On Behalf of All Californians…

I’d like to apologize for the grandstanding, stupid, empty, symbolic, and counterproductive gesture by our junior Senator, Barbara Boxer.

Signing up to challenge the Electoral Vote count today is the kind of thing that will definitely send fear coursing through the boots of the Republicans who aren’t laughing themselves to death and editing together video to use against Democrats in the next election.

Way to go, Senator!!

65 thoughts on “On Behalf of All Californians…”

  1. I’m still not sure what it’ll take to vote out Boxer & Waxman. I’ve been voting against Waxman for 16 years, and he has yet not beat my vote.

  2. Correct. I suspect that tape will get a lot of play in Ohio, a state almost always in play in national elections.

  3. Barbara Boxer is on the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, tasked with “raising money, enlisting candidates and developing strategy for 2006.”

    She works fast, doesn’t she? This has to be the quickest strategic decision since Custer yelled “Charge!” at Little Big Horn.

  4. Did YOU wait 9 hours to vote in downtown Cincinatti?

    Oh, you didn’t?

    Ok then, well maybe she’s got a point.

    I wish white guys would stop complaining
    about how their way of life is being
    infringed upon. Poor Bill O’Reilly!

    sheesh!

  5. Folks:

    Don’t you see that she is challenging the results for a better reason than overturning the results. We all know that Bush won. And this is a Dean person telling you that.

    She is objecting for the sole purpose of reforming our electoral system. We have 50 election standards in this country. HAVA did nothing to fix that. In an election for President, all voters should be voting the same way, preferably on bubble-sheets. PERIOD. Then we don’t have this stupid bullshit of elderly voters making mistakes because they didn’t understand the ballot, or where to vote for candidate X. That way, when any election is contested, we can easily hand count the vote to ensure that EVERY vote is counted. (who doesn’t know how to fill in a bubble?)

    Sound fair to you?

  6. As another denizen of the land of fruits, nuts, and flakes, let me join in A.L.’s apology for the antics of the junior senator, who apparently can’t grasp the concepts of ‘move on’ and ‘when in a hole, stop digging.’ Between this disgrace and the Gonzales hearings, I’m sure Mr. Rove is rubbing his hands with ill-disguised glee. I would really like a healthy two party system – can you Ds get onto that?

    In better news, it looks from the Governator’s State of the State speech that he’s willing to go to the mat with the California public employees unions and other special interests, including the legislators who draw up their own gerrymandered safe districts. I might just have to rethink my inherent conservatism when it comes to Constitutional amendments, if he keeps this up.

  7. On behalf of all Californians, I’d like to rescind this apology.

    There’s a reason she swamped the Republican opposition, and it’s because she hits the nail on the frigging head.

    Multiple precincts in one polling place? You’ve got to be kidding me. Go to the wrong table, you’re not on the list, you use a provisional ballot and it’s not counted cuz even tho you went to the RIGHT polling place, you went to the WRONG TABLE!!!

    This is just plain egregious and deserves to be debated for 2 f’ing hours, for Chrissakes.

    What a whiner!

  8. Oh, and while I’m at it, our beloved Governator sures knows a special interest from a hole in the ground.

    Special interests, to those of you who do not live in our fair state, are nurses. Special interests are not HMOs and insurance companies.

    You see, if you have enough money and the inclination to give to AHHHnold, QED you’re not a special interest! You’re a good citizen!

  9. Wellstoner,

    Are the elected officials in Cinci Republican or Democrat?

    If they are Democrat then your problem is with the local Democrats not the Federal government. The Home page of the City Council doesn’t give party affiliations but they look to me to have a Democrat majority from my reading of the bios.

    You see us Jewish white boys know how it works. – Democrats screw the pooch and blame it on the Republicans. You can only play that game for so long before people notice.

    Here is my read:

    Tarbell – Republican
    Smitherman – possibly Republican
    Pepper – Democrat
    Malone – Republican
    Crowley – Democrat
    Cranley – Democrat
    Cole – Democrat
    Reece – Democrat
    Luken – the Mayor – possibly Democrat

    “Cincinnati Government”:http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/index.html

  10. Ryno: “We all know that Bush won.”

    I’d have to disagree with that, just from listening to a few callers on CSPAN. A “Neocon Cabal” (How many times have you heard that phrase?) stole Ohio, this is the second time in a row the election was stolen, blah blah blah.

    As ye sow, so shall ye reap. This is the fruit of a lot of irresponsible talk, which has poisoned the democratic faith of God Only Knows how many millions of Americans. As a result, they effectively disenfranchise themselves, and look with contempt on a public process that they’ve been told is rigged. Don’t count on their votes in future, because they’re just fodder for radicals and “Third Party” losers now. Strangers in the country that is supposed to belong to them. Nice job.

    All the bogus and hypocritical talk about “what we really want is reform” won’t repair one bit of the damage. That can’t be stressed enough. You can’t tell people that they’ve been playing Three Card Monte and then change your tune to “Let’s make it fair next time”.

    It took Republicans many, many years to get over the conspiracy-thinking poison that was spread around in the 50s, and most of that was relatively mild compared to this. It did not attack the constitutional and electoral process itself.

    You can’t make a new world every day by changing your rhetoric. Words and ideas have consequences – in this case, long term cancerous consequences.

  11. ” She is objecting for the sole purpose of reforming our electoral system.”

    Ryno,

    It is an ineffective way to do this and is harmful to the Democratic party.

    ” Sound fair to you?”

    No, it sounds simplistic since it fails to consider cultural and geographic differences but more importantly it erodes self-rule. Elections are not single purpose events. The president isn’t the only issue being decided. Local decisions are made at the same time and so ballots vary from place to place.

    The enlightened way is to evaluate election processes for fairness rather than attempt to dictate them and force conformance to a single process. That’s the democratic way, something that we should defend rather than erode.

  12. Special interests, of course, do not include prison guards unions, teachers unions, and holders of guaranteed, taxpayer funded state pensions, at least in your world. This is all going to end up on the CA ballot. I can hardly wait.

    We DO need some federally defined elections standards, but today’s travesty is not the way for a serious party to get there. It looks like – and is – politicized grandstanding and sore loser kvetching. This could have been a consensus, centrist issue with support across the aisle, but noooooo…. gotta be self-righteous and play to the left wing core. Stop being so predictable that the Rs can entice you straight into the minefield every freakin’ time, how about?

    The reason Boxer has won is not her quality, but the unfailing ability of the California R’s to nominate unelectable trogolodytes. Maybe if Ahnuld gets effective control of the party, we can have a real race and retire her sorry a**.

  13. My (unscientific) take on all this from reading the papers:

    the majority of the places with no paper ballot voting machines are run by Democrats.

    My city is run by Democrats – but they are smart – paper ballots, electronic counting.

  14. Ryno: “who doesn’t know how to fill in a bubble?”

    Plenty of people here in King County, WA…why, in the second revote, some of those poor, overworked canvassers had to magic-marker over existing, insufficient marks to make sure they “counted every vote”. “Go here to learn more.”:http://www.soundpolitics.com

    Every bit of noise the Dems make about Ohio will rebound REALLY hard here in WA, the State Without A Governer. If they’re going to scream about >100,000 votes, they have no grounds whatsoever stating that 129 votes constitutes a “clear win” in a state-level election.

    Go Boxer Go!

  15. It’s the Democrat’s way: keep counting the votes over and over till you win.

    A bit like an earlier leader put it: it’s not so much how people vote that matters, it’s how the votes are counted.

    (He actually said something like “who counts the votes”, but the principle is exactly the same.)

  16. While we are apologizing, I would like to extend my apology for the 30 years Jesse Helms blighted the senate. And I also would like to apologize for Barbara Dole. I think that even a ‘winger can see that she is useless.

  17. What does the party affiliation of the Cinnicinati city government have to do with any of this?

    We need to discuss a Federal law that prohibits the Secrety of State – in any state – from being a campaign manager for anyone seeking office – it appears to be a conflict of interest, whether it is or not. If the RNC hadn’t created Ohio’s Blackwell situation or Florida’s Katherine Harris situation then it couldn’t be criticised…

    The referee shouldn’t be the coach – of either team.

    I don’t think that is too much to ask.

  18. There was a blurb on Drudge, that after Kerry, she received the most votes of all Democrats in the last election.

    Scary.

  19. Here in Canada, federal elections are federal operations. Pronvincial elections are provincial operations. This seems blindingly obvious to us.

    There is ONE federal voting system, under Elections Canada. There is ONE structure for ballots. There are always paper ballots. (IMO, there always should be – even if they’re just print-outs from the electronic machine noting your vote.)

    Sorry, back40. I’m not big on a lot of the stuff that goes on up here in Canada, bit we sure have you guys beat seven ways to Sunday when it comes to running national elections in a sane manner.

    Having said that, perhaps the Junior Senator from California would like some cheese to go with all that whine… what an idiotic way to conduct oneself, and “GW sure has a point”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006123.php#c10 about taking care what seeds one sows.

    If the Democratic Party cannot reform itself (and I’m not sure it can), then stuff like this that makes it easier for America’s GOP to crush them at the national level is probably the next best thing.

  20. I’m quite proud of Senator Boxer, thank you very much. That took some balls.

    And if you’re happy with the outcome of the election, and that fiasco of Gonzales the torturer nominated as AG, then I’m sad for you. I guess I’ll be leaving this site now. No need to read more of this kind of crap.

  21. There is a reason there are 50 election standards in this country. Because that is how it is provided for in the U.S. Constitution. Individual states have the right and responsibility for setting up their own election processes. The process, the machines, the ballots are all determined at the state level and through state constitutions, which probably then delegate down to local levels. States can’t set up a system that directly conflicts with the U.S. Constitution (such as putting the elected position out to bid on E-Bay).

    What I find rather interesting and amusing is that all the talk about getting rid of the Electoral College after 2000 kind of died down. Because what would have happened if we had gotten rid of it, yet Kerry had won Ohio? Bush would still be President.

  22. Poor Joe. Losing a poster, because he allows the 1st Amendment to be active on his site. 🙁
    Ah well, we all know the standard of the democraps.
    What’s good for the Goose, is certainly NOT good for the gander! Doublestandards and all that. 🙂
    They’re just so insanely upset over the fact they’re not at the helm anymore. Poor babies.

    It would make a good comedy if it weren’t for the travesty it will cause in the future. The voting system is now so compromised through propaganda it may never be repaired. It’s all a part of the plan to do away with the electoral college so the less inhabited areas will no longer have a chance at true representation. You know like conservative areas?
    The socialists are already licking their fangs.

  23. And, Ivy – I think that having a thousand different voting systems in the country is actually a GOOD thing. Fraud in a homogenous system is a lot easier to carry off with a small group than it would be in a system with 500 different systems.

    And Donna – your (& Sen. Boxer’s) petulant foot-stamping are exactly what we Democrats need to succed in ’06…not.

    A.L.

  24. “Multiple precincts in one polling place? You’ve got to be kidding me. Go to the wrong table, you’re not on the list, you use a provisional ballot and it’s not counted cuz even tho you went to the RIGHT polling place, you went to the WRONG TABLE!!!”

    You’ve obviously never had to work in an election process. Or been dealing with all those little, messy behind the scenes type details that come up leading up to election day – or even on election day.

    I have – and not just in November, 2004 (that was my 16th election). There’s a reason there’s multiple precincts at one location – happens all over. Did it ever cross over your though process (and I’m making a big assumption there) that it’s damned hard to get precinct locations where they will let you in effect take over a large area (not to mention a high volume of in/out vehicle traffic) from say, 5:30 AM to 7 PM (minimum) on election day -and- allow you to deliver/store election materials at the site a couple of days prior to the election.

    We are always begging & pleading with the schools, townships & local tax districts (like fire protection districts), and your VFW, American Legion, etc. to give us room. And it’s getting harder and harder. We actually lost 3 grade schools as voting locations for November, 2004 due to “security concerns”. Result was that in 2 cases we had to combine precincts (1 location ended up with 3 different precincts). That’s the way it goes.

    And (at least here), you have to have all your precinct locations established (set in stone) & published in local newspapers 45 days in advance of the election. Not to mention the voter cards that have to be printed & sent out to the registered voters in each precinct, telling them where they vote.

    Don’t even get me started on getting qualified precinct election workers…..

    We switched from punch cards to optical scan this time around, and try moving those big damned “box” style scanner units around to the different precincts. And, btw, those things are EXPENSIVE. Touch screens are worse.

    You put all those factors together – well, that’s why there are multiple precincts voting at single locations. And all this fancy technology is actually forcing more precincts to vote at single locations – it’s all about costs.

    And “provisional ballots” – BLEH!!!

  25. “Here in Canada, federal elections are federal operations. Pronvincial elections are provincial operations. This seems blindingly obvious to us.”

    Blindness is a problem sometimes.

    In America federal elections are state elections. State congressmen and senators are elected to serve in the federal government. State electors are selected to serve in the electoral college. Legislators make federal laws and electoral college members elect presidents.

    This is central to the design of the republic, to thwart the tyranny of the majority by making geography count as well as population so that small but populous states can’t dominate the federal government and in effect treat the less populous states as colonies. It has worked some though there is still a lot of tyranny.

    The encroachment of the federal government on the intimate behaviors of states is a flash point of conflict. It used to be that only the red staters complained but some of the smarter blue staters have seen the light now that they are in the minority.

    In Europe there is a similar debate as they grapple with the ineffectiveness of central government and the need for subsidarity. As a collection of comparitively small nations it was less obvious that this was an issue, but the advent of the EU consitutional debates has enlightened many Euopeans too.

    Things that work OK for little, homegenous states in isolation don’t always work for large heterogeneous unions. Simplistic approaches based on uniformity assure maximum disatisfaction and poor governance.

    In the US, if the Republicans continue to increase their dominance as they have for the past couple of decades, we will see more born again Democrats who finally grasp what subsidairty is about, and far fewer calls for federal interference in state issues. In the beginning the requirement for joining the union was a republican form of state government. They were smart enough at that time to require states to haul their own ashes.

  26. Regarding the reform suggestions –

    Joe is right about more standardization of procedures – a good idea in its own right, but it will make absolutely no difference to the current debate. They made a fuss over paper ballots in 2000, now they fuss over the machines. There is no system that will satisfy them if the results show that they lost.

    However, there is no way to separate the authority of state officials from the conduct of elections, and there is no way to separate state officials from politics. Every state in every election has its totals certified by a state official, who is either a Republican or a Democrat and who is probably active in the national party – almost certainly a delegate to the national convention, for example. So freaking what. They certify results, they don’t get to make them up. Changing this would likewise make no difference – if it wasn’t the Ohio secretary of state who “stole” the election, it will be Republicans at the FEC, the voting machine manufacturers, or the Likud Party.

    Even if these things needed to be remedied (even if they could be remedied) it would still make no difference. There would still be all the anecdotal evidence – really lousy anecdotal evidence, at that – about roadblocks and people not voting because the lines were too long. So long a one such individual complaint is said to exist, everyone else’s vote is denied recognition.

    All of which is beside the point anyway, because Boxer & Co. don’t have the slightest interest in reform. Prior to the election, they were calling concerns about poll security and bogus registrations an attempt to suppress the minority vote. They want to cash in on the resentment and “energize their base”, though as I said before, they are actually demoralizing their base.

    I guy I felt sorry for today was Barack “Rising Star” Obama. Practically his first day in the Senate, and he has to rise above the stink made by Boxer and Conyers. He has to incur the wrath of the malcontents by stating the obvious truth that George Bush won Ohio and won the election. Like I said – nice job, and I hope the people responsible for this are proud of themselves.

  27. Seconding what Art said above, I’ve been working as an election judge for 18 years now (probably 30 or more elections) in several different locations and I’ve never worked in a polling place with fewer than 3 precincts. It’s a source of some confusion but we deal with these things as best we can. In the residential neighborhood in which I’ve been working for quite a few years there’s simply no other suitable location.

    What gripes me is the implication of some kind of adversarial relationship between voters and election workers. Our objective as friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens, Cal Gal, is to ensure that every voter has the maximum opportunity to make their opinions count as accurately as possible in as pleasant a manner as possible. We’re there to help. We demonstrate and assist as much as the law allows.

  28. Well, this sinks Boxer I think, next election cycle.

    She used to make some smart moves, after 9/11 she injected some common sense by voting for Pilots to be armed in the cockpits, provided they had approved training and background checks. Something, btw, the Bush Administration opposed for PC grounds.

    Now, it seems she’s captive of the Michael Moore, paranoid, and anti-American wing of the Party. For those who don’t know, Moore made fun of the Flight 93 passengers, called the beheading terrorists “minutemen” and said they will win, and noted on 9/12 that America “deserved” to be attacked.

    It’s bad for America and bad for the Party for any Senator to descend to this lunacy, which is all this is. Remember Patty Murray “Osama builds daycare centers, that’s why Muslims hate us?”

    Boxer is just cementing the Party into Lunatic, DU/Dean/MoveOn/Moore fringes as not a serious party that can be trusted with much of anything.

    A pity since Bush needs watching on many fronts.

  29. Thank you A.L. for apologizing, but you have to give the current set of Democrats credit for knowing how to march to beat of the same drummer. It is amazing that the Republicans have a majority in both houses of congress and don’t know what to do with it.

    The real question is what poor state will end up in the media cross hairs four years from now? Barbara Boxer and all of the legions of Democratic vote monitors don’t give one iota about voters’ rights. They simply want a controversy so they can deny that Bush is a ‘legitimate’ president.

    We are in the midst of a global war(Iraq and Afghanistan are merely battles) and we can’t even play nice during a domestic election. It is a wonder that America has survived this long. In fact, I am just waiting for France and Mexico to sue for the return of the lands that they sold us. I guarantee that there would be several judges who would be more than happy to rule in their favor.

  30. Boxer’s antics just point out the intellectual bankruptcy of the Dems … she’s not stupid and has made some decent moves before, but …

    There’s no consistent framework or alternative offered by the Democrats in opposition to Bush’s policies; just reflexive divisiveness. Thus, despite Bush’s great and glaring weakness (ad hoc seat of the pants policy in EVERY respect) Democrats continue to lose, over and over again.

    There is no there there.

  31. If only Arnold would have extended himself just a bit we would have been rid of Senator Boxer. He could have introduced Bill Jones to the world. It’s a fact that I searched and researched trying to find the friggin name of the Republican candidate running against Boxer. Started the day after the recall election.
    No paper in California is going to print a Republicans name before an upcoming election, thats a given. But for crying out loud you would expect Bill Jones (I guess John Doe was busy) to at least be listed on the Republican Party of California’s website.
    The chairman of the California Republican Party should be shot for criminal incompetence.

  32. Go BB! That’s the way to represent constituents!

    Clearly, Bush won the election – that wasn’t the point. It’s nice that someone decides to use their forum to point out that 14 hour lines are completely unacceptable…

    Take your “right-think” and go home with that stuff. For a liberal, you sure like to criticize what others liberals say.

  33. I, too, salute Barbara Boxer.

    M. Simon: as I understand it, Cincinnati is part, but not all, of one county. The city government may well be majority-Democrat, but as I understand it the county government, which would be responsible for the election, is Republican. A sense of the irregularities can be found in excerpts of Boxer’s letter, of which this a sample here.

    The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters… in Franklin County, 27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush… six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry

    I am at a loss to imagine how Republicans can be so convinced that they were swindled in Washington State where the Secretary of State is himself a Republican but convinced that the election in Ohio was honest where the Secretary of State is (like Katherine Harris in 2000) the chair of the state Bush/Cheney campaign. I can’t imagine what sort of unsubstantiated conspiracy-mongering we’d be treated to if the top Washington election official was the chair of the Gregoire campaign.

    Incidentally, if you think Boxer is in trouble for her re-election, you should review how she did this time.

  34. Congress Certifies Bush’s Win After Protest:

    Tubbs-Jones and Boxer listed a number of problems in Ohio, including rejection of provisional ballots, long lines and inadequate numbers of voting machines in urban neighborhoods that tended to back Kerry.

    But one of Ohio’s senators, Republican Mike DeWine, called the complaints “wild, incoherent and completely unsubstantiated.” Several lawmakers in both chambers noted that Ohio votes had been recounted and the results certified by bipartisan local election boards.

    Oh yeah?

    White House-linked clandestine operation paid for “vote switching” software

    CNN changed Ohio exit poll page

    Errors plague voting process in Ohio, Pa.

    Residents turned away at polls

    States with electronic voting machines gave Bush mysterious 5% advantage;bloggers do the math that broadcast networks fail to follow

  35. JC –

    I criticize what liberals say because what we’re saying these days seems to be – as the latest election results support – designed to drive the party off the cliff.

    And the issue with that is that the poor and helpless – who the Democratic Party is supposed ot help – get screwed by a bunch of whining self-righteous yuppies, who have taken the party over.

    I want a liberalism that can win and is worth having, and I’ll keep carping (and building) until I get one.

    A.L.

  36. Andrew …

    Boxer just looks hypocritical OK’ing the shenanigans in Washington (mysteriously “finding” votes that had been warehoused somewhere, counters in Democratic counties only “helping divine” the voters intent in non-readable ballots, disallowing military votes, etc) along with Pennsylvania which was arguably worse (the Governor actively blocked military votes).

    Bush’s margin is NOT something that you can litigate your way out of … the Party looks awful particularly to swing voters who could be cozened back again, since this stuff looks like “scream and jump up and down, protest, and sue if you don’t win.”

    If you cry fraud CONSTANTLY, no one will listen in a future case where doubtless there WILL BE FRAUD.

    Moreover, Boxer is like Gray Davis in 1999. Riding high but with problems in the horizon. If Anhnuld is successful in his initiatives, Boxer won’t be running against a nothing like Bill Jones. She might be running against a CELEBRITY like Dennis Miller, Charles Barkley, someone like that. The Governator did not campaign for Jones, he’s looking to create his own machine (sorry) and doubtless has some people in mind. Democrats had an easy time of it for the last eight years as term limits and safe seats led to liberal candidates on the Dem side and fairly conservative ones in the Reps; California is on balance more moderate so that helps the Dems in Statewide races; but assuming Ahnuld gets his way, a more moderate Republican who say supports Abortion Rights could use this stuff to really hurt Boxer.

    Particularly portraying her as an extreme liberal who is hyper-partisan. She had a close call early in her career that way, I think she got too cocky.

  37. Jim, there was one big cache of uncounted ballots found in Washington, and everyone, including the Republicans, understood what had happened with them: election officials had checked their signatures against computer records, but not against the original registration forms. For some as-yet-unknown reason, the forms were not in the computer correctly. Included in this list were at least one county supervisor and other known personalities. The GOP’s argument was not that these ballots were retroactive fakes—they’re leaving that preposterous claimn to bloggers,—but that it was those voters’ tough luck. Hregoire won by 10 without them anyway. As for the other fraud claims, isn’t it remarakable that the Republican SoS didn’t make even one of them? Are you intending to claim that he’s some sort of mole or turncoat, or is it possible that they’re all bogus? I think the latter is more likely. It’s not like he was Gregoire’s campaign chair, in the Florida/Ohio mold. Incidentally, all of the things you complain about, like workers blackening ballot choices that didn’t read, are done statewide. (Where do you think the new Rossi votes in his counties came from, if nont analysis of borderline ballots?)

    I also have to say that the Congressional Black Caucus is not usually thought of as a collection of yuppies, even by its detractors. Projection, perhaps?

  38. AL,

    Sorry, but when someone pointing out voting issues (like having to stand in line to 4 AM) brings on your carping more than the voting issues themselves, to me, the priorities aren’t where they should be.

  39. Andrew,

    Why didn’t Boxer and company bring up other states in which Kerry won by a smaller margin? Why didn’t they respond to the Republican questions about ACORN or the multiple reports of illegal voter registration activities on behalf of the DNC in Ohio? Instead they cling to the theory Karl Rove was behind a computer in the White House manipulating votes. The fact is Boxer’s actions yesterday were an embarassment to her and the DNC. It made the party look like whining sore losers. They stated that they just want to make sure “every vote should count”, but in reality it was a tear fest over the fact their party lost.

    I feel for Armed Liberal. When I was younger I had more in common with the Democrats than the Republicans, but AL is right – the DNC is being pulled so far to the left that it is alienating the majority of America with its extremist views and conspiracy theories. The actions yesterday by Boxer are one of the reasons I am proud I am a Republican. On this course the DNC will soon go the way of the Whig Party.

  40. JC –

    Check out known right-wing shill Marc Cooper’s take on this:

    What happened today is that the Democrats made the usual waffling fools out of themselves. And unless you are some sort of fanatical reader of the lefty press and actually believe there was some sort of conspiracy in Ohio, you probably saw the Dems today as little more than sour-grape obstructionists bent on sullying the mostly ceremonial re-election of the President and of scapegoating their defintive November loss on same vague and undefined Republican plot.

    What is your average American to think of what happened today? Are the Democrats challenging or not challenging the election? Or do they even know? Whoever came up with a jack-ass as the symbol of this party was one wise and prescient fellow.

  41. Don’t apologize on my behalf, asshole. What she did was needed and appropriate. It is the first glimmer of someone standing up to the corrupt one-party Soviet-style machine that is the GOP.

  42. It is the first glimmer of someone standing up to the corrupt one-party Soviet-style machine that is the GOP.

    Which, if the GOP is actually “Soviet-style,” as you claim, will result in her deportation to a labor camp (or possibly a summary execution).

    Hey, I’m all in favor of pointing out problems with voting, since my home state just had the closest governer’s race in history. But there’s a time and a place for everything. Just because something needs to be done donesn’t mean that it needs to be done in this place, at this time, in this way.

    In particular, if Boxer makes people complaining about voting problems look like anti-Bush wingnuts rather than serious guardians of democracy, that will hurt, not help, the cause of substantive reform.

    Results, not symbolism or intentions, are what actually count.

  43. Hey, Zen_more – may first I suggest that you sit a little more Zen?

    Then I’d point out the idiocy of the obvious “soviet-style” comment – but that’s been done.

    And when your-style Democrats can actually beat the GOP, come talk to me OK? At what point do you wake up and realize you’re getting your asses kicked?

    And at what point do you decide to change?

    Now I wouldn’t want to bust your self-righteous bubble, but while you’re swaggering your way to Peet’s for a latte, poor and working people in thic country are getting screwed because the Democratic Party can’t get out of a chair without falling on it’s face.

    Sheesh.

    A.L.

  44. Again AL,

    You may have a point, but check “this way.”:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/6/18542/11236 At least the concern is clear – but the tone isn’t dripping with disgust and condescension, and doesn’t address the POINT of the Ohio issues.

    Look, I can spot the trends, as can you.

    From 1992 on, Democrats have gone from having the Presidency and both houses of congress, to only one house of congress, to no houses of Congress, to losing the presidency, to slowly slowly slipping margins of democrats in both the House and Senate. (Although 48% is not “totally out of the mainstream, unless you think that 48% of the people in the US are out of the mainstream.)

    I spot the trend, and it is worrisome, and everyone has their opinion (which they think is fact) on what the reasons for this trend are.

    I’m assuming this trend is what you are honestly trying to reverse.

    By the way, I’ve spoken many times here about other trends – which you have breezily dismissed. “This particular trend”:http://globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm comes to mind. Go down to the Wounded – Running Average and Deaths – Running Average. Outside of breezily dismissing such trends, or simply asserting the trend is a bump in the road, I have yet to see anyone at this site (including Joe, et al) honestly discuss this trend head on.

    But back to the subject at hand.

    When you come not to bury the democrats, which is the tone of most of your posts about democrats, then I can believe you.

    Look, you clearly have my respect, especially regarding your work with Spirit of America. But you are seriously, seriously, misled, to the point of pathology, if you believe that your constant carping, diatribes, picking and choosing of the “straw men” foibles of democrats to post on, is helping create some type of new liberal base. It’s either an act, or you are a liberal the way that Zell Miller is a liberal. Which is to say, not.

    To talk about it another way, separate process and content. Even if the content of what you say is accurate – you are wishing to use your voice to contribute to a different type of liberal coalition – the process which you are doing this (constant carping, diatribes, picking and choosing of the “straw men” foibles of democrats to post on) is doomed to failure.

    I’m really never sure whether you are a wolf with a sheep’s name and stated sheep goals, or not. On the content level, I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. You have outed yourself, personally, and have done work that I can’t claim, at all, to have done. On On the process level, it appears that you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing though. It simply does.

    There’s a well known pyschological trait that people who used to belong in groups, but have “fallen” from them, or left thgem, have extra helpings of disdain for their previous groups (such as “fallen” Catholics.)

    Perhaps this is going on. Don’t know. I’m not a psychologist, so I really shouldn’t theorize either.

    But isn’t that what guys in pajamas do? 🙂

    Why not simply call yourself what you are – like Michael Totten, Roger Simon, you are a neo-conservative?

  45. JC – it’s simple.

    No significant organizational change will happen until people near the organization either are changed (who they are) or openly sit down and – as they say – admit there’s a problem.

    My view of what I’m doing is that it’s simply a small, persistent intervention, and that I’m trying to get as many allies as I can to make it – ultimately – one that can’t be avoided or dodged.

    Clearly, I could put my energy into fighting alongside others on issues that matter to me. But since I think we’re going to lose (because of the reasons I’ve stated unto death), I think my energies (and the energies of others) are better spend stepping back from the current battles – which will be painful and damaging – and constituting a force that both can and should win.

    And as to the Iraq casualties – I’ve said since before the war that the war would be long and hard, and that my primary concern was whether we’d stick it out or not (go look up my ‘Liberal Hawk’ post). It’s a war against a smart and violent enemy, and it will be hard to win.

    I still think that winning it is an abolute requirement.

    A.L.

  46. JC – “I’ve spoken many times here about other trends – which you have breezily dismissed. This particular trend comes to mind … I have yet to see anyone at this site (including Joe, et al) honestly discuss this trend head on.

    You know, if Kerry had had the balls to say “Vote for me and I’ll pull out of Iraq,” then you might have a point worth listening to.

    Since he didn’t, it is no way relevant to this issue, so why don’t you leave our dead out of it? They’re fighting so that Iraqis can have some of the democracy that people like Boxer abuse.

  47. Hey, Armed, if you’re so down with poor and working class people (I think you meant white poor and working class people, BTW; given the Republicans aren’t doing well with the black poor vote), how come you voted for the party that by all accounts, I think including your own, offers them less economic opportunity?

    It wasn’t until I read today’s paper that I realized Boxer apologized for not challenging the 2000 vote. Good for her. If Democrats had shown spine then, we’d be in better shape now. In a way, A.L., you’re on to something that the current Democratic Party looks dangerously soft. But we’re going to try to resurrect that with some militance here at home—did you notice that the fortunes of the GOP improved during a period that on almost every issue the leadership moved significantly to the right and not to the center?—and not by creating opportunities to land on carrier flight decks.

  48. Well, Andrew, let me give you three hints:

    1) tossing the race flag won’t get you far with me, since I’m not white.

    2) we tried being more ‘militant’ in the 60’s and 70’s; it led to the SLA and the WU. That was more about acting out repressed adolescent rage than making plitical change. Not a taker, here.

    3) I told everyone why I voted for GWB; because his path – as well or badly executed as he may be doing it – appears to me to be the one that has the lowest odds of requiring that we nuke the Middle East after New York gets nuked.

    4) If you think following Barbara Boxer down the path to a Social Democratic future is the path to success for the Democratic Party, wake me up when it’s time to collect the wounded and retreat from the battlefield.

    Maybe the GOP will just wear itself out kicking you all in the ass and fall over from exhaustion.

    A.L.

  49. Well, if half the Republicans and independents in the country die laughing at this, it will certainly create an electoral advantage for the Democrats in the 2006 elections….

    But I think the Democratic Party just jumped the proverbial shark, and it may be time to give up on it and start thinking about constructing something new.

  50. _”did you notice that the fortunes of the GOP improved during a period that on almost every issue the leadership moved significantly to the right and not to the center?”_

    Biggest lie perpetrated by liberal interest groups attempting to scare up contributions.

    Prescription drugs. Free trade. Campaign Finance. Department of Homeland Security. Education. Federal Spending.

    The lesson: emphasize your strengths, coopt to cover you weaknesses and speak in terms of values.

    P.S. The GOP is also sporting the Democrat’s old foreign policy and JFK’s tax policy.

  51. OK, I get it now. In order to redress “disenfranchising” Ohio voters, she’s going to disenfranchise Everybody.

    Way to go, Senator Babs.

  52. Has Babs proposed fixing the mess in Washington State?

    No?

    Hmmmmmmmmmm.

    #36 AJL,

    Washington State is a County Problem. One County – King – Dems in charge.

    BTW whatever the irregularities in Ohio – and there well may have been many – probably do not amount to enough votes to change the election.

    Washington State is a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish.

    A.L. says:

    Maybe the GOP will just wear itself out kicking you all in the ass and fall over from exhaustion.

    ROTFLMAO

    Very nice.

    As a centerist/libertarian type I have a lot of nostalgia for my roots – the Democrats. I remember Liberty, and Justice For ALL. And that didn’t just include Americans. Dems used to be down with taking out dictators. I remember how thrilled I was in ’59 hearing Castro had taken out the thug Batista. And look at him now 10X worse or 100X.

    Socialims sounds nice. It don’t work. I like Bush’s plan to make every one an owner. It makes more sense for the individual and the system.

    And more DeSoto – a place where A.L. and I are 100% aligned – which is a surprise to us both.

    The Dems were even in 2000. In 2004 down 3 – 4 %.

    It is only going to get worse.

    Wake up Dems. Have a plan to liberate the world from thugs. It used to be your heritage. Make Iraq work. Take some of the glory from Bush. By opposing him you make a problem for him short term. For yourselves you make a long term problem.

    Well I predicted in May 03 in these pages that the Dems were on the road to self destruction. So far so good.

  53. I’m going to go out on a limb here and apologize for our one and only KKK President – Wilson.

    And our current KKK Senator Byrd – surprisinly enough a Democrat.

    And all those Southern Democrat racists from the 60s.

    As I recall when Jim Crow was in full flower the South was solid Democrat for 100+ years. Now there is a legacy to apologize for.

    I understand though. In the 60s a few principled Dems came along and chased many of the Dems to the Republicans. Racism is pretty much gone thanks to Republican (the majority of the civil rights vote) and Democrat (a minority of the civil rights vote) votes in the 60s. And now the Rs. are stuck with the South.

    History is a bitch.

  54. AJL,

    Suppose you are reading in 2020:

    Dems lose election 58% to 40%. Challenge the vote.

    Challenging the vote is not a program or a platform.

    I remember the ’60 vote. Dems kept finding ballots all night in Chicago until Kennedy won. Nixon accepted the result. Why?

    Where were the “honest election” Democrats then?

    Old JFK (pere) is supposed to have said he was not going to buy one more vote than necessary.

    Cute.

    How come the Dems suddenly got religion?

  55. The sole purpose of of the democrat hard liners was to create a basis for four more years of internet peccadillos — keeping the Bush was never President people happy, together, and in line until the 2008 election.

    The DNC will continue to motivate the ABB crowd using Ohio to confirm what they already believe.

    The endless parade of scatological and sexist jokes will continue. But, in 2008 — unless Jeb Bush is going to run — all that hate will come to no good end.

    The Blues believe that the fault for losing the election lies in other people. People who voted for Bush were stupids.

    The Reds believe that the fault lies “not in the stars but in ourselves…” and look to themselves and not to government for correction.

  56. Few have pointed out the real issue that makes this nothing more than a mockery of our constitution. When we have senators and congressmen / women take the floor and belittle the election process that our democracy is built on I tend to wonder what it is they are really trying to accomplish.

    The voting standards and processes are a state function. Do these carping elected officials actually represent the people’s interest for the state that elected them? I don’t think so. Not only are they airing their own dirty laundry they are throwing their hands up and neglecting their duties to the state by not addressing the issues at the state level. Where are all the voters who should be demanding that their state and local officials address the voting issues? Are they waiting on the federal government to tell them what to do? I hope not. Why haven’t the voters made these issues high priority items for the elected officials? It seems it is easier to blame the federal government for their self induced problems. Do they want the federal government telling them how to hold and conduct elections? I should certainly hope not.

    In my opinion if your state can’t get it’s marbles all in one bag then it is the fault of the state’s general populace that lets it continue. What I haven’t covered here is the biggest hurdle of all. That which is educating the populace of the civic duties and responsibilities. To be sure each state’s government is different Some are commonwealth some are not. Some follow the same structure as the federal government some do not. It is imperative that the populace understand how their state governments function and their state governments constitution. We used to have civic and government courses in schools that taught these things. Most don’t exist anymore. Why is that? Could it be that those in power want to retain that power and keep you out?

    In a nut shell get off your duff and do something about it. Waiting for momma to put a band aid on your knee scrape isn’t the solution. Crying like a toddler that just dropped it’s rattle down the drain isn’t going to solve the issues either.

    Ms Boxer and her crowd certainly knows how to rile the public but none of them are putting solutions on the table for a state populace vote. In my opinion they all deserve “The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate”:http://www.timvp.com/laughin.html award.

  57. Republicans who stonewalled Ohio recount ready to challenge Washington election

    State Republican Party leaders say they’ve found 8,400 more ballots cast than the number of voters registered in the state’s five largest counties.

    State GOP Chairman Chris Vance says the mismatching numbers in King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap are troubling.

    http://www.kxly.com/common/getStory.asp?id=41552

  58. M. Simon, leaving aside the fact that the Illinois Nixon story is fiction (has anything else Nixon said turned out true?), if you do the math, Kennedy would still win even if you give Illinois to Nixon. I don’t wish to pretend that election shenanigans are the monopoly of any one party, but there’s a fair amount of evidence that Sec. Blackwell did everything possible to drive down Democratic votes, and there isn’t any evidence at all of cheating in Washington State.

    “Without your enthusiasm, generous support and vote, I’m afraid the President would have lost,” Blackwell wrote [in a letter fundraising for 2006 governor’s race], “And an unapologetic liberal Democrat named John Kerry would have won.”
     
    “Thankfully,” he adds, “you and I stopped that disaster from happening.”

    My emphasis, link here. I guess the question is whether he helped only in his night job as BC campaign chair, or also in his day job as Secretary of State.

    Armed Liberal: Well, we tried a lot of centrist mushiness in the Clinton years, and you’ll notice that while we kept the Top Job, the party got destroyed downticket. Also in this election (except, curiously, for Colorado and Montana?!). Now, I wonder again, given your ridicule for Boxer and a social democratic future, why are you calling yourself a liberal? I didn’t think this before, but now I think JC was right: you are sounding more like a moderate conservative who’s OK with gays.

    Just remember, the GOP didn’t fold after the Goldwater election. For that matter, the Northern Whigs were a major constituent of a new party in the 1850s and one of the defunct party’s former members was the last Republican president who was any good.

  59. Andrew, thanks for showing me the dorr, but I’ll affably decline to walk through it.

    I will point you to “an article in the Observer”:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1386187,00.html (via known neocon Norm Geras):

    Last week occu[r]red an event which was scarcely reported but which further called into question the notion of a principled liberal-left, let alone one coherent and confident enough to form an elite.

    Hadi Salih, international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tied and blindfolded and tortured by Baathist ‘insurgents’ loyal to Saddam Hussein before being forced to kneel, strangled by electric cord and shot.

    I shouldn’t be shocked that there hasn’t been a squeak of protest from the anti-war movement at the killing of a brave socialist, but I am. Two years ago I believed that after the war people who opposed it for good reasons would vow to pursue Blair and Bush [-] for what they had done [-] to their graves, but have the intellectual honesty to accept that Saddam’s regime was fascist in theory and in practice and the good nature to offer fraternal support [to] Iraqi socialists, democrats and liberals in their deadly struggle.

    More fool me. The Stop the War Coalition, which organised one million people to march through the streets of London, told the kidnappers and torturers from the Baath Party and al-Qaeda that the anti-war movement ‘recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary’. Its leading figures purport to be on the left, but have cheered on the far-right and betrayed their comrades by denouncing Iraqi trade unionists as ‘Quislings’ and ‘collaborators’. There have been a few honourable protests: Mick Rix, the former leader of the train drivers union, walked out in disgust saying that the anti-war movement was putting the lives of Iraqi trade unionists at risk. (Its denunciations of better and braver men and women than the British pseudo-leftists could ever be were reported in Arab newspapers which circulate in Iraq.)

    Rix was joined by Unison and Labour backbenchers, but that’s been about it. Not only the Stop the War Coalition but the bulk of liberal-left opinion in the country and on the planet, is at best indifferent to the fight to stop the return of tyranny and at wors[t] wants to spite the Americans by having the bombers stop elections. If you doubt how widespread this malign impulse has become, ask why it is that the BBC has never covered the story of the totalitarian nature of the leaders of the anti-war movement when it would have had kittens on air if, say, the Countryside Alliance had been a front for the British National Party.

    … [I]t no longer makes sense to talk of a ‘liberal elite’ when what it means to be a liberal or on the left is being riven by basic disputes of principle.

    Many don’t want to acknowledge the breakdown. Times when old certainties fall apart are unsettling. They force people to decide what they believe in: Do you want priests to be able to control ‘their’ people? Are you for fascism? If you answer ‘no’ to both questions, you will undoubtedly find when the battle is joined that you will have to spend as much time fighting the left as the right.

    I’ll gladly stand with Norm.

    Who are you standing with?

    A.L.

  60. A.L., I hadn’t even heard of the Iraqi labor union leader, much less his having been murdered. In general, our allies in Iraq, even people like Allawi’s whose dedication to democratic principles is dubious given his previous work in the Saddam government, are better people than Saddam’s dead-enders, the scores (but not thousands) of foreign terrorists, and criminals of the insurgents. (I would add, there probably are insurgents who see themselves as acting out of strictly nationalist and patriotic motives, even if anti-democratic, but I don’t see such people executing a labor leader in cold blood.)

    The concept of choosing a “side”, though, imposes a false dichotomy on the situation, and perpetuates the premise (that I deny) that continuation of the Bush Administration’s program will materially improve the democrats’ situation. Starting from there, of course, refusal to support the war might seem immoral and perverse.

    While we’re in the cheap shots department, whose “side” are we on in Uzbekistan? Torturing and killing opponents in cold blood there has never been a problem for our friend and ally Karimov. Doubtless some new moral calculus can be used for Uzbekistan that (actually, correctly) understands the folly of the black and white question you ask of me about Iraq.

    You also seem to have missed the irony that the decedent in your story was probably far to the left of Barbara Boxer in terms of the social democratic future he looked forward to. I guess its appeal is inversely proportionate to distance.

    Aside to P.D. Shaw, the fact that JFK cut taxes and George Bush cut taxes does not mean they have the same tax policy. The top marginal rate after the JFK tax cuts was still 70 percent. Care to try again?

  61. I hate to follow up my own post, but has it occurred to you that I could easily find stories where North Vietnamese and Viet Cong slaughtered the best democrats of South Vietnam that they could reach—but IIRC, you agree that we botched that war, and you didn’t support it.

  62. _the fact that JFK cut taxes and George Bush cut taxes does not mean they have the same tax policy._

    True enough, Andrew, but irrelevant to the point I made. You want to move the Democratic party to the left by claiming that GOP fortunes improved in moving “signficantly” to the right. On several issues I mentioned, the GOP has moved to the center, including arguably tax policy and foreign policy if one takes a longer view. Of course, Bush doesn’t literally have JFK’s tax policy — that was over 40 years ago. But JFK’s democratic party was the lower-tax party.

    Bush is no liberal, but I don’t believe the ultra-conservative hype (coming from both the left and right)

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