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"I disagree. I think that the Gallup poll as well as Will Pitt's assertion that the email and letter campaign to Congress is having an effect is evidence that there are significant numbers of people that do not feel the last election was fairly held. I also think that number has been growing since 11/3/04."
Asking the generic question, "do you think XXXX candidate won the election fairly" of the losing side may well always produce a high number of partisans to say no. If Bush had lost I'd bet you'd see a similiar number of Republicans also telling pollsters they believe they were cheated. A Gallop poll that shows 30% of Democratic voters, or other numbers that I saw indicating 19% of the electorate as a whole, believe the election wasn't fair simply doesn't necessarily mean all that much in a bitterly fought election with high voter turnout.
Sure, letter writing and email campaigns do make some difference, but it should be pretty clear that this is not an issue the vast majority of elected Democratic officials want anything to do with. The reason? They understand clearly how the system works, know very well that elections have always been messy, have not seen any actual evidence of this vote fraud conspiracy presented to them by credible pollsters or Democratic strategists, analysts and operatives, and otherwise believe that Bush did indeed win. If enough people contact their elected officials and organizations that represent them in one way or another, some will pay this issue lip service - others will demogogue the issue to try to establish a constituency or a base for fundraising opportunities. The single best organization to know whether Kerry was really cheated on some massive scale is the Kerry campaign. They have actual professionals who understand voting issues inside and out, and it is pretty clear by Kerry's concession, and lack of comments on the issue from November 3rd on, that they believe Bush won Ohio and enough states elsewhere to win the Presidency.
"I would say that serious is as serious does. I will grant you that Conyers would be taken more seriously if the Democrats controlled Congress but, alas, that is not the case. As I am sure you know, he is not the only Representative that has expressed concern. I think the point you make about bomb throwing from a safe district is EXACTLY what the Democrats need to cultivate as a remedy for the last four years of wishy-washy, milquetoast responses and retreats. Democrats need to realize that their belief in always trying to compromise is what has been killing them."
You allow your bombthrowers to eat up too much of your party or organizations share of the media spotlight, and your gonna get burned. The country is in the middle, it is not far left or far right. DU is not representative of the nation as a whole, not even close. The same is true of conservative forums. If the Democratic party becomes tagged as the party of John Conyers and the often far out the mainstream views he represents and positions he takes, we may well lose for generations. That is not to say that Conyers views are necessarily wrong, just that public opinion in the nation moves slowly and being identified with radical ideas the country is not ready for yet is almost always a loser. Elected officials and politicians of every stripe, in the USA and elsewhere, almost always hide to some degree their real views and goals. That is because successful politicians, movements and partys recognize that you can not push too hard too fast under most circumstances. I know that is not a popular thing to say here on this forum, but it is generally the truth. In my view, progressives are winning - yet often, because the evolutions of our society (and indeed all Western democracies) moves slowly, some just don't recognize it.
"If I were whispering in his ear, I would whisper 'HILLARY' and then I would ask him again if he wants to spend a little more time untangling this last election."
Good point, but again, Kerry has zero chance now to attain the brass ring. None, nada, zilch - it just ain't gonna happen. If Kerry still entertains thoughts of becoming President, it is going to have to be in 08' or beyond. He can throw in with the conspiracy crowd, who have a sack of nothing for evidence he was cheated, or he can placade this group as best he can without looking insane to the majority of the electorate in the United States. Hillary looks strong now but, as you point out previously, anything can happen. Dean looked ready to grab the nomination too, but he failed miserably in Iowa and NH, and his balloon was nearly deflated overnight.
"I will not deny that both sides have engaged in all manner of chicanery in regard to elections in the past and currently, but I think that because of the introduction of electronic voting, there has been a fundamental shift in the ability to affect fraud on a level we have never faced before in America. That shift added to the 'vapor ballot' problem really does present us with a new paradigm in regard to elections and fraud."
Agreed. But the conspiracy crowd is not just screaming about electronic voting, they are complaining about punch cards and just about everything else. Every minor gaffe, mistake, error or unexplained event in the voting process is trumped into some sort of smoking gun proof of a massive GOP conspiracy to steal the election. Often times the results are laughable. These sorts of things have always happened in the voting process, the difference now being the attention paid to them. There is no doubt that our election process has always been messy, with each state deciding how it will run elections, and cleaning it up and making it transparent is a worthy goal. But the fact that we have messy elections that thousands of people are just now noticing, does not mean a giant electoral fraud has occured. Infact, there is simply no evidence of such a thing. As to the electronic voting machines allowing for massive vote stealing and fraud, I agree with you entirely, and the issue needs to be addressed. Saying that, screaming 'fraud', 'fraud', 'fraud', when no actual evidence of fraud exists is irresponsible, counterproductive, distracting and at some point becomes damaging to our own political cause.
"I strongly disagree with that view of the media as it is today. I think that one need only look at the fact that almost 50% of Americans STILL think Saddam ordered 9/11. That does not happen by accident. A hundred or so million people did not spontaneously have that idea pop into their head. The mainstream media did that and it wasn't by accident. I will go even further and state that the mainstream media is now so corrupted that if there were even a small percentage of them that reported the news over the last few years honestly and accurately, Shrub would have been impeached. If there is one issue that I place on even par with the vote fraud issue, it is that the Democrats HAVE TO change the playing field in regard to the media. I think the 'Buy Blue' campaign is the most promising and unique effort in that regard and I fully support it. We must make corporations accountable for backing BushCo. and for using their lobbying clout to buy politicians and write legislation that harms us all. No, I could not disagree with you more on this point"
I'm not sure I've seen reliable polling that shows 50% of Americans think Saddam ordered 9-11. I've seen numbers close to yours that show Americans still believe Saddam had WMD's, or that Saddam and alQueda are linked, but not that Hussein ordered 9-11. Either way, this is probably much more a function of 3 US administrations painting Saddam as evil incarnate, and Saddam certainly gave plenty of credibility to that by many of his actions. Bill Clinton's administration routinely said Saddam had WMD's and bombed him now again for good measure. You can't undue 12+ years of the population believing Saddam was one of America's chief enemies in a few months or years. Once people are convinced of something, it becomes a difficult thing to reverse. I am sure your aware of this.
You say had the news been reported honestly and accurately Bush would be impeached. The problem is what is honestly and accurately? This gets into worldview, and as I said the mainstream media's world view tends to be economically center right, and socially center left. The MSM is a product of our society, and as I've pointed out, our society is largely in the center and left and rightwing forums are simply outside of that. Here is an example - if all you read was DU - which while Bush is President functions as an opposition website, you'd believe the US economy was in the crapper, and many wonder why that isn't being reported honestly and accurately. The problem, with history as a guide, the US economy isn't doing that bad, and claiming America is practically in a depression just isn't going to be viewed as truthful by a majority of Americans, yet that is viewed as truthful here because A) we do face serious economic pitfalls and B) the worldview here is different than that in mainstream America and in the MSM. Another example, Afghanistan - my recollection is that a majority on DU (to include Will Pitt) opposed the US action in that nation, and ofcourse routinely cried foul when the MSM did not report each failure, case of civilian deaths, or setback. So was the MSM not reporting honestly and accurately? From the perspective of many or most forum members here at that time I would say yes. However, the vast majority of Americans approved of and supported that operation and would consider of primary interested news of American success and a downplaying of failure so long as the overall operation looked to be a winning venture. At the end of the day, it does appear that at least in the short term, the US has achieved some measure of success in Afghanistan, yet if all you read was DU's focus on US and its coalition's failures you'd have been convinced that the Taliban and alQueda were winning. The same thing occured in the arab media, had you watched arab media exclusively during the actual invasion of Iraq, you might have believed the Iraqi's were defeating the US, but nothing could have been further from the truth - and as a result millions of arab people were quite shocked when the US entered and seized Baghdad just 3 weeks into the fighting.
"I will agree that Democrats need to conduct a review of the Kerry campaign and I would suggest that they start by getting rid of several of 'elite' advisors that urged Kerry to back off of the Swift Boat issue initially. I think that the left is more than capable of pursuing the vote fraud issues while at the same time doing a post mortem on the last election. I will also add that for any meaningful debate to take place about mistakes that were made, the voting data needs to be analyzed and that takes time. We aren't now in a position to confidently chart a course until we have a better handle on what actually happened. I, for one, have a very hard time believing that Bush was able to get 9 million evangelical Christians to come out of their caves and vote for the first time."
The problem was that Bush didn't just get new evangelical Christians out voting for him, he also won and did significantly better in other demographic groups when compared to 2000. Women voters are but one example of where Bush made big gains. Gore won this group handily, Kerry barely won. Another, Bush got something like 39%-40% of Hispanic voters (not the 44% originally tossed around originally by the media) which was a marked improvement over 2000 for him and is a danger area for the Democratic Party. Bush did not win only on the backs of evangelicals, and the evidence is clear Kerry failed to hold onto the lead in voting groups that Gore did in 2000. Which brings me to my point, it is far more important to figure out what we actually did wrong in 2004 than to sit around bemoaning voting conspiracies which we have no actual proof of.
"I appreciate your thoughts and you make some valid points. Cheers!"
Indeed. Your points are well thought, and it has been a good discussion.
Imajika
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