Sunday, July 02, 2006

our only chance is the exit-polling.

* simon is smart. simon thinks that the US might really be 'planning' to 'find' wmd in iraq before the nov election. i dont buy it. i almost hope that simon is right - i cant even conceive of a scenario where anyone would buy the story. mind you, i agree with simon's logic - but i cant believe that anyone else will buy it.

my biggest concern is that if the repugs can steal an election - via evoting - then 'logic' is irrelevant. so long as there is an 'acceptable' narrative, then facts don't matter.

we saw the same thing in 2004 with the 'values voter' nonsense.

perhaps that's why rover is out there singing the iraq story. everyone knows that he's both wrong and lying - but when they 'win' - they'll have a reason/explanation/narrative.

our only chance is the exit-polling.

fuck.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

i cant even conceive of a scenario where anyone would buy the story. mind you, i agree with simon's logic - but i cant believe that anyone else will buy it.

what oldschool said, much better than i could.

Anonymous said...

this is why i don't agree. Once most people realize they have been lied to repeatedly, they won't believe anything from this administration. The true-believer's will believe anything but they are a small percentage of voters.

- Jiminy Cricket

Don said...

my biggest concern is that if the repugs can steal an election - via evoting - then 'logic' is irrelevant.

E-voting is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, Kennedy's article and Palast do note it, but compared to votes lost through 'caging lists', harrassment, suppression, and roll scrubbing, flipped and lost e-votes are a pittance.

Call it a hunch, but I doubt that scrubbed voters (in FL, OH, NM and others) have ever been reinstated or had their claims investigated.

So why vote? Palast gets the last word:

How many times am I asked, “Why vote if they’re going to steal the election?” That’s the point: Make them STEAL it. Make them know they can’t win UNLESS they steal it.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't Venezuela's presidental election also rigged...except that so many people voted for Chavez that the margin was too big to steal the election.

another reason to vote.

Also, the more they have to rig elections the more evidence & witnesses there will be to their crimes.

I like it - Make them steal it. (would make a great get-out-the-vote slogan)

- Jiminy Cricket

Anonymous said...

It is a beautiful chart! Check this out, here's another - this one makes it visual! (and debunks the old red/blue map we always see on TV)

I have to say I don't understand why we concede support to Republicans when it is not true (anymore). The Republican congress has even worse approval ratings than the President! Our nation has gotten to see the performance of the Republican party when they have control of all 3 branches of government. They had their chance to test out their policies and what you see now is our country's gag reflex kicking in.

Yes, a nice slice of the voters for the Republican party is made of conservative evangelicals. But again why do we concede support to Republicans when it is not true. Who do you think all the other Christians (and other faiths) vote for? (hint: not republicans ; )). Since only like 9% of Americans do not identify with any religion, the Republican party would very much like us to illogically believe that the other 91% of religious Americans are ALL Republicans.

I personally think the evangelical base is the Republican party's achilles heel. Here's why:
I think the religious base of the Republicans party is not as solid as conventional wisdom says it is. Those voters are fickle (in the past did not vote at all at the numbers they do today) and they expect very specific results. They are great grassroots support as long as they think politicians will deliver on outlawing evolution, sex outside marriage, abortion, gays, HPV vaccines, Hollywood movies, etc. Even the Republican leaders the evangelical base supports think they are loons to be exploited for votes (remember that leaked Abramoff email). This puts the Republican party in a bind because if they actually delivered results to their base then they'd have to escalate things even more and think of something else to rile them up. Most importantly though, that segment of Republican voters are outside the mainstream of American sentiment and if their most fervent prayers were answered, you would see the biggest backlash ever.

This is important because we need to dispell that meme, in case the election is close enough to steal and the "values voter" crap is trotted out again to explain it all away.

- Jiminy Cricket

lukery said...

oldschool - my heart goes out to you.

the reason that i have hopes that people wont believe the stories is that we've recently seen a few examples where stories get shot down IMMEDIATELY - and even more than that, every time they launch one of their BS stories, they undermine the likelihood that subsequent stories will be taken seriously.

and yet, i feel that you and rimone (and simon) are probably correct. sigh.

lukery said...

jiminy cricket. thnx * 2.

great posts

lukery said...

don - i agree that those other issues are a big problem. however - i fear that those issues simply give the repugs the cover to say 'yeah - we stole it - legally.' meantime, the evoting machines appear to have a 51/49 result built in.

yep "make em steal it" would be a great GOTV campaign.

Anonymous said...

Jiminy Cricket: Make them steal it. (would make a great get-out-the-vote slogan)

YES! and thank you for your posts and the charts, dude.

ps, Lukery, Scott Horton should do another sticker saying that.

lukery said...

i sent it to scott

Anonymous said...

It looks like voter dienfranchisement and other things are trying to coopt the election for Fox in Mexico now too. The Bushites are spreading their anti-Democratic ammunition to other places. I can only hope that Mexicans take it to the streets and don't let them steal their democracy away from them and follow Ukraine's example instead of our 2004 example of sitting back and not doing anything. Then that could perhaps show what we can do in November if they try stealing it from us then too!

lukery said...

anon - thanks. yeah - i think ChoicePoint is really active south of the border.

re the Ukraine, it didnt inspire the americans in 04 :-(

thnx scott!

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean, oldschool, but I think Anonymous is correct on repeated lying, especially when it turned out to be about Pat Tillman too, one of their heros, killed by 'friendly fire' and covered up???? and all those flag draped coffins kept coming back home.

Elections can be stolen when its close, but when their is overwhelming support, it's much harder. I always vote by absentee ballot so i can copy it before I mail it certified. Theres my paper trail. I still say if we all protested the damned machines by voting by absentee ballot, they would have to chuck them in the dustbin.

Pluuuus, I'd love to see the media go nuts waiting for the results to come in by Pony Express.