Why Kerry Thinks He Lost

[quote]oboffill wrote:
HAHA, conspiracy theories!? I love it. You’ll be eating your words man. If you don’t see a problem with votes not being counted, votes being added, votes being subtracted and NO PAPER TRAIL, you must be dumber than a rock. Period.[/quote]

There has always been a ‘problem’ with the vote counting. Ever been to South Texas? It’s probably one of the most politically corrupt areas in the U.S. In the 50’s and 60’s, votes weren’t counted until a phone call was made to find out how many votes were needed.

That was LBJ’s stomping grounds, and it is still run that way today - for the Democrats.

The election is over and you’re still spouting all the ABB B.S. that lost Kerry the election. Here’s a newsflash for you - Bush will be President until January 2009 and there is very little you can do about that.

For the last 4 years your kind has been chanting ‘selected, not electrd’. What will be the chant this term? “Too many voted for him so there must be cheating”

[quote]oboffill wrote:

Bush should’ve been a sitting duck with his military service record.

Kerry was “out of touch” on a personal level with the public and unfortunately that is more important than the issues.

HAHA, conspiracy theories!? I love it. You’ll be eating your words man. If you don’t see a problem with votes not being counted, votes being added, votes being subtracted and NO PAPER TRAIL, you must be dumber than a rock. Period.[/quote]

I posted this earlier, but I think it got lost in a site crash. Yes, conspiracy theories. I’m glad you’re so amused. Hopefully you can keep that jovial frame of mind when you refer to this post from another thread, suitably titled “More Conspiracy Theories?”:

Be sure to check out all the internal links - especially the one to the Yale Free Press, which does a thorough job of explaining your article’s FL connundrum.

Also, link to the Salon piece, which has its own internal links.

November 10, 2004 | 8:49 PM ET

EXCERPT:

Election odds…and especially ends

Tuesday’s post on election fraud brought many e-mails. Some were sure – with a certainty that sounded like it came from Oliver Stone – that the election was stolen by massive fraud. Others said that it was past time we addressed voter fraud, but doubted that this election was stolen.

Put me in the second camp, along with Farhad Manjoo of the (definitely not pro-Bush) magazine Salon. In a survey of the various theories swirling around the Internet and lefty talk radio – and, I’m sorry to say, on my MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann’s show – Manjoo writes:

[Begin Salon excerpt] There's little question that the American election process is a mess, and needs to be cleaned up.  But even if this particular election wasn't perfect, it was still most likely good enough for us to have faith in the results.  Salon has examined some of the most popular Kerry-actually-won theories currently making the rounds online, and none of them hold up under rigorous scrutiny.  For instance, there's an easy explanation for the odd results in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where Olbermann insists there were 93,000 more votes than voters.  According to Kimberly Bartlett, a spokeswoman for the county, the reporting software the county uses to display the unofficial summary of election results on its Web site is simply buggy.  For some reason, the software combines absentee ballots from several voting precincts into one precinct, and therefore makes it appear as if there were more votes cast in a particular area than there were registered voters there.  But this bug does not affect the final election results, because the more detailed "canvass" of all the votes cast in the county shows the correct count, Bartlett told Salon.  For example, this canvass indicates that in Fairview Park, where Olbermann says there were 18,472 ballots cast by 13,342 registered voters, there were actually only 8,421 votes cast in the presidential race -- fewer than the number of registered voters.

Other theories pointing to a Kerry win are similarly brittle.  It is extremely unlikely that there are enough spoiled punch-card ballots in Ohio to hand Kerry a victory there, as Palast asserts.  Meanwhile, there are reasonable-sounding sociological and demographic explanations for the high number of registered-Democrat Bush voters in some counties in Florida. There is, in other words, simply no compelling proof that there were enough irregularities in enough areas affecting enough voters to cast doubt on Bush's commanding popular vote count lead, or even his thinner margins in key swing states such as Ohio or Florida. [End Salon excerpt]

(Read this: http://yalefreepress.blogspot.com/2004/11/keith-obermann-wheres-your-tin-foil.html
and this, too: SOXBLOG: 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004
and there’s much more at the Equal Vote blog: http://equalvote.blogspot.com/ )

Message to the hard core: You want to look like sore losers and conspiracy theorists, go ahead. Karl Rove will be smiling.

Republicans seem to have known better than that in close elections of the past. As Joseph Perkins observed before the election:

[Begin Perkins excerpt] Richard Nixon would have captured the 1960 presidential election but for five states he lost by 5,000 votes or fewer ? Missouri, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii.  Gerald Ford would have retained the presidency in 1976 but for two states he lost by no more than 5,600 votes ? Ohio and Hawaii.

Though the 1960 and 1976 elections were close, though they turned on a few thousand votes in a handful of states, the outcomes were faithfully accepted by the American people, by Republicans and Democrats alike.

That's because neither Nixon or Ford demanded that the votes be recounted in the states in which they lost by narrow margins.  And neither Nixon or Ford insisted they were denied election because of voting irregularities in some state or another. [End Perkins excerpt]

As Perkins notes, Al Gore would have been wise to follow that example.


Also, there’s this:

A joint Cal Tech/MIT project of examining the electronic voting machines and the voter fraud claims w/r/t electronic voting machines:

http://vote.caltech.edu/Reports/VotingMachines3.pdf

Now, what was your quote again? Ah, yes:

[quote]oboffill wrote:
HAHA, conspiracy theories!? I love it. You’ll be eating your words man. If you don’t see a problem with votes not being counted, votes being added, votes being subtracted and NO PAPER TRAIL, you must be dumber than a rock. Period.[/quote]

You’ll have to excuse me if I trust those dumb rocks at MIT and Cal Tech, as well as from the Yale Daily News and the law professor, who went to Yale Law, above you, oboffill. While I don’t have any specific information on your IQ, nothing from your posts would dissuade me from the idea that it’s a couple standards of deviation lower than the average of the debunkers…

Very extensive list of…stuff. I’ll read and comment when I get the chance.

Oh how I love the personal attacks. For a man with such a high IQ, I’d except a more mature discussion.

[quote]oboffill wrote:
Very extensive list of…stuff. I’ll read and comment when I get the chance.

Oh how I love the personal attacks. For a man with such a high IQ, I’d except a more mature discussion. [/quote]

I’d “except” lots of things from your expectations… Especially given the comparison was premised on your initial characterization of those who didn’t quite see things your way as “dumber than … rock[s].”

[quote]oboffill wrote:
Very extensive list of…stuff. I’ll read and comment when I get the chance.

Oh how I love the personal attacks. For a man with such a high IQ, I’d except a more mature discussion. [/quote]

BTW, aside from the “[v]ery extensive list of…stuff”, why don’t you apply your common sense to the analysis. John Kerry and John Edwards are both lawyers, and they had “an army of lawyers” ready and willing to go in and fight about any credible claims of chicanery. Why would people so prepared for a fight concede without one? Either 1) because there is nothing to all these “stolen election” feverish fantasies; or 2) they were part of the conspiracy to get Bush the White House again, against the will of the American people. But, if you chose 2), why aren’t the rest of the luminaries of the Democratic party pushing for a fight? Are they conspirators too?

These theories don’t pass the laugh test, and that’s before one even gets to the factual debunkings provided by people who felt it best to treat them semi-seriously.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
oboffill wrote:
Very extensive list of…stuff. I’ll read and comment when I get the chance.

Oh how I love the personal attacks. For a man with such a high IQ, I’d except a more mature discussion.

I’d “except” lots of things from your expectations…[/quote]

I had just pulled an all-nighter writing two papers for school…thanks for catching my spelling error. I will use Word to save you some key strokes. lol.

You took my statement out of context. It read:
“If you don’t see a problem with votes not being counted, votes being added, votes being subtracted and NO PAPER TRAIL, you must be dumber than a rock. Period.”

I am not making that up, there are already investigations taking place in regards to this issue.

I remember paying extra attention to my wording, because it is important for everyone to realize that I do not play the “hollier than thou” game as others try to do.

The reason why I post on here is to have intelligent discussion, T-man style. I could give to f’ks whether you are conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Atheist. I will not attack anyone with name calling or otherwise. I will stick to the issues.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
oboffill wrote:
Very extensive list of…stuff. I’ll read and comment when I get the chance.

Oh how I love the personal attacks. For a man with such a high IQ, I’d except a more mature discussion.

BTW, aside from the “[v]ery extensive list of…stuff”, why don’t you apply your common sense to the analysis. John Kerry and John Edwards are both lawyers, and they had “an army of lawyers” ready and willing to go in and fight about any credible claims of chicanery. Why would people so prepared for a fight concede without one? Either 1) because there is nothing to all these “stolen election” feverish fantasies; or 2) they were part of the conspiracy to get Bush the White House again, against the will of the American people.[/quote]

Stop right there. That’s a false dilemma fallacy. You cannot be so sure that these are the only choices available.

Realistically, both choices sound juvenile and silly.

I am not certain why, but I will make a guess. One, I could be wrong and there is nothing to fight. Two, they will in fact turn up when there is overwhelming proof that the election was a perversion of democracy.

[quote]oboffill wrote:
Stop right there. That’s a false dilemma fallacy. You cannot be so sure that these are the only choices available.

Realistically, both choices sound juvenile and silly. [/quote]

It’s actually a “false dichotomy”. But please feel free to posit other reasonable alternatives.

[quote]oboffill wrote:
I am not certain why, but I will make a guess. One, I could be wrong and there is nothing to fight. Two, they will in fact turn up when there is overwhelming proof that the election was a perversion of democracy.
[/quote]

Let’s put it this way: Who has the greatest incentive to show the election was stolen? I’ll posit that it’s the national Democratic party in general and the Kerry ticket in particular. They are also in the best position to have knowledge as to whether any chicanery occurred, given the fact that the parties had many observers on the ground looking for this stuff, and access to all the numbers.

And yet, somehow, the Kerry ticket and the national Democratic party don’t seem exercised by all this stuff – only conspiracy theorists on the internet are wound up, along with some crackpot “journalists” and Keith Olbermann, who was sucked into the story in the immediate aftermath of the election.

Does this fact seem to you to lend credence to the conspiracy theories?

[quote]oboffill wrote:

You took my statement out of context. It read:
“If you don’t see a problem with votes not being counted, votes being added, votes being subtracted and NO PAPER TRAIL, you must be dumber than a rock. Period.”

I am not making that up, there are already investigations taking place in regards to this issue.

I remember paying extra attention to my wording, because it is important for everyone to realize that I do not play the “hollier than thou” game as others try to do.

The reason why I post on here is to have intelligent discussion, T-man style. I could give to f’ks whether you are conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Atheist. I will not attack anyone with name calling or otherwise. I will stick to the issues. [/quote]

Sticking to the issues is always welcome. If you did not mean to insult anyone who disagreed with you with your “dumber than a rock” characterization, that’s fine.

As to investigations, they investigate any plausible complaint (i.e. they wouldn’t investigate a complaint about mind-control devices, but would investigate any complaint about ballot-stuffing), so I wouldn’t look at the fact that investigations are taking place to prove anything.

The known facts (see above), and common sense (see above), come down against the conspiracy theories.

Does anyone else think that the only prominent Democrats who seem to understand that their party needs reevaluation is Alan Colmes/James Carville?

The rest of you Democrats seem to be singing the same old losing song.

Keep it up and you will continue to lose.

JeffR

As a hard line liberal Democrat, I can’t agree with you more. We simply can’t win an election in a country that is more concerned with questions of “values” than anything else.

Hey Brian,

By putting the word values in parenthesis, I assume you meant it as a perjorative.

I’m not going to go into the many different interpretations of values.

However, it would be another losing strategy to assume that values only means religion.

It is far deeper than that.

Honesty, steadfastness, and consistency come to mind.

I’m all for Democrats getting their act together. I’m tired of being insulted by your candidates. Your candidates assume that most of us don’t remember what they say. Like Kerry trying to maintain, “I’ve had one consistent policy on Iraq.”

That is insulting.

I hope your party does some serious soul-searching.

Good luck!!!

JeffR

I hope your party learns to read so it will understand more sophisticated viewpoints… :stuck_out_tongue:

[quote]vroom wrote:
I hope your party learns to read so it will understand more sophisticated viewpoints… :p[/quote]

Hey vroom, maybe if we call preservation of truth a value, then Dems might be more popular. :wink:

[quote]vroom wrote:
I hope your party learns to read so it will understand more sophisticated viewpoints… :p[/quote]

The above is one reason that the liberals will continue to lose. It’s funny, but in America high and mighty attitudes usually lose at the ballot box…:slight_smile:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
vroom wrote:
I hope your party learns to read so it will understand more sophisticated viewpoints… :stuck_out_tongue:

The above is one reason that the liberals will continue to lose. It’s funny, but in America high and mighty attitudes usually lose at the ballot box…:slight_smile:

[/quote]

If high and mighty means truthful and analytical, ZEB, then so be it.

I might have to move to New Hampshire, at least they’ll understand my desire for a lack of interference in the affairs of the law abiding!

All of these conservative arguments are couched in terms of “values”… but they really end up calling for restrictions on freedoms.

Why? Because these values are “important enough” to impose behavior on others. Go ahead, live by your own values, I don’t care. Just don’t shove them on me.

Live free or die!

Nah, high and mighty means high and mighty…

Anyway, here’s a column the Democratic leadership would do well to raid for ideas – Clarence Page writing in the Chicago Tribune:

Where are the answers from the wounded Dems?

Published November 24, 2004

WASHINGTON – In the wake of their fifth defeat out of the last seven presidential elections, Democratic Party leaders are once again arguing, pointing fingers and scratching their heads over how they can win back the red states in the heartland.

It’s a pretty sad sight. Having seen more wrestling matches for the soul of the party than I can count, this one reminds me more than ever of a flabby, middle-age guy who is befuddled, after years of taking his wife for granted, that she is running away with a smooth-talking stud from down the street.

I like the Democrats and usually, although not always, support Democratic candidates. I’m a blue state kind of guy and proud of it. Nevertheless, it is easy to look around and see a lot of likely Democratic supporters who think the party has let them down.

For example, exit polls reported 38 percent of union members voted for President Bush, according to CNN. So did 40 percent of voters who have union members in their households. Exit polls also showed Bush received the votes of 42 percent of workers who earn $15,000 to $30,000 and 44 percent of those who earn under $50,000.

And, among other groups in the party’s base, Bush won 45 percent of those ages 18 to 29, 44 percent of the Hispanic vote and 11 percent of the black vote. That’s up from 8 percent of the black vote in 2000, and even more in battleground states like Ohio (16 percent, up from 7 percent in 2000) and Florida (13 percent, up from 7 percent).

While unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 2-1 ratio, married women tended to vote pretty much like their husbands, overwhelmingly for Bush.

Adding insult to Sen. John Kerry’s injuries, Bush also won the votes of 13 percent of self-described liberals and 11 percent of self-described Democrats!

The party needs to take a look at itself, realize that its world has changed and that it is not the hot, young stallion it used to be. Just as it responded to the crises of the Depression and World War II under Franklin D. Roosevelt, building a political dominance that lasted a half century, the Democratic Party must respond to current foreign and domestic crises with answers befitting this new century, not the last one.

First of all, the party must stand for something. It needs, like Samuel Johnson’s famous plum pudding, a theme. Roosevelt had “the New Deal.” Bush offers “the Ownership Society,” which reminds me of Richard M. Nixon’s offer of “a piece of the action” to black Americans in response to Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society.”

Themes matter. They focus minds, big and small, on creating an agenda that offers hope to voters of a better world.

All of this came to mind as I was watching one of my guilty pleasures, “The Wire,” an exceptionally realistic HBO series about Baltimore cops and drug gangsters. Like life, it’s a complicated show that produces unexpected nuggets of wisdom.

During a dinner conversation, a detective was asked by his political-consultant girlfriend whether he voted for Kerry or for Bush. Neither, he responded wearily. No matter who wins the White House, he said, nothing changes on the streets where he works. Drugs keep flowing, kids keep dying.

There was more fact than fiction in that exchange. If Democrats, the party of poor people, working people and Baltimore people, are not offering a vision of a better future to drug-ravaged neighborhoods, I wondered, who will?

Significantly, Bush has. His administration assists grass-roots, faith-based leaders like Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-founder of Boston’s Ten Point Coalition. An effort by more than 50 local churches to join forces with Boston police, courts and City Hall to combat youth violence, the coalition reduced Boston’s juvenile homicide rate to zero in the mid-1990s. It made a difference.

Former Vice President Al Gore favored faith-based programs in his 2000 presidential campaign, but President Bush embraced them, despite liberal critics who complained about possible breaches of church-state separation. I am a 1st Amendment absolutist, but when a program that works can be funded without discriminating against anyone’s religious beliefs, that’s good enough for me. It’s also good enough for poor folks for whom Bush’s faith-based initiatives have given Republicans a more compassionate image.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party’s response to innovative ideas like school vouchers, charter schools and income-based affirmative action, instead of race-based, has too often resembled classic conservatives, fiercely holding on to past political gains without offering any new alternatives.

No consensus candidate has emerged from liberal and centrist candidates currently jostling each other to replace the Democratic National Committee’s chairman at a meeting in February.

Fortunately, there are some rising stars who want to offer voters a pragmatic, what-works agenda suitable for a new century. Americans deserve to have Democrats who offer something more than befuddlement.


E-mail: cptime@aol.com

vroom:

I just had to pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard. You are a Canadaian and you stated: “Live free or die!” Wow…

You think that having a high standard of values restricts your freedom? Perhaps your values are a bit to conservative for some huh? Because I don’t like the idea of a 5000 year old institution (marriage) turned into a freak show I’m being restrictive?

Do you think groups of people should be able to marry? No? Oh my how restrictive of you!

Because I don’t like the idea of tearing a baby out of the mothers womb and killing it I’m being restrictive?

Infanticide (Partial birth abortion) is also on the rise (gee I wonder why?)…you don’t like that? Wow…you are restrictive!

I really hate the way you are imposing your behavior on others vroom. Come on now just live by your own values don’t shove them on the rest of us.

Why don’t you move back to Canada (I’m assuming you are in the U.S.) and actually try to make it a “live free or die” country. You would really be doing something then.

[quote]ZEB wrote:
vroom:

I just had to pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard. You are a Canadaian and you stated: “Live free or die!” Wow…

You think that having a high standard of values restricts your freedom? Perhaps your values are a bit to conservative for some huh? Because I don’t like the idea of a 5000 year old institution (marriage) turned into a freak show I’m being restrictive?

Do you think groups of people should be able to marry? No? Oh my how restrictive of you!

Because I don’t like the idea of tearing a baby out of the mothers womb and killing it I’m being restrictive?

Infanticide (Partial birth abortion) is also on the rise (gee I wonder why?)…you don’t like that? Wow…you are restrictive!

I really hate the way you are imposing your behavior on others vroom. Come on now just live by your own values don’t shove them on the rest of us.

Why don’t you move back to Canada (I’m assuming you are in the U.S.) and actually try to make it a “live free or die” country. You would really be doing something then.
[/quote]

Zeb

Several points I think you should take into account.

  1. Regarding your suggestion that Vroom move back to Canada because he disagrees with the neoconservative/reactionary political agenda. This is the classic false dichotomy that the current administration enjoys so much; love America or leave it. The reality is far more complex, you can attempt to change the policies of the country that you are living in. This is a far more patriotic act that simply parroting the views of those in power, even if Vroom is not American

  2. Regarding your negative opinion of homosexual marriage. First, no one is suggesting the legalization of group marriage, your comments seem like the overemotional responses that reactionaries like to accuse liberals of making. Second, simply because an institution is time honored is not a reason to maintain it in its current form. Slavery, Jim Crow, and public executions were all common at one time, this is hardly a defense of their practice. Finally, you accuse Vroom of foisting his values on you. Perhaps you are forcing your values on homosexuals by denying them the fundamental civil right of marriage. After all how could their marriage harm you.

  3. Lastly, partial birth abortion as it has been term would be better named save the mother abortion. Its purpose is not the last minute abortion of a baby, but to save a mother’s life during a complicated pregnancy. Even in a case where the mother was certainly going to die if the child was to be born this would be a morally ambiguous choice. However, this difficult choice should be left to the mother, not to the government or you. Again, you are forcing your views on someone else.

Thank you,
Flanker