of interest, right?

Let's take a closer look at Mr. Blackwell:

* His office maintained secret slush funds:

• It took him six weeks to certify the Ohio votes, which was necessary for the recount to begin.  Six weeks.  To put that into perspective, within the same time frame, Washinton state certified its vote, completed a state-wide recount, and started a second one.
  
• While the Green party was inspecting voting information from minority precincts, Blackwell issued a suprise order, calling for a "lockdown" on any and all materials related to the election, claiming they were not "public records" yet. According to Ohio law, these should have remained public:

• Following in the footsteps of Bush, Cheney, and Rice, Blackwell has developed an allergic reaction to making statements under oath.  He has labelled requests to have him testify under oath as "harassment."
  
• Several Ohio senators have been calling on Blackwell to resign.
  
• Right before the election, Blackwell was blasted by U.S. District Judge James G. Carr in Toledo, who suggested that Blackwell risked denying large numbers of Ohioans the right to vote on Nov. 2 and "apparently seeks to accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000." The judge also conluded : "I cannot be confident . . . that Blackwell will, indeed, fulfill his obligation to this court, Ohio's election officials, and Ohio's voters," the judge wrote."

Arnebeck's lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice on a technicality; he filed two election contests (the presidential election and the election for Supreme Court justice) in the same complaint.  So the complaint was split up, and Arnebeck refiled the presidential election objection.  Deposition requestes were also sent to Blackwell, Bush, Rove, & Co.  

Chief Justice Moyers denied the Green's motion to expedite and impound evidence, finding that "the interests of justice do not warrant consideration of contestors' motion prior to expiration of time for contestees to appear in opposition."  Next, he asked that Arnebeck explain to him why the issue isn't moot, since the electors are already approved for Bush, and since (since he denied the motion to expedite, I might add), all of this won't be completed by January 6th, when Congress approves the electors.

If you every wanted a brilliant lawyer, now is when you need them the most.  Arnebeck has just a few days to file his brief as to why the case should not be thrown out alltogether. Read a lawyer's interpretation of what Arnebeck is up against over at DU.

Up against the clock, it seems that Blackwell's delay six week delay in certifying the vote may have worked...although Arnebeck does have a strong argument in his interpretation of the law.

Kerryites around the nation rejoiced yesterday as Kerry announced he will be filing a motion to expedite in Federal District Court.  Previously, Kerry just wrote letters, and more letters. Filing of the motion was delayed until today or possibly Monday due to inclement weather in Ohio (courthouse was closed...does Blackwell control the weather? hmmm).

6.  Must Reads

• Ohio electoral fight becomes 'biggest deal since Selma' as GOP stonewalls
  
• NYT: Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhall
• Must see:  videos of voter suppression and the Fritakis article on suppression here.

• It's the holidays!  Relax.  Open up gifts and pretend you like them.
  
• Remember that Democracy doesn't take a day off.  Between basting the ham and icing the cookies, take 5 minutes and watch this slideshow on the elections.  Forward it to all your friends.  
  
• Use this nifty site to find your elected officials, or perhaps some Ohio officials, and shot them email, telling them Happy Holidays and all you want for Christmas is a paper trail.

The race for DNC Chair - Understanding the evolving role of the DNC itself 

A critical first step in deciding who we want as our next chair is to first figure out what the job is, and what it requires. An article in this week's Economist, excerpted below, does an excellent job at describing how the Republicans now view the job and why they have chosen a 38-year-old strategist as their next chair.

As NDN has been discussing for the past several years, the modern Republican political machine has redefined politics as we know it. Years of investing billions of dollars in their infrastructure have created a vast and complex web of multimillion dollar operations which include think tanks, for-profit media outlets like Fox News, traditional political advocacy groups and, in recent years, a very healthy and strategic set of national, state and local party organizations.

The Republicans understand the division of labor required to run such a political empire, and have a diversified set of leaders to build and manage their affairs - spokesmen like Bush, Colin Powell, Bill Frist, Rudy Giuliani, and Arnold Schwarzenegger; strategists like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist; managers like Roger Ailes, Ed Gillespie and Ken Mehlman; intellectuals like those at Heritage, Cato and the dozens of other local and state think tanks; propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge; and investors like the Coors and Scaife families.

They run their politics like a business. They have strategic plans, targeted outcomes, measures to gauge progress and accountability. As Democrats, we must come to terms with what they have built and how they run their affairs, for today they have a much better system that yields much better results than ours.

Finding someone who can take on Bush on TV is not the biggest or most important part of the job of chairing the DNC. Terry McAulifffe has repeatedly said as much, and the Republicans have clearly recognized this in their recent choices for chair of the RNC. We already have dozens of national leaders well-equipped to take on the GOP each day. They are named Clinton, Kerry, Edwards, Richardson, Gore, Dean, Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Hoyer, Bayh, Lieberman, Vilsack, Landrieu, Menendez, Graham, Salazar, Ford Jr., Nelson, Lincoln, Durbin, Stabenow, Granholm, Rendell, Warner, Biden, Holbrooke, Harman, Spitzer and Emanuel. We could all add more.

What we need at the head of the DNC is someone who can take on Rove, Reed, Norquist and Mehlman. Someone who understands how to defeat the modern Republican machine at its own high-level strategic game; someone who understands the demographic, attitudinal and socio-economic complexities of the coming America; someone who is deeply rooted in the emerging new media world of databases, digital media, satellite and cable television; someone who understands the internet and modern community-building techniques; someone who can speak for the mainstream of the party and connect with its increasingly youthful activist base; someone who has successfully raised money and worked in all regions of this diverse country; and someone who has a proven track record at running a business or political organization.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that the DNC has become a business that could raise as much as $1 billion in the next four years. The day-to-day job of DNC chair requires running the largest and most important political organization that Democrats have in a time when Republicans have vastly improved their political machine, and are using their party institutions in ways we must emulate in the years to come. First and foremost, this job is to be the head of an organization that is the primary vehicle for millions of partisan Democrats to organize and defeat Republicans each day.

Our greatest risk in the chair’s race is selecting someone who may do fine on TV but who cannot turn our $1 billion machine into something that takes on the modern Republican Party at its own game. Our greatest opportunity is getting a strong team in the DNC led by a new chair who can expand on McAuliffe's groundbreaking reforms, build a 21st century Party and start the Democrats back on the winning path again.

We face a simple choice in the race for chair: do we keep doing what we are doing and lose, or do we choose a new direction, a modern path, that can meet the challenges of the 21st century and defeat the new Republicans at their very own game? Friends, this is an extraordinarily important choice we face, and one could have dramatic consequences on our fate as a Party. I hope we will demonstrate courage and choose wisely, but first we must understand clearly what the choice actually is.

---

The Economist
December 16, 2004

"The organisation man"

The Republicans have already taken an important step towards keeping the White House in 2008

THIRTY years ago, political commentators from David Broder down were all busy writing their obituaries of America's political parties. Today the parties are arguably more important than they have been for a century. Partisanship is on the rise; ticket-splitting is on the decline; legislative compromise is a dying art. Politically active Americans are increasingly divided into two well-organised warring tribes, liberals and conservatives, who disagree about the most fundamental issues of life.

An age of political parties is also an age of party mechanics. Races are won not just by charismatic drivers, but by the toilers who spend their lives fine-tuning the political engines. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which help to raise money, support candidates and co-ordinate campaigns, can make all the difference in contests that often depend on mobilising loyalists rather than persuading swing voters.

The Republicans clearly won the organisation war this November. The Democrats didn't do badly: John Kerry's popular vote was 12% more than Al Gore's. But the Republicans did better: George Bush's popular vote jumped by a fifth. In the past fortnight both Terry McAuliffe, the outgoing chairman of the DNC, and Howard Dean, the darling of the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party”, have gone out of their way to praise the Republicans. “We ran the best grass-roots campaign that I've seen in my lifetime,” said Mr Dean. “They ran a better one.”

The Republicans are now consolidating this organisational advantage. While the Democrats face a civil war over who should succeed Mr McAuliffe at the DNC, with eight candidates (including Mr Dean) sparring for the job, the Republicans have already settled on their man for the RNC.

A mere 38 years old, Ken Mehlman does not fit many stereotypes. He isn't a Washington veteran like the current chairman, Ed Gillespie (who retires in January to return to his lobbying firm). He isn't a “character” like the smooth-as-molasses Haley Barbour. He isn't a nationally known figure like George Bush senior. He comes across as a classic company man—the whippersnapper CEO of a data-management company in Plano, Texas, perhaps—rather than a back-slapping pol. But it is impossible to find anybody in political circles, Democratic as well as Republican, who doesn't think that he's the ideal man for the job.

Karl Rove may have been the architect of Mr Bush's victory—the man with the grand strategic visions and the sweeping sense of history. But Mr Mehlman was the mechanic who translated those strategic visions into reality. His main assets are an extraordinary command of detail (his colleagues dubbed him “Rain Man” because he can reel off election statistics much as Dustin Hoffman, in the film, could calculate at a glance the number of toothpicks spilt from a box) and the iron discipline necessary to keep Mr Bush's unruly army together.

In the last election, the Democrats seemed to take the more modern managerial approach: they contracted out much of the grunt work of politics to outside “527” organisations and made extensive use of paid canvassers to register and turn out voters. Trade unions paid 5,000 people to work full-time on the election, for example. By contrast, Mr Mehlman slowly built up a volunteer army of 1.4m loyal Republicans.

The volunteers made much better salespeople than the Democrats' paid hacks. (“Who do you find more believable?” asks Mr Mehlman. “A paid worker from outside or a friend and neighbour?”) They also operated under the political radar; the Democrats systematically underestimated the Republican effort. And they allowed Mr Bush's campaign dollars to stretch much further: in Ohio, the Bush-Cheney campaign had only a couple of hundred paid staff but 80,000 volunteers.

Yet this volunteer army also required an inordinate amount of management. Mr Mehlman dug up Republicans in the corners of America that campaign managers often overlooked—especially the new exurbs. He used all sorts of business metrics: marketing data to find potential supporters, performance measures to make sure they were doing their job and rewards to keep them motivated (successful volunteers were invited to Mr Bush's rallies, for example). He bristles at the idea that Democrats like Mr Dean won the internet wars. The Democrats used the internet primarily for fundraising, he says. The Republicans used it for organising, with 7.5m e-activists.

All revved up and somewhere to go

Mr Mehlman faces two obvious challenges. First, the Democrats are already learning from their opponents. Mr McAuliffe, for instance, waxes lyrical about the Republicans' use of targeted advertising. Second, it is notoriously hard to keep up the enthusiasm of volunteer armies: look at the way the Christian Coalition has faded to a shadow of its former self. Mr Mehlman argues that the best way to keep volunteers motivated is to keep delivering the legislative goods to Bush voters. But it is easy for a second-term president's legislative agenda to stall.

Even allowing for these problems, though, it is plain that Mr Mehlman's Ferrari is in far better nick than his opponents' Lada. The Democrats, after all, are still only talking about how to catch up, not actually doing so. And Mr Mehlman is already laying plans for the next round of elections.

Moreover, the political terrain still looks better for the Republicans. Mr McAuliffe's successor will have to concentrate on shoring up his party's defences: hanging on to core Democratic constituencies such as blacks and Latinos. The Republicans are flourishing in almost all the fastest-growing bits of the country. If the biggest challenge in American politics is reinventing parties for the age of the internet and the exurb, then the Republicans are streets ahead of the opposition.

the idea is to post a diary laying out the most comprehensive case possible for there having been fraud in Ohio.  If the case made is at least as convincing as the case that Bush was AWOL from TANG, then Armando will do a front-page post on Ohio fraud.

Second, I hoped that my previous diaries on this topic would generate lots of fact-filled comments, and serve as a collection-point for the evidence that people think is most persuasive and/or most provable. Didn't happen, oh well.

So I've written up some of the facts I believe are supported by evidence AND persuasive of fraud. It's long, but I hope it's worthwhile. Read on!

Trumbull County

The county's website doesn't provide precinct-level or poll/absentee/prov breakouts, so I've been unable to independently verify Dr Lange's information. He did testify under oath to one of Cong. Conyers' hearings.

Dr. Werner Lange's report, dated Dec 12, 2004:

"All absentee voters must be identified as such by name and residence in the precinct poll books of the precinct in which they are registered. Over 100 precinct poll books in Trumbull County were checked for absentee voters and that number of actual absentee voters was compared to the certified number of absentee votes. There was an inflated difference in nearly every precinct of the five communities examined. The five communities whose poll books were carefully inspected for an absentee vote overcount are: Warren City (311), Howland Township (138), Newton Falls City (34), Girard City (57), and Cortland Township (40). The 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books."

Dr Lange's full report can be read here

============================
Lucas County

The Director of Elections has resigned, and 4 BoE employees have been suspended by the board, pending an unspecified "investigation" into the conduct of the Nov 2 election.

Google-cached page of a
WTOL news report

You may remember that it was also the Lucas County Dem HQ in Toledo that was broken into in Oct.

Google-cached page of a
Toledo Blade article

============================
Greene County

The BoE office was "left unlocked" or broken into over the night of Fri Dec 10 - Sat Dec 11.

Sworn statement of witnesses (PDF)

The witness statements also include a litany of "irregularities" in the registration books and precinct books, which they documented before the BoE Director removed the books and demanded they leave.

============================
Franklin County

Franklin County reported a striking peculiarity in its "Unofficial Abstract of Votes" published on its web site on Nov 3, 2004. On pages 35-39 of the 414-pg PDF document is found a "Ward Recap" for the presidential and senate races. On page 39 are 2 line entries labeled "Absentee 1" and "Absentee 2", both of which are included in the grand-total summary line (I hand-tallied every ward entry, for every column, to verify this fact). The reported results are as follows:

Candidate  Absentee 1  Absentee 2
---------  ----------  ----------
Badnarik         69           70
Bush          10158        10159
Kerry         10025        10025
Peroutka         25           25
Removed           0            0
Write-In          0            0

Fingerhut      7416         7417
Voinovich     11930        11931

Public
Precinct
Count         20680        20680

Does anyone want to calculate the odds of 2 separate bundles of absentee ballots adding up to exactly the same number of ballots? Much less the odds of those 2 separate bundles producing exactly the same or ONE more vote for each candidate?

The "Official Abstract of Votes" published on the Franklin County web site after certification (Dec 6, 2004) is also a 414-pg PDF document, and on page 39 of the "Ward Recap" for the presidential and senate races, there are 3 line entries labeled "Absentee 1", "Absentee 2", and "Absentee 3". The "Public Precinct Count" for "Absentee 3" is 12,124 and the SoS-published number of provisional ballots for Franklin County is 14,446 so it seems logical to conclude that this line item is for the valid, counted provisionals. The reported results for "Absentee 1" and "Absentee 2" are as follows:

Candidate  Absentee 1  Absentee 2
---------  ----------  ----------
Badnarik         81           81
Bush          11426        11312
Kerry         11683        11491
Peroutka         29           29
Removed           0            0
Write-In          4            0

Fingerhut      8576         8511
Voinovich     13393        13340

Public
Precinct
Count         23710        23403

While there are some differences between the votes tallied in "Absentee 1" and "Absentee 2" in the official report, they're still remarkably close. I haven't seen any official declaration of how many absentee ballots were requested/mailed out/returned in Franklin County, nor any thorough examination of the poll books showing the number of registered voters who were marked as absentee; so I can't make any judgment as to whether there really were 47,113 absentee ballots, or 23,710 or 23,403.

A further note: the Franklin County web site has removed the "Unofficial Abstract" PDF file (I had downloaded it weeks ago); the only file available is the "Official Abstract" -- even though the results for the March Primary election still lists both the "Unofficial" and the "Official" abstracts.

============================
Warren County

The lock-out of qualified observers on Election night, in violation of OH law, has never been adequately explained, and as far as I can tell, has never been pursued.

=============================
Recount Issues

First, what they were supposed to do:
OH SoS official recount procedures (PDF)

Of particular note:

Item C.2.a)
Boards of Elections must notify all candidates in the race of the time and place by certified mail not later than five days before an automatic or requested recount is held.

Item C.3.a)
Each candidate in the race is entitled to one witness for each counting team or tabulating unit.

Item E.2.d)
The board must randomly select whole precincts whose total equals at least 3% of the total vote. These precincts' ballots must be manually counted.

Item E.2.f)
If the computer count does not match the hand count, and after rechecking the manual count, the results are still not equal, all ballots must be hand counted.

Now, what actually happened:

=============================
Coshocton County

11/2/04: "Unofficial" Vote Total Released to Press (and published on OH SoS web site)

Bush: 9,121
Kerry: 6,763
Peroutka: 65
Badnarik: 17
Total: 15,966

11/19/04: "Official" Vote Total Released to Press (after processing Provisionals)

Bush: 9,277 (+156)
Kerry: 6,878 (+115)
Peroutka: 67 (+2)
Badnarik: 17 (0)
Cobb: 1 (+1)
Total: 16,240 (+274)

12/06/04: "Certified" Vote Total Announced By Blackwell (and published on OH SoS web site)

Bush: 9,277 (0)
Kerry: 6,878 (0)
Peroutka: 67 (0)
Badnarik: 17 (0)
Cobb: 1 (0)
Schriner: 2 (+2)
Total: 16,242 (+2)

12/14/04: "Pre-Recount" Vote Total Distributed to Recount Observers
[Vote Total Alleged By Coshocton County Officials to be "Official November 2nd, 2004" Vote Total]
(Computer printout dated 12-10-2004)

Bush: 9,839 (+562)
Kerry: 7,378 (+500)
Peroutka: 68 (+1)
Badnarik: 15 (-2)
Cobb: 1 (0)
Schriner: 2 (0)
Total: 17,300 (+1,058)

12/15/04: "Post-Recount" Vote Total Released By Coshocton County
[To Be "Certified" as "Official" Coshocton County Results]

Bush: 9,826 (-13)
Kerry: 7,412 (+34)
Peroutka: 68 (0)
Badnarik: 13 (-2)
Cobb: 1 (0)
Schriner: 2 (0)
Total: 17,319 (+19)

Coshocton County apparently performed a "recount" on 12-10-2004, 4 days in advance of the time scheduled for the "official" recount, without issuing the required notice or permitting authorized witnesses to attend; and apparently "found" 1,077 more valid votes than they had certified 4 days earlier.

The Coshocton Tribune, on 12-18-2004, further muddied the waters by publishing the following totals as "Official Results":

Bush: 9,830 (+4)
Kerry: 7,413 (+1)
Peroutka: 68 (0)
Badnarik: 15 (+2)
Cobb: 1 (0)
Schriner: 2 (0)
Total: 17,329 (+10)

Cobb observer statement

See more/updated info about Coshocton County in this diary by jiffykeen.

============================
Washington County

In addition to other irregularities, the recount in this county appears to have "lost" even more votes than Coshocton County "found". Blackwell certified the following totals (SoS web site):

Badnarik     71
Bush     17,480
Kerry    12,475
Peroutka     69

The totals printed out and given to the recount observers as the FINAL, COMPLETE tally:

Badnarik     68
Bush      15521
Kerry     10958
Peroutka     60

So, somewhere between the certification on Dec 6 and the recount on Dec 15, Washington County lost at least 3,488 votes. No explanation has been given for this discrepancy.

============================
Confirmed tampering with tabulating machines:

Hocking County (Triad technician)
reference here (PDF)

Greene County (Triad technician)
reference here (PDF)

Monroe County (Triad technician)
reference here (PDF) and here

Mercer County (Triad technician)
reference here

Lucas County (Diebold technician)
reference here

Union County (Triad technician)
reference here

============================
Confirmed non-random selection of "3% hand count" in recount procedure:

Monroe County
reference here (PDF)

Mercer County
reference here

Allen County
reference here

Fayette County
reference here

Cuyahoga County
reference here

Huron County
reference here

Lucas County
reference here

Morgan County
reference here

Morrow County
reference here

Medina County
reference here

Fairfield County
reference here

Clermont County
reference here

Washington County
reference here

Hocking County
reference here

Mahoning County
reference here

Holmes County
reference here

Jefferson County
reference here

============================
Confirmed discrepancy between 3% hand count v. machine recount NOT resulting in full-county hand count:

Monroe County
reference here (PDF) and here

Tuscarawas County
reference here

Fairfield County
reference here

Clermont County
reference here

Summit County
reference here

Mahoning County
reference here

Unable to confirm the results of the 3% count:
Lucas County
reference here

============================
Confirmed lack of access to public records (most BoE's claim direct order from Blackwell):

I started to list and reference each county in which this problem was reported, but it became apparent that only a handful of county boards allowed access to the records (disobeying Blackwell's order).

============================

In addition, there are numerous first-hand reports of a variety of "irregularities" in the conduct of the recounts:

• Many counties failed to seal or even lock up ballots and other election materials;

• Many counties refused to allow witnesses to see all stages of the recount process;

• An astonishing number of counties report a PERFECT match between their certified results and their recount results. Given the high proportion of punch-card counties, this strains credulity beyond the breaking point.

Therefore, I, Rincewind, hereby submit these witness reports, sworn statements, MSM reports, and numerical discrepancies as evidence that election fraud did occur in Ohio.