The Bush Strategy: Ignorance & Disenfranchisement Rigging the 2004 Vote

[Bob Hubbard]

The Bush Strategy: Ignorance & Disenfranchisement Rigging the 2004 Vote
by Michael I. Niman, ArtVoice 10/28/04

What does it take for a voter to support George W. Bush for president? According to polls such as one recently conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), the answer is ignorance. They exhibit a profound lack of knowledge about world events and about Bush’s political positions.

Shocking Ignorance

A clear majority (72%) of Bush voters believe, for example, that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) immediately prior to the American invasion. A majority believes that the federal government’s own Duelfer Report, which ascertained that Iraq had no significant weapons or weapons programs, actually came to the opposite conclusion. Seventy-five percent incorrectly believe that Iraq provided substantial aid to al Qaeda, even though the CIA and the 9/11 Commission concluded otherwise. Fifty-five percent went as far as to state that the 9/11 commission found such a link. Less than one third of the Bush voters understood that most of world opinion opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The same polls show that the candidate these voters support only exists in their imaginations. Most incorrectly believe that Bush supports the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (69%), the international treaty banning landmines (72%), the International Criminal Court (which he denounced during the debates) (53%) and the Kyoto accords on global warming (51%). Seventy-four percent of them incorrectly believe Bush supports including labor and environmental standards in international trade treaties.

If keeping their flock ignorant is the Republican Party’s strategy for the 21 st Century, Fox News is certainly their strongest tool. An earlier PIPA poll asked Americans if they believed any of the following three misperceptions: that links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found, that WMDs were found in Iraq, or that world public opinion favored the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The poll then queried participants as to their main sources for news and information. Of those who said they get most of their news from Fox, 80% harbored at least one of these misperceptions. The other corporate TV outlets didn’t fare much better, with a majority of ABC (61%), CBS (71%), CNN (55%) and NBC (55%) news viewers also holding at least one of these misperceptions. At the other end of the corporate media spectrum, only 23% of NPR and PBS listeners and viewers labored under one of these misperceptions – a number that is still shockingly high. I’d suspect that the number of Pacifica Radio (Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio News, etc.) listeners, by contrast, holding these misguided beliefs would be statistically insignificant.

The Color of Democrats

While the GOP has been successful in keeping many of its voters ignorant about both world events and their presidential candidate, it still faces the problem that its minions constitute a minority of the American electorate. Hence, the Republicans also must work to keep the anti-Bush majority from voting.

Luckily for them, however, it’s pretty easy to sort the potential Kerry voters from the Bush voters. If they’re uneducated suburban or rural white males, the group the press glosses as “the NASCAR dads, they’re likely to vote for Bush. Likewise, if they’re in the top income brackets, greedy for tax cuts and shortsighted about how the ensuing social chaos will impact their lives, they’re also likely Bush voters. And then there’re the fundamentalists whose preachers blasphemously claim to speak for God – telling their flock that the big guy commands them to vote Republican – the Prince of Peace be damned.

The group of voters that are most likely to favor Kerry are even easier to spot – they’re black. This of course comes after a century of prominent Republican politicians (though not all) either kowtowing to racists or supporting racists and their policies outright. Depending on the region, 90-98% of African-American voters now vote Democratic. Likewise, well-read draft-age college students also fall strongly into the anti-Bush camp. Though they lack any real enthusiasm for the Democratic party, they seem passionate about getting rid of Bush. Other core groups of Kerry supporters include unionized workers and elderly South Florida sunbirds and retirees.

Bagging White Guys – Erasing Black Folks

Hence, the Republican strategy is two-pronged. Get the NASCAR dads to the polls. And keep black folks and college students from voting. The NASCAR dads are easy – just scare the **** out of them by flashing alert levels like they were the starting lights, or “Christmas Tree,” at the drag strip (yes, I know drag racing is not NASCAR). Remind them that al Qaeda will kill their mommas if Kerry wins, and pump up the testosterone with a Schwarzenegger line about “girly-men.” Maybe bait them with images of scary tall black men like George H.W. Bush did with his racist Willie Horton ads in 1988. Then they’re in the bag.

Keeping black people from voting is a bit more difficult – and sloppy. But in the past, it’s proven a winner for the GOP. In 2000, for example, over 20,000 black voters lost their right to vote after being falsely identified as felons by Jeb Bush’s Florida state government. Tens of thousands of votes were voided due to punch card reading errors in predominantly black neighborhoods (segregation makes such mischief possible). Countless other black voters were turned away from the polls due to equipment failures, long lines or intimidation by crooked cops and poll workers. When the Supreme Court prematurely stopped the ballot recount, Bush was ahead by less than 600 votes, leaving no doubt that Bush seized the White House by successfully suppressing the black vote.

To again seize the White House in next month’s election, the Bush team must not only repeat the disenfranchisement of black and inner-city voters that occurred in 2000 – they must expand upon it.

Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), initially invited by the Bush administration to certify the cleanliness of the American electoral system, released a report last month warning of problems with the upcoming U.S. presidential election. In addition to concerns over electronic voting machines that can easily be rigged, which provide no ability for recounts and which run on hidden software written and locked up by companies that are Republican campaign contributors (see Grip 10/30/03), the OSCE also expressed concern over possible intimidation and disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities.

Disenfranchisement 2004

The OSCE’s concerns, all but ignored by the U.S. corporate press, seem well founded, as this year’s Republican tricksters have already put their voter disenfranchisement campaign into full swing, with Florida again rising from the muck as ground zero for vote suppression. This is no accident. Campaign strategists feel that the election victor will be the one who wins two out of these three states: Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Former Florida Secretary of State and 2000 Bush campaign statewide chair Katherine Harris is gone. In her place, overseeing the vote count for the 2004 election, is Glenda Hood, appointed by George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, the governor of Florida.

Hood immediately set out shamelessly repeating the same disenfranchisement tactics that allowed the Bushs to steal the election in 2000 – creating a new “felon” purge list that would have thrown 22,000 African-Americans off of the voting rolls. Interestingly enough, according to Vanity Fair, of the 48,000 names on the purge list, only 61 are Hispanic. Hispanics outnumber African-Americans in Florida. Hence the small number is suspect, especially in the light of the fact that Cuban-Americans who tend to vote Republican dominate the group – and tend to commit crimes at roughly the same rate as African-Americans and White folks. When the mainstream media got wind of this, Hood cut and ran, abandoning this scheme.

Hood also is fighting to prohibit voters whose registration is challenged, from filling out provisional ballots – which are later certified or destroyed after elections officials determine the registration status of the voter. Hood wants to deny this right to voters who turn up at the wrong polling place – even though most such errors have proven to be the fault of the local elections offices and not the misdirected voters. And most of these errors occur in inner-city areas. The Ohio Secretary of State issued a similar edict there. Hood is also fighting to void over 10,000 new voter registration forms where potential voters filled out an affidavit stating they are U.S. citizens, but failed to check a box redundantly making the same statement.

Stealing the Senior Vote

Meanwhile, at the unofficial level, The Guardian of London reports that Republican tricksters have been telephoning Florida’s senior citizens who polled as likely Kerry voters, offering to let them “vote” early using the touch-tone pad on their phone. Other senior citizens were called by operatives claiming to be from the board of elections, who offered to allow them to request an absentee ballot over the phone – a ballot that will never arrive. And senior citizens in Tallahassee report being contacted by a supposed elections worker who offered to come to their homes and pick up their absentee ballots to “hand deliver” to elections officers. Leon County ( Tallahassee) Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho told The Guardian, “I’ve been an elections supervisor for 16 years now, and nobody has ever called me with this kind of activity occurring.” The Guardian, it should be noted, is the same paper that broke the story about voter wide-scale disenfranchisement in Florida in 2000.

Florida is far from being alone this year when it comes to organized Republican efforts to suppress the vote. The MilwaukeeJournal Sentinel reports that Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker wants to print 260,000 fewer ballots than requested by elections officials in the city of Milwaukee. Most Milwaukee voters are minorities, who gave Bush less than 2% of the vote in the 2000 election. In addition to serving as County Executive, Walker pulls double duty as co-chair of the statewide Wisconsin Bush campaign.

Trashing Democratic Registration Forms

In Nevada, the Republican Party was busted for running a voter registration operation falsely purporting to be affiliated with the nonpartisan organization, “America Votes.” In actuality, according to investigations conducted by the Las VegasReview-Journal and KLAS-TV, the Republican operation, which called itself Voters Outreach of America (VOA), was run by the Arizona based political consulting firm, Sproul & Associates (S&A). S&A is under contract with the GOP. According to VOA employees, supervisors destroyed completed registration forms where registrants selected “Democrat” as their party preference. The perspective Kerry voters, who believe they’re registered, will find out otherwise on Election Day. Likewise, the San JoseMercury News quotes one VOA worker whose pay was docked because he turned in too many forms marked “Democrat.”

Since the initial report broke two weeks ago, investigators found Sproul running similar operations under contract with the GOP in the “swing states” of Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is also home to a last minute effort by the GOP to relocate 63 inner-city polling places in African-American Philadelphia neighborhoods. Democrats have so far thwarted the move which would have caused chaos and confusion on Election Day.

Republicans in New Hampshire leafleted college student voters in 2002, falsely stating that they would jeopardize their financial aid by voting where they attend school. Similar threats, falsely challenging the legality of student voter registration, were leveled by a Fox News crew in Arizona. In Ohio, where ex-felons have the right to vote, 21 counties insisted they didn’t. Meanwhile, a Republican Nevada official unsuccessfully attempted to purge 17,000 Democrats from the state’s voting rolls, claiming that they weren’t active voters.

Pimply College Republicans to Run Amok

On a national level, according The New York Times, the GOP is recruiting tens of thousands of poll watchers to challenge the qualifications of voters in swing states who they suspect are not eligible to vote. Ground Zero for this operation is the Democratic and minority stronghold of Cleveland, where the Republicans have already registered 1,400 recruits to annoy, frustrate, insult and otherwise harass voters while ultimately causing lines and confusion in the polling places. The GOP is training these mischief makers, for example, to challenge the credentials of those who accompany and assist handicapped [inner-city] voters. They’ll also be challenging people who they think don’t look American.

The OSCE appears justified to worry about the upcoming U.S. elections. Regimes that come to power in coups seldom leave office gracefully. There’s a dark cloud hanging over our future. Only an uncontestable landslide can save us from an electoral crisis.



Michael I. Niman’s Previous Getting a Grip Columns are archived at www.mediastudy.com.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Our Brave New World of Voting
The Science of Vote Rigging and the Future of American Democracy
By Michael I. Niman, ArtVoice, 10/30/03
http://mediastudy.com/articles/#2004

Back in August I wrote about America ’s ongoing “soft coup” – arguing that military and intelligence community brass were turning against the Bush posse en masse. My theory was based on the fact that the strongest exposes written about the Bush administration last summer all cited former military and CIA officials as their primary sources. This trend has continued unabated, with current officials in Langley and the Pentagon joining their retired comrades on the Bush-bashing bandwagon. New stories come out daily about hawks and spooks defecting to the tofu brigade and telling all about how the Bush team misled the American people and plunged the nation into a needless war. And the formerly compliant media has deviated from the Bush administration script, bringing the military’s anti-Bush message right into America ’s TV viewing pens.

That theory is based on the time-tested notion that elections can be manipulated by manipulating voters. Ultimately, however, it’s not the voters that need to be manipulated. It’s the votes.

Manipulating the votes, the act of stealing an American election, used to sound far fetched. While we didn’t always have confidence that voters would make fully informed decisions, we always assumed that their votes would at least more or less be counted. Then came Florida . And the whole quaint notion of elections got tossed out the window. The final 2000 election recount showed that Bush didn’t win, but he came close enough to move in for the kill.

HAVA Electronic Elections

With calls for remediation of the nation’s patchwork of antiquated elections systems, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, providing $3.9 billion in funding to put new electronic voting machines in place by the 2006 election. Like the Patriot Act, HAVA passed on a knee jerk vote by Congress representatives who had little understanding of the ultimate ramifications of their vote.

Critics now say HAVA could usher in the end of democracy, flawed as it is. Here’s the problem: With HAVA mandating new voting technology, most states are turning to computerized voting machines as the panacea for past elections woes. The new machines, however, make the 2000 election’s hanging chads look like litter in a toxic landfill.

This isn’t the rambling of a knee-jerk Luddite. To the contrary, I’m sitting here in a rather high-tech environment, hooked into the Internet, clicking away on a spiffy laptop under biomass-powered compact fluorescent light bulbs. The problem isn’t that the new voting machines are computers. The problem is that many of them don’t create any auditable trail for recounts. Worse, the software that runs them has been ruled in court to be the private property of the corporation that built the machines; hence, it cannot be examined to see if intentional or unintentional glitches are skewing the vote count. It gets worse. Many of the new elections contracts give the responsibility for counting the votes, not to elections officials, but to the companies who built and maintain the machines. In other words, the most sacred and tenuous process in our democracy, counting the votes, has been outsourced.

Historically Americans have never trusted each other to count votes. This was evidenced in the Florida debacle as teams of inspectors from both the elephant and donkey teams pried over hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads. Most elections are carefully watched supervised by inspectors from both major parties. The Democrats might control a city or state budget, but we can’t quite trust them to honor our democracy and not outright steal an election. Likewise, the Republicans might control the military budget and the Justice Department, but, likewise, we can’t trust them not to vote 27 times, given to chance. This mistrust of each other, ill founded or not, is simply one more example of the checks and balances inherent in our system.

Here’s where our current corporate culture takes on mystic proportions. While our political parties will never quite come to trust each other, we have no qualms about tossing our whole system of checks and balances out the window and outsource elections to corporations operating without oversight.

The obvious question is, who are these corporations in whom we place deity-like trust. The answer is quite scary, unless of course you’re an unpopular Republican president with a disdain for democracy and rapidly diminishing prospects for “re”-election.

I Declare Myself the Winner

The nation’s largest election management company, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), grew out of a merger of electronic elections pioneer, American Information Systems (AIS), with other information companies. In the early 1990s, Nebraska ’s current Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, headed AIS. In 1996, with AIS holding the contract to count over 80% of Nebraska ’s votes, Hagel ran for the US Senate. One of AIS’ principle investors served as Hagel’s campaign finance chair. Hagel was an underdog in both the primary and general elections, but went on to win upset victories in both races, becoming the first Republican elected to the Senate from Nebraska in 24 years.

Hagel not only won, but won big, receiving a majority of the vote from every major demographic group in the state – including core Democratic voters such as Nebraska’s black population, which historically never voted Republican in modern times.

In 2002, the entrenched Hagel won a landslide victory against Democrat Charlie Matulka. Questioning the size of Hagel’s victory, Matulka called for a recount. This was not possible, however, since the state’s contract with ES&S/AIS forbid examining the software on the machines, and the machines themselves created no auditable paper trail. Hagel’s company, in essence, maintained the sole power to manage the election and certify his victory.

ES&S’ primary competitor, Diebold, Inc., is the second largest and the fastest growing election management company in the US . Diebold’s CEO is Republican fundraiser and Bush confidant, Wally O’Neil, a recent visitor to Bush’s crib in Crawford , Texas . According to investigative reporter Bev Harris, O’Dell and Diebold Director W.H. Timken, are both members of Bush’s inner circle, serving on his “Pioneers” fundraising group.

It was in this capacity as a Republican Party honcho, that O’Neil, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, extorted that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver it’s electoral votes to the President next year.” Democrats found the comment disturbing in light of the fact that O’Neil’s company is currently bidding on a contract to manage Ohio ’s elections infrastructure.
Georgia on My Mind

Diebold’s biggest commercial success to date has been in the state of Georgia where they won the contract to supply voting machines and tally votes, making Georgia the first state to outsource an entire statewide election to a company using the new touch screen technology.

Shortly after Diebold took over the Georgia elections infrastructure, the Republican Party scored a series of historic upset victories in the “peach state’s” 2002 elections. Foremost was the surprise defeat of Georgia ’s popular incumbent Democratic senator, Max Cleland. The race drew national attention since Cleland’s Republican opponent, a pro-Iraq invasion activist who avoided military service in Vietnam , accused Cleland, a Vietnam veteran disabled in combat, of being unpatriotic. Election eve polls predicted that Cleland would beat his tasteless Republican rival, Saxby Chambliss, by between two and six percentage points. On election day, however, Cleland lost by seven percentage points, giving Chambliss what the national press called an “upset victory.” That election, along with the earlier Nebraska race, gave Republicans control of the Senate.

For Georgians, Cleland’s loss was just one act in a bizarre Election Day play. Also deposed in the same election, was Georgia ’s Democratic governor, Roy Barnes. Pollsters predicted he’d easily trounce his Republican rival, Sonny Purdue, by a margin of as many as 11 percentage points. On Election Day, however, Purdue went on to beat Barnes by five points, making him the first Republican governor elected in Georgia in 134 years.
Upset Victories Upsetting Pollsters

The “upset victories” also upset political pollsters, all of whom miscalled the Georgia races by embarrassing margins of as much as 16 percentage points. Pundits quickly explained away Barnes’ loss, arguing that a surge of “angry” white male voters, upset with Barnes’ decision to remove the slavery-era Confederate emblem from Georgia ’s state flag. According to the British newspaper, The Independent, however, there was no such demographic surge. To the contrary, black women made up the only demographic group in the state showing an increase in voter participation in the 2002 election.

The election software in Georgia , as in Nebraska , is shielded from public scrutiny by a clause in the state’s contract with Diebold. Following the election, however, investigative reporter Bev Harris learned that Diebold software engineers changed the programming in the state’s machines at least seven times leading up to the election. After the election, Diebold workers formatted the memory flash cards from the state’s voting machines, making any examination of the electoral record, no matter how limited, impossible.

In the months following the Georgia elections, critics obtained copies of the software Diebold used in that state – passing it on to software analysts for examination. According to The Independent, one analyst, Roxanne Jekot, found the software to be ridden with security holes. The programming was also riddled with embedded comments written by Diebold’s programmers saying things like, “This doesn’t really work” and “Not a confidence builder.” Jekot was also worried by strange commands in the program to do things such as divide a category of votes by one. The command shows how easily code can be introduced to divide or multiply votes for specific candidates.

Stunning Flaws

Wired magazine reports that researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute found “stunning flaws” in Diebold’s Georgia program. In addition to geek taboos such as embedding security passwords into program source code, the Johns Hopkins analysts found flaws that could allow voters to vote multiple times, or allow votes to be changed by a third party after being cast, in some cases by remote access.

Another group of analysts, working on contract for the Maryland state government, according to The Independent, found 328 software flaws, including 26 which they deemed as putting the election “at risk of compromise.”

Georgia and Nebraska haven’t cornered the market in suspect elections. They seem to be arising wherever the new electronic voting machines pop up. The odd thing is that wherever an electronically administered election defies statistical predictions, it is almost always to the favor of the Republican candidate. In Alabama , for example, a 7,000-vote tally shift threw the close gubernatorial election from the incumbent Democrat, to the Republican challenger. And again, in Alabama as in Georgia , there was no recount

Touch screen voting machines are not inherently prone to election manipulation. Touch screen machines that generate a paper receipt, verified by the voter and stored by the machine, allow for accurate recounts. They also allow voters to examine the choice that the machine reports they made. This is important because the new machines, aside from being susceptible to tampering and malicious programming, are also error prone. One study conducted jointly by the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology (MIT and Caltech) found the new touch screen machines to be more error-prone than the notorious punch card machines of election 2000 fame. One major problem has to do with alignment. The spot on the screen with the candidate’s name, may not line up with the coded segments of the screen that register a vote for that candidate. Voters, in many recent touch screen elections, for example, have complained of machines that flash the opponent’s name when they try to vote for their preferred candidate.

A Crisis of Confidence

The problem we are facing, however, is bigger than one of machines and technology. It involves a crisis of confidence brought on by a crisis of conflicts of interest. The problem is bigger than EC&C and Diebold. VoteHere, another major player in the emerging elections industry, is chaired by Admiral Dick Owens, a close associate of Dick Cheney and a member of the Defense Policy Board. Head of the George Bush School of Business and former CIA Director, Robert Gates, is a VoteHere director. Other election management companies have similar disturbing conflicts of interest, with connections to the current Bush administration, the Republican Party and the defense industries, as well as the Saudi royal family.

None of this indicates that elections are being stolen. But the lack of a paper trail or any system of accountability shows that, other than a quaint naïve assumption, there are no indications that they aren’t. The aggressive push by an administration that seized power in a contested election to quickly expand touch screen voting certainly isn’t putting concerned people at ease. And the Bush administration’s recent move awarding a contract overseeing Internet absentee voting to a former Arthur Anderson (as in Enron accounting scandal) subsidiary also is disquieting. Despite the fact that a government which has shown its disdain for democracy is awarding vote counting contracts to a company formerly part of a firm involved in falsifying accounting records, it’s politically incorrect to raise this issue in this country – and hence, the mainstream media has thus far ignored what the global media is hailing as the potential collapse of American democracy.

There is hope, however, embodied in a congressional bill popularly called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (H.R. 2239). The bill requires voting machine manufacturers to allow software to be inspected, and mandates that the machines create a voter audited paper trail. Voters should contact their representatives and register support for this bill.

 

[Feisty Mouse]

It is a sick and craven manoever to try to suppress the votes of Americans who are trying to participate in their government.

I'm so tired of seeing examples of people seeming to believe "the ends justify the means" ~ or perhaps it's just people who are bigoted who want to suppress the African-American vote.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Both of the big 2 have been engaging in misinformation, if not outright fraud in this campaign. It is my most heartfelt desire that the 3rd parties get recorn numbers of votes this year. We may not have the numbers today, but within the next 8, we may. Remember, an object in motion prefers to remain in motion, and as we fight to regain our country, we can only pick up more and more momentium as the big 2, continue to merge into 2 big gloppy mess that only gives the illusion of choice.

In 2004 - VOTE INDEPENDANT! VOTE 3rd PARTY! Send a message to the Bushes and the Kerrys that "We The People" are back....and we'er pissed off!

 

[michaeledward]

The stakes are too high to vote 3rd party this time around.

We can't afford the war-activities and tax cuts.
We can't afford a 'Dred-Scott approving' Supreme Court Justice.
We can't afford a Commander-in-Chief that won't listen to the opposition.
We can't afford an underfunded Nunn-Lugar program to secure nuclear material.
We can't afford afford to lose another 800,000 jobs over the next four years.
We can't afford to lose the protections on another 200,000,000 acres of public lands.
We can't afford the cost of classifying all the documents the Administration wants to keep secret.
We can't afford a unilateralist government.

While I agree with you in principle, Bob, four years ago, that principle (in the words of John Stewart) "hurt" us.


I heard in Dade County Florida, one of the polling places couldn't start recording votes, because the person with the book of registered votes hadn't shown up at the polling place, an hour and a half into the allotted time. Spooky.

It's kind of sad that Osama bin Laden says that 'Bush (the elder) put his sons in charge of Florida and Texas, so they could stuff the ballots using techniques from the Middle East.' Do you think he knows something we don't?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Well, Osama was trained by us.....I guess the info can flow both ways...

 

[TwistofFat]

Dennis Prager - Townhall.com:

One of the more popular anti-Republican documents making the rounds on the Internet is titled "Things You Have to Believe to Vote Republican Today." Its popularity is exceeded only by its shallowness, which renders the document much more reflective of the liberals who admire it than of the Republicans it attacks. But given its popularity, I offer brief responses to its claims (space limitations and triviality prevented me from responding to three of them).

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Response: Saddam was always a bad guy. We supported him when he fought Iran because at that time he was fighting a greater menace, Iran. Unlike most liberals, Republicans understand that sometimes you support a bad guy when fighting a worse evil -- just as America did when we supported the horrific Stalin against the more horrific Hitler.

http://www.townhall.com/election2004/Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

Response: We trade with China because if we do not, other countries will have access to the world's largest market and largest labor base. If we did not trade with China, Americans would be greatly hurt. On the other hand, we do not trade with Cuba because we have a chance to weaken a communist dictator. One weakens evil where one can. Unlike the liberal who wrote this indictment, others understand that just because you cannot fight every evil does not mean you should fight no evils. (For the record, as we have done with Vietnam, I have supported ending the Cuban embargo since the Cold War ended.)

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Though the statement is a non sequitur, I will respond. Every country regulates companies doing business in their country. That proposition is therefore erroneous; and so is the other. Only those on the Left can believe that the human fetus carried by a woman is "her body." A woman's teeth, breasts, legs, hair -- all these are her body. But the human fetus is another's body. The narcissism of the wording -- rendering a human fetus an appendage of the mother and of no more worth than a decayed tooth -- is shameful.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

Response: No Christian I have ever talked to ever said that either Jesus or they hate homosexuals. Only demagogues confuse opposition to same-sex marriage with hatred of homosexuals. And the notion that anyone believes Jesus hates Hillary Clinton is libelous.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

Response: The proposition is a lie. And soldiers know it. That is why they prefer the Republican nominee by a margin of four to one. What undermines troop morale is to be told over and over that you are fighting "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

Response: No one has ever said this. No one. It is only a facile liberal mind that can confuse "less likely to have sex" if condoms are not distributed with "won't have sex" if condoms are not distributed.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

Response: When Iraq is on its feet, it is our hope that it will decrease government involvement in its citizens' lives. Just as it is our hope to do so here. Moreover, all Americans have access to health care. Not having health insurance does not mean not having health care.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Response: Few big businesses have the best interests of the public at heart. No conservative has ever argued otherwise. But liberals believe that big government and big unions do.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

Response: Global warming may well be taking place. But it may be too soon to know for sure -- not long ago we were warned about global cooling. The question that is open to scientific debate is what is causing the global warming that may be happening.

Most conservatives do not want creationism taught in schools and have no trouble with teaching evolution. But if evolution is taught as meaning all life, including human, just happened by itself, that is beyond science -- that is the teaching of atheism. And many of us, including vast numbers of scientists, think that children and society do better learning that there is a moral and purposeful God that created the world (and perhaps evolution as well).

A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Response: Honorable people can differ as to whether a president lying under oath while president has committed an impeachable offense. On the other hand, it is entirely dishonorable to charge President Bush with lying about WMDs in Iraq. Everyone, including Democrats and the intelligence services of Russia, Britain and France, believed Saddam Hussein had them. It is the great lie of our time that President Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. To act upon the knowledge one has at the time is not a lie. It is the behavior of a responsible leader.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriage and censoring the Internet.

Response: Society has every right, indeed the duty, to define marriage. A constitutional amendment defining marriage has become necessary only because liberal judges, by taking that role upon themselves, have rendered it impossible for American society to do so. Liberals are delighted to have five justices define the Constitution to allow abortion for no reason other than the convenience of a pregnant woman, but find adding an amendment to define marriage passed by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states offensive.

And liberals should tread carefully before accusing conservatives of favoring censorship. It is overwhelmingly liberals and the Left that censor speech in America -- through speech codes at most universities, through laws defining what a man can say in the presence of a woman in the workplace, and through "campaign finance reform" that ensures only multi-millionaires can run for office. (http://www.nationalreview.com/battleground/2004/battleground200411012219.asp)

 

[deadhand31]

I keep hearing disenfranchisement, disenfranchisement. Why is it that with this felon list, people only care about the blacks who weren't allowed to vote? What about the whites on this list who weren't allowed to vote? How many whites were there?

As for the 2000 election, who was disenfranchised? Why is it that people still claim african americans were turned away, but apparently an investigation done by Janet Reno into this matter turned up squat? If election workers in these DEMOCRATIC counties turned african american workers away, there would be arrests, there would be scandals. Where are they? What are the names of these individuals? Why haven't I seen even 1 african-american on TV who claims he was turned away at the polls?

 

[hardheadjarhead]

I think there was indeed cheating on the part of the Republicans.

That said, I think liberals/Democrats/Republicans-for-Bush need to take a long hard look at what WE did wrong and where we failed in the campaign. Pointing the finger at the other guy, no matter how justified, looks like sour grapes and fixes nothing. Perhaps liberals need to turn on some of that "mea culpa" breast beating attitude and figure out what we could do to prevent this from happening in the future.

When I prepare children for a tournament, I invariably school them in being a good sport when they lose and to not cast around cheating allegations in that event. I tell them that they should so dominate the other that there is no question in the minds of the audiences or judges. Even if the other guy wins, taking the trophy should be a shaming experience for him and his family. So too this election...and I do not think that we shamed the other guy or made the issue unquestionable.

What issues hurt us? Do we have the objectivity to admit these points? In the future are we willing to step back from some of these issues and put them on the back burner so that we can once again gain control of the Senate and House...as well as the White House?

In an election year where we face the prospect of defeat by a wartime President, do we need to be harping on guns and Gay marriage? I'm not arguing the importance of these issues, rather the timing of their presentation. Wouldn't they be better addressed once we've secured the seats of power? We had so many other positive talking points for unseating this President. Did we defuse our own arguments?

As it is now, in addition to the loss of the White House and Congress, we'll likely lose at least one Supreme Court justice to Bush...as many as four if their health fails them. We'll certainly lose more Federal judges as well. This election, clearly the most important in decades, was a victory at all levels for the Republican party. Their social agenda will likely be advanced across the board in the next four years in spite of resistance by Democrats, and the war will drag on.

My question is this: Did they win it, or did we lose it?


Regards,


Steve

 

[PeachMonkey]

I think there was indeed cheating on the part of the Republicans.

While I'm sure there was, I don't think it was significant enough to produce the margins seen in the popular vote.

My question is this: Did they win it, or did we lose it?

You eloquently discuss the various aspects of running against a wartime President, including diluting the message.

However, this was the core of the Democratic campaign from the start... "don't be too progressive, too leftist... look where that got us". It's the mantra of the DLC. Other leftist groups, upset by the excesses of BushCo, joined the bandwagon, and without our efforts, Kerry would have been *completely* savaged in the elections.

On the contrary, I think our strategy this time proved the saying a friend of mine coined:

"If given a choice between two conservatives, the one on the Republican ticket will always win."

I think highly of John Kerry as a guy, and clearly the "flip-flop" nonsense was blown out of proportion -- however, the Democratic party continues to pander to a sort of wishy-washy centrist, and in doing so, alienates all but a slim group of undecided voters.

Republicans, on the other hand, have a clear message, and stick to it -- even if they don't fulfill all their campaign promises (and who does fulfill all campaign promises?).

This is the last time I devote energies and moneys to a Democratic party dominated by the DLC and center-right thinking. After some time for mourning, it's time for progressives to take the movement we built for this election and focus on real change, starting with the '06 midterm elections.

 

[bushi jon]

I would like to know do most of you realy believe that the election was rigged? You may not agree with Bush but do realy believe that Kerry would have been better? I SUPPOSE most of you believe Michael Moore had was telling the truth? :mp5: :idunno:

 

[Flatlander]

I would like to know do most of you realy believe that the election was rigged? You may not agree with Bush but do realy believe that Kerry would have been better? I SUPPOSE most of you believe Michael Moore had was telling the truth? :mp5: :idunno:

Jon, the answer to that lies throughout the various threads of the last 15 pages of this forum. I reccommend you peruse them, as you can, to find a complete answer to this question.

 

[Flatlander]

PeachMonkey, do you feel that the Democrats would be better served by taking an approach that leans further to the left? If so, what issues do you feel they should attack more vigorously? Where do you see this translating into electoral votes?

 

[Feisty Mouse]

Oh, and...

Response: Global warming may well be taking place. But it may be too soon to know for sure -- not long ago we were warned about global cooling. The question that is open to scientific debate is what is causing the global warming that may be happening.

Most conservatives do not want creationism taught in schools and have no trouble with teaching evolution. But if evolution is taught as meaning all life, including human, just happened by itself, that is beyond science -- that is the teaching of atheism. And many of us, including vast numbers of scientists, think that children and society do better learning that there is a moral and purposeful God that created the world (and perhaps evolution as well).

Global climate change is taking place, has already taken place. "Global warming" is a catchphrase, but also a misnomer. What "global warming" cutely refers to is actually much larger variability in the global environments - hotter and colder temperatures reached than in the past.

Evolution is NOT the teaching of atheism. Darwin's theory of natural selection does not *rely* on God as a causal explantion for species change, but does not refute the existence of God or try to "prove" (ha ha) there is no God.
It is up to each family to teach (or not) their religious beliefs - not for the public school system to teach kids about a Protestant western Christian-flavored creation story.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Was it rigged?
Yes and No.

I don't doubt that in a few areas there was tampering, intimidation and 'equipment problems'.

Was it enough to tip the scale?
No.

There is a clear 3-4 Million vote difference. Too wide for me to believe "The Fix was in".

There -are- legit concerns coming out of the processes this year.
My -BIGGEST!- complain is the almost complete absence of any coverage of the 3rd parties. As I said elsewhere, Badnarik recieved almost as many votes as Nader, with 10% of the coverage of Nader. What he could have done if he's had the chance to be heard remains unknown.

We need election reform.
We must break the domination of the "Big 2".
3rd party candidates must be involved in the debates, so that they are just that, real debates.
The process of registering, and voting must be improved. I'm a geek and -I- don't trust touch screens. I've read very few 'geeks' who do. If us techies don't trust the tech sollutions, that should say something.

Personally, I'd love to see an election fought on issues and positions...not personalities and mud.

 

[Cryozombie]

The only thing I am going to say here...

is that regardless of your feelings twords Bush...

Can you really generalize everyone who voted for the man as "Ignorant"?

Isnt that just as bad as saying anyone who voted for Kerry is a Dope smoking Hippie?

I mean come on... there were educated voters on both sides... saying that its takes Ignorance to vote for bush is just crybabying by the "losing" side, and IMO, makes the Democrats look bad, like a child who pouts becuase he didnt get candy and his sister did... then called her a poopyhead.

The fact of the matter is, as I think Peach Monkey pointed outy well, was the presentation of their candidate as opposed to how the republicans did hurt the democrats more than the "ignorance" of republicans.

The next 4 years are going to be, if nothing else... eventful.

 

[PeachMonkey]

PeachMonkey, do you feel that the Democrats would be better served by taking an approach that leans further to the left? If so, what issues do you feel they should attack more vigorously? Where do you see this translating into electoral votes?

Flatlander,

I'm hurting too much (and am too sick, like actually ill from an infection) to get into a lot of detail at this point... I think a new thread down the road would be a good idea.

In general, though, progressive and populist causes had tremendous success when they addressed the ills of society without going overboard. Although I'm a raving socialist at heart, my head knows that a properly regulated capitalism can also benefit society... so, as Bill Moyers says:

"Equality doesn't mean equal incomes, but a fair and decent society where money is not the sole arbiter of status or comfort. In a fair and just society, the commonwealth will be valued even as individual wealth is encouraged."

We have to learn to fight both the extreme conservatives, who have mastered the tools of propaganda and communication and currently dominate both the language and content of debate in our society, and the apathetic centrists, for whom having "our party" in power is enough, regardless of what actually happens while "our party" is running the show.

If we do this, people will actually *see* the benefits of social and political justice.

 

[Cryozombie]

We must break the domination of the "Big 2".
3rd party candidates must be involved in the debates, so that they are just that, real debates.

THATS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!

 

[someguy]

Global warming is happening. I think there are some people that argue that it is simply a natural thing that happens. Cylces of warming and cooling through natural causes.
I think there are also some people who say that global warming may cause an Ice age but I don't really know much about well any of that other than it's happening.
Oh and politics. Hmm kerry isn't super great. Bush is a moron as he listens to no one but his yes men( well Condoleezza Rice isn't a man but still) and ignores people like umm the intelegence comunity.

 

[Feisty Mouse]

is that regardless of your feelings twords Bush...

Can you really generalize everyone who voted for the man as "Ignorant"?

Well, I believe that the numbers are somewhere at 70-80% of people who voted for Bush believe that WMDs were found in Iraq, and that there is a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq. That, to me, is willful ignorance.

If I heard people saying things like, "I think stem cell research is evil", then I'd sigh, ask them how they felt about getting old and possibly getting neurodegenerative diseases with no cure, but that is their opinion and I can't argue with it.

But deliberately insisting on "facts" that are not true...