Watch the Dirty Tricksters
In the light of John McCain's Congressional deal-sabotage antics, his fake campaign suspension, his stream of transparent mendacity, the not-so-pretty Sarah Palin show, his long ride on the No Talk Express, etc. etc., his national esteem is tanking, and so are his poll numbers. In the battle for minds, he's lost George Will, leaving him to content himself with David Brooks' vote of confidence, based on Brooks' conviction that in McCain's glory days he looked into the man's eyes and contacted his soul--this from the man who for years had the same confidence that he knew the moral truth, the inner surge, in the mind of George W. Bush.
But pause for a sober note before we get too excited: It's looking as though the Republicans' only chance is to fix the game. It's time to take ever-more-seriously the Republican disenfranchisement maneuvers. Take a look, for example, at this report by Greg Gordon of McClatchy on the attempt to suppress student voting in Colorado Springs by an election official who was a Republican delegate in St. Paul, an attempt that is
the latest of several instances in which local election officials, including some in Virginia and South Carolina, have discouraged college students from voting in a year in which legions of students have thrown their energy behind Obama.
I've been ambivalent for a long time about certitudes that the Republicans can steal this election. I looked into charges of a Ohio fix in 2004 at one point and was never convinced of the case for decisive theft. It's one thing to say that electronic voting can be fixed and it's quite another to say it has been fixed. Still, the sum of Republican moves in this campaign bears relentless and sober scrutiny. The prime targets, as usual, are African-Americans. There is the Indiana decision of the Republican Supreme Court, which expedites turning away octogenaran nuns who don't carry photo ID (this actually happened), and other insufficiently identified miscreants. There are legions of felon roster purges. In Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, there are attempts to toss off the rolls voters who had the temerity to...lose their houses to foreclosure...and thereby are held to have forfeited their right to vote. There's the "caging" technique of sending out registered letters to likely Democratic voters, whereupon, if the letters are returned, the Republicans challenge these voters' right to vote. Nathanael West! Thou shouldst be living in this hour!
There's tons of this sort of electoral thuggery going on and frankly, having other things to do, I haven't paid detailed attention. But I do think this is the time to watch the Republicans carefully. Reporters and lawyers are at work, but not enough. The idea is to make the rats scatter in bright light.
Unless the Democrats themselves find their spine on these issues, we go directly to hell.
They left Al Gore standing alone and being made a laughingstock by the press for being a sore loser. They didn't say peep about the Ohio shenanigans in 04 and everyone knew about them, not when RFK Jr. wrote his exposé, but at the time of the election.
You're right that the press and the lawyers can't do it. But neither can you and I.
September 26, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is time to create a political organization that will raise money to fabricate an artificial spine that can be strapped onto elected officials.
Then--every time a Democrat is elected or re-lected to office--call the press and go down to the swearing in ceremony and present them with the artifical spine--on behalf of the voters that elected them.
Also award them a Plaque that says: "My Consituents Decree that I am not an invertebrate--therefore I solemnly swear on the souls of my grandchildren not to act like one, for their sake."
September 26, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
c4,
or.... just give them a spinal with a Viagara solution.
September 26, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any qualified voter can register and check the validity of their registration. If you need a photo id--get one. These are citizens responsibilities--find out where you polling place is. Show up on time. Have your documentation. If there is a problem insist on a provisional ballot. Get witnesses. Take pictures. Document--and protest.
They get away with this stuff because of complacency on the part of the voter. If you care, get involved. Otherwise--you're gonna get what you are gonna get. Accept it.
Learn how to stand up for your rights. Then do it!
September 26, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
But voter suppression practices at polling places are not intended to prevent the challengee from voting.
They're intended to delay other voters from casting their ballots, to put sand in the gears, to increase the length of the lines. And once you've got the line out there on the street, you pray for rain.
September 26, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. And the voter can either stand in the rain for 8 hours and fight the bastards with their tiny little vote--or they can surrender and go home and let the black hearted thugs despoil the plant. It up to the little guy.
September 26, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
But from the point of view of the individual voter whose vote counts for nada and who knows it, there isn't much point in standing there rain or no rain.
Voting should not be allowed to devolve into an obstacle course.
September 26, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree.
But if local citizens will not get involved in the machinery of elections in their precints, then they get what they get. Sure, you could press for a Federal law. But after 8 years, their voter suppression is even more developed than ever before.
People seem to expect that Democracy be GIVEN to them on a platter. Democracy is pretty much something you have to fight for, county by county, neighborhood by neighborhood.
Republicans always ran someone for Dog Catcher. It is one of the thing Howard Dean said he wanted to change about the Democrats. Get them organized on the local level.
September 26, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe democrats should make a national issue of voter fraud.
Just raise the awareness so the entire nation is talking about it.
Not accusing anyone--just what has been going on so far.
The idea of stealing an election has become a highly sensitive issue since 2000.
So what if they insinuate that Republicans are desperate enough that they'll do anything to win. The Republicans are making them look like pushovers, fools right now.
September 26, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
tpmgary: Absolutely. Where is our "REMEMBER 2000" or "2000 - NEVER FORGET" get out the vote drives? (I don't live in FLA, but this could be going on there... Would love to hear stories.)
September 26, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Wade Boggs, you better find your way to Florida fast to throw out that first pitch in Wednesday's playoff game. Just please don't ride that horse around the warning track like last time. Not pretty.
Go Minnesota Twins!!!
September 26, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
tk: I got through the Margo Adams crisis, and the "Hall of Fame plaque cap logo controversy", so looking like a nerd on the horse is nothing.
I am Wade Boggs; I have no shame.
GO SOX!!
September 26, 2008 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
We better hope that Obama is ahead by a large enough margin or all those individual 'nadas', as Ellen described them, will determine the outcome. The R's are desparate this year and, as sure as the sun rises in the east, not only will they pull out every dirty trick in their book...they'll make up a few new ones.
September 26, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would be surprised if Republicans are not already negotiating with the Chinese to buy the Chinese clouding seeding technology. Or lease it...for Nov 4th.
September 26, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine,
Obama needs to be ahead by a large number so as to make it more difficult for the Repugs to steal another election.
September 26, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong!!! The press most certainly can stop these illegal voter suppression tactics. No one else has a light big enough and strong enough to shine on these shenanagans. It is the sole responsibility of the press to look into things like this and report them. Only when something is reported is it news and if there are no news accounts of the voter suppression it didn't take place.
Let's stop excusing the press. They hold a unique place in our country, since they are mentioned in the Constitution as a being so important that the government is absolutely prohibitted from interfering with them. They must do their Damn job and do it well.
September 26, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
My problem with 'the press' is that most if not all of them are in business,trying to make money. And Rupert Murdoch has done very well indeed in that business. With very few exceptions, the press is owned by very big capitalist corporations.
I wish there was a way that we could 'make journalists BE journalists'--but most papers don't even keep many, if any investigative journalists on staff, any more--and most investigative journalists are free lance these days. I found out most information on the voter suppression tactics of 2000 and 2004 in the overseas press--especially the British.
The rest of the world reads stories about events taking place in America everyday that Americans never see in their own press reports and don't even know have happened.
September 26, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fighting voter suppression is a battle on all fronts.
I remember back in 2000, having a discussion with a friend - he said there was no difference in the parties and would vote Nader. Minnesota would surely go to Gore so why not vote his conscience? I agreed, but I told him that given the closeness of the polls, wouldn't you want to cast a vote for Gore, just in case? I remember how breezy that conversation was.
Two years later. Liberals are energized. Liberals in Minnesota are energized because it seems that the only person willing to stand up to the Bush-Cheney cartel was Paul Wellstone, and so they poured their hearts and minds into his re-election. Though he was uncharacteristically hesitant about the war resolution, Wellstone did finally call bullshit on it. This position lifted him in the polls. By mid-October it was apparent that he'd defeat Coleman and go back to Washington for his third term and fight the corporatization of government and the careless rush to war. And then his plane went down.
Concerning voter suppression, there was a post a few weeks ago on the TPM splash page / main blog about Obama and the Dems would be taking voter suppression very seriously this cycle (link currently unavailable). We'll see. But there are those of us who, in the back of our minds, will always prepare for things much worse than election tampering. But I feel sure that the forces who wish to "throw sand in the gears" as the previous poster accurately noted, that these forces will be impotent to affect the result this year
And to end on a positive note, I will say I've underestimated Obama at every turn and feel in my gut that, like in 2006, the good guys will prevail
September 26, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink