If Diebold was rigged for Bush then "THEY" also picked Kerry as Opponent

[spooked]

Doesn't it makes sense that they would have rigged the primaries so that they would run against the opponent of their choosing?

They certainly were prepared to do a hatchet job on Kerry concerning the Swift Boats, etc.

Or, do you think the Diebold shenanigans only started on Election Day?

[hippiechick]

1. Um, yep. Look at the Iowa situation.

:)

[Pirate Smile]

13. I went to the Iowa Caucuses. You go sit in a group. Dean supporters

here, Edwards supporters here, Kerry here, undeclared, etc.

There is no diebold or any other machines.

[benddem]

18. can't figure out what you are talking about

I attended the Iowa Caucus. I'll admit it is an incredibly stupid way to pick the nominee for Pres. but the voting is all by individuals in a precinct...by hand.

[OnTheOtherHand]

32. actually, I thought that was hippiechick's point (note the :) ) n/t

[leftchick]

2. I have always thought this

though the flames should begin shortly saying how crazy that is!

[blm]

34. Well, first you'd have to believe a CAUCUS in Iowa used Diebold machines

instead of the normal rules of caucus where your actual BODY has to be in place under your candidate's name.

I wonder why so many of you believed the corporate media that declared Kerry's candidacy dead for months while under-reporting his support on the ground?

The media SUCKERED Dean supporters by over-reporting Dean's ACTUAL support on the ground. That's how they cause extra division in the party. Most Dean supporters were new to activist politics and didn't see it coming.

These people know exactly how to divide the Dem party and have been working at it for decades.

[ck4829]

3. Kerry...

It's definitely a possibility.

My dislike of the Bush Administration and the Far Right causes me not to regret my vote.

But, my logic tells me to think again.

There are so many ties between the two.

Take my State, Ohio, for example.

People said it was surprising that our candidate, Kucinich, lost, and I mean REALLY LOST.

It doesn't add up.

[PatrioticLeftie]

4. How would have they

Gotten Kerry the nomination? Do you suppose the conspiracy goes that far?

[NorCalDem]

6. Same machines used in the primaries as the general election

so it would be easy for Diebold to control who the eventual nomination went to! Not saying it happened, just that the logic is exactly the same.

[LittleClarkie]

20. But are there Republicans in all the areas that would have to be rigged?

They weren't all Republican strongholds were they? Or were the Dems in on the deal?

Who would you suggest they wanted to run against instead, btw.

[NorCalDem]

24. No real rhyme or reason to my remark

just suggesting that anything is possible. I wouldn't be surprised if there was tampering during the primaries, but I'm certainly not accusing anyone in particular or even saying it did happen.

Bottom line is that our elections are tainted, and nothing surprises me anymore!

[NorCalDem]

5. They couldn't possible have a candidate

who was as anti-war as Dean. Even if Diebold didn't kill his nomination, the MSM certainly did (using the "scream" as ammo).

If the Democrats had run a "cut-and-run" anti-war type in '04, Bush would have never stood a chance and it would have made covering up the inevitable election fraud much more difficult!

[spooked]

9. That's a good point

Every election rally I went to was filled with people wanting an end to the war. THAT'S what was exciting the voters. THAT'S what was fueling our chants.

Kerry was not outspoken enough about the war.

[Island Blue]

25. You mean these people?

You're probably right. Diebold probably bused these folks to this rally in Raleigh (in July) so they could stand in 90 degree heat. They don't look very excited afterall.

[spooked]

26. I'm not saying we didn't vote for Kerry's nomination...We Voted for Kerry!

In Fact, the majority voted for KERRY FOR PRESIDENT TOO!

I'm just saying what was to stop them from using Diebold sooner than election day?

[kster]

28. I doubt it for Kerry

but has anyone done research on the Democrats, over the years this is something I'm curious about. If Diebold and ES*S was stacking our side with right leaning Dems it would explain alot. If we have Democrats,Republicans and any Democrat's that where selected by Diebold and ES*S (which we can call Depublicans) It could explain their voting why the Repugs vote 100% together on everything and the Dems seem to be split. :shrug:

[OnTheOtherHand]

33. there were right-wing Dems before those companies existed n/t

[blm]

36. Do you believe that Diebold machines were used for a CAUCUS?

It seems to me that only people who don't understand what the word CAUCUS means would wonder if the votes in Iowa were rigged.

[OnTheOtherHand]

37. in fairness, some folks have doubts about NH (not IA)

See #23.

Jonathan Wand did a rebuttal, which apparently demonstrated that the differences wash out when one controls for other variables -- but the link is broken, and I never read it. I think one would find inter alia that the towns with hand-counted paper ballots -- especially the ones with the most Democrats -- are disproportionately along the Vermont border, where one might expect Dean to have an advantage over Kerry. See the map on p. 30 of Wand's co-authored paper on the NH general,

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~herron/nh.pdf

(EDIT: fixed punctuation)

[blm]

39. Except Kerry was always expected to win NH. Did you believe the corporate

media that throughout the primary had over-reported Dean's support on the ground while under-reporting Kerry's?

[OnTheOtherHand]

41. if you're asking whether I believe that the NH primary was hacked...

no, I don't. As I pointed out, there is at least a statistical argument for that view, but it probably doesn't hold up -- although I can't vouch for the rebuttal, not having read it.

The argument is actually about whether Kerry's winning margin in NH was pumped up, not whether he would have won at all. But I see no evidence that it was pumped up, either, so I think you and I are in agreement on this.

As to whether the media deliberately overstated Dean's support on the ground to sucker Dean supporters, frankly I don't believe that either. Dean was an interesting story, and campaign reporters like interesting stories. Dean led in the polls for a long time.

[TheWraith]

21. Dean's campaign self-destructed.

Yes, the "scream" was overplayed, but it was an incredibly stupid thing to do in the first place. The media looks for a story, and when you lob them a huge fucking meatball like that one, you've got to expect that they're going to chew on it for awhile.o Dean's campaign really had almost no idea how to operate in the real world, and made a bunch of critical errors that led to the defeat in Iowa. After that, it was practically over.

The Republicans were going to smear whoever ran against them. Dean would have gotten tagged with no military service, civil unions, no foreign policy, north-eastern liberal elite, yak, yak, yak.

[blm]

40. The media used that scream to cover for their own bogus reporting in the

primaries where they over-hyped Dean's ground support while under-reporting Kerry's.

[blm]

38. Actually, Dean was for the Biden-Lugar version of IWR which he would have

been clobbered with by the GOP as it wasn't SIGNIFICANTLY different from the IWR that passed. Gephardt finally brought it up at the last debate before Iowa and Dean didn't have an answer and tried to change the subject by raising a newspaper headline....people forget that towards the end of the debate schedule, Dean had some fumbles.

Everything after Iowa, however, was pure media piling on that no candidate deserved. I believe the media piled on Dean as if HE was the one who imploded in their effort to distract from their bogus reporting throughout the primaries where they under-reported Kerry's ground support in favor of over-hyping Dean's support.

[Proud_Lefty]

7. Sometimes the whole thing looks orchestrated

Howard Dean was so far ahead in the polls, and his losing in Iowa seemed odd, and then the media playing that dirty trick with their audio system seemed downright dirty. I appreciated Kerry's position over Bush and supported him fully and I prefer not to rehash, but something was seriously wrong. Since then, I've learned most elections are far from the up and up.

We need to go back to paper ballots and get corporate money out of elections for good. How to do that is a whole 'nother story.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Somewhere around Iowa, Kerry was picked. The DLC or someone

took over. The competition seemed to have ended. I have had a suspicion building that it is all ordained and is not a demonstration of the little people picking their representative. I think there is a fraud of a huge kind that we face, not just by Diebold or Chuck Hagel's company. Pre-ordained. I don't know how it is done. It is very depressing to think about.

[spooked]

11. I agree. It did seem pre-ordained

The one thing that always bothered me was that Bush and Kerry were both Skull and Bones.

[Nite Owl]

12. The Dems may have nothing at all

to do with the choice it might have been totally controlled by the repukes to pick the candidate that they could campaign best against.

[mzmolly]

10. Why would they need to choose if things were rigged?

The polls did show Kerry pulling ahead toward the end. Zogby pretty much nailed the end primary results.

[spooked]

14. Maybe they are rigged in certain states that pull more weight early on

who knows?

I do imagine Karl Rove orchestrating the primaries if given the ability to do so.

[mzmolly]

17. I don't doubt they would. I just think the polls in this case matched

the end result.

I agree with the poster who said they took Dean out via the media however.

[CoffeeCat]

15. I do know this...

...the Reps were chomping at the bit to run against Kerry.

They feared Howard Dean.

They wanted the election to be about Bush-as-terrorist-savior. They needed to run on 9/11 and tie in Iraq. With Kerry as their opponent, they could smear his war-protesting and bring on the Swifties.

On the other hand, they feared Dean's anti-war stance--because they lacked dirt on Dean. Dean was a clean-cut, straight shooter who never "voted for the war before he voted against it." He could make cogent arguments and make Bush look like the boy-child that he is.

Dean also lacked a longstanding voting record, like Kerry did. Kerry voted for thousands of bills during his career--and they could show "flip flops" and showcase x number of times he voted to raise taxes.

I really don't know what happened in the primaries.

I showed up to the Iowa caucuses--prepared to vote for Dean, with the rest of the majority. I as frickin shocked to find that myself and my husband were the ONLY Dean supporters at our precinct caucus (about 100 people). Everyone else was for Kerry and Edwards. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I checked with other precinct captains and Dean supporters and they all reported the same thing. We were all shocked as hell.

Also----it's obvious that the Republican party is again chomping at the bit to run against a certain Dem--Hillary. They've practically coronated her all ready. I hope to God we don't fall for this again. They've probably got a few new scandals up their sleazy sleeves, as well as plans to regurgitate some old ones.

[TayTay]

16. Sure, I'm part of the conspiracy

I've been giving Kerry money for years, making him investigate Repukes and stuff just so that at the right moment, bam, he could get all the Iowans to gaze into his magic crytsal ball and stand or sit in the right part of the caucus hall. I am so proud of 'Operation Stand and Sulk.' He he he he he!

Don't forget, MIT and all their weird research programs are in his home state. Psst. pass it on.

[TheWraith]

19. Nonsense.

The risk of exposure in that sort of tampering would be so great that it could only be used sparingly, as a last resort to prevent Bush from being spanked in a close election.

Further nonsense is the idea that the Republicans "feared" Howard Dean. I'd have thought that the speed with which his campaign disintegrated after Iowa would have put to rest any idea that Dean was somehow unbeatable, but some people are bound and determined to cry conspiracy. If you think that Diebold rigged the primary in favor of Kerry, do you also believe that they rigged all the public opinion polls as well? Not to mention the added difficulty of rigging a caucus. Do you believe that Diebold also rigged all the primaries' exit polls?

[whometense]

22. Kerry's win in Iowa

came as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has followed his career for any length of time at all. He has throughout his career (which I have personally followed since 1971) been underestimated by pundits. He has throughout his career done better with blue-collar voters than with the "cultural elites". He has throughout his career been trashed by his hometown newspapers, but warmly appreciated by the people he serves.

If you think there was a single major democrat on whom the repukes did not have a dossier about six inches thick then you know nothing about how those people operate. They are scared to death of Kerry because he investigated BCCI and Iran-Contra, he knows where the bodies are buried and who buried them, and he can't be bought.

[spooked]

23. Check out these numbers from the New Hampshire primary

"It's been all downhill for Howard Dean since he lost the New
Hampshire primary by a significant margin. But, now questions are
being raised about the security of New Hampshire's voting system in
the wake of a recent analysis of the election results. It could add
up to nothing, but it does underscore how easily technology can be
used to sabotage the voting process...

Recently some people have been asking if the 2004 New Hampshire
primary was rigged.

Martin Bento published online an interesting analysis of New
Hampshire's election results based on the voting systems used.* It's
been getting a lot of attention. According to Bento, Howard Dean lost
to John Kerry by only 1.6% when the ballots were hand-counted, 9.7%
when ES&S optical scanners were used, and 14.7% on Diebold scanners."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/021104Landes/021104landes.html

[Hippo_Tron]

29. So if NH is now rigged, how did Kerry win it in the general?

[Mass]

27. LOL

What a comic you are!

[Hippo_Tron]

30. If everybody's theory that they rig the elections anyway is true

Then why would they bother with the Dem primaries? If they had the ability to rig any election by any margin (which is what some people here claim), then why bother picking the dem nominee?

[tx_dem41]

31. If anyone ever asks....this is the thread where DU ....

jumped the shark (if it happens).

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. ROTF! but actually, this is a pretty good thread

Someone offered a... somewhat vague theory, hippiechick knocked a hole in it within 2 minutes, and maybe half a dozen folks have joined in. At the same time, some actual political content has been discussed.

If ERD could always get half a dozen folks to knock holes in weak theories within a few hours -- AND engage in substantive discussion to boot -- I would be thrilled. Not that there isn't plenty of substance here.

[spooked]

42. Oh please...

Well then, perhaps this will be the week that living under the Bush* Administration finally caused me to lose my sanity...

[NoBushSpokenHere]

43. Next time we HAVE to HAVE a candidate that will STAND UP

We know that Al Gore will stand up for us, it has been proven. It is yet to be proven that John Kerry will. I have heard, read and believed numerous theories of where our candidate was from Nov 2nd to present.

I would like to believe that he has been working behind the scenes and that there is a plan. Time will tell, always does.

Until then, I am resting on hopes that Al Gore will run in 2008, but above all, I am focusing all my energy into our attempts to place safeguards into future elections, including returning to voter-verified paper ballots.

Also in the meantime, I am compiling a special list of Dems who are working toward fair elections. Those in power who are not contributing to the cause are on a different list. This list will receive NO campaign money from me, and I might even utilize some energy to campaign against them.

We need those who walk the walk and talk the talk, not those who are hiding in the shadows hoping corporations stay in control of the elections.

[Cocoa]

44. speaking of seventhson

does everyone know he turned out to be a troll that actually posted some anti-Kerry article from Jeff Gannon here to DU, way before anyone ever heard of Gannon?