Democratic Talk Radio Blog

In light of the upcoming elections, here is my review of a timely and important book. I hope you’ll take the time to read the review and go to the Amazon link and buy the book. Perhaps you’ll consider buying a copy for your public library. Share it with everyone you know.

Best wishes,

Joan Brunwasser, voting integrity editor, OpEdNews

Published at OpEdNews

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May 5, 2008

Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008

By Joan Brunwasser

Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008, edited by Mark Crispin Miller

Warning: This book will make you uncomfortable. Mark Crispin Miller pulls no punches. He’s happy to spread the blame around – politicians, the Religious Right, corporate interests, election officials, the corporate media, voting machine vendors, fanatics for whom victory is all that matters – all (and more) come in for legitimate criticism. The biggest villains of the piece are those in the GOP who seek nothing less than a permanent power grab and have a grand plan in place to pull it off. Miller described the plan in his previous book:

And right now, as we dawdle, Bush’s party and the movement that it serves are busily advancing measures to consolidate their “victory” by making fair elections more unlikely…The point of all such stealthy actions is to rein in, control and thus in essence terminate American democracy – a plan that we believers in American democracy can foil, but only if we acknowledge that that plan is in the works, and that it made great progress in 2004. (Fooled Again, The Real Case for Electoral Reform, p. xvii)

Miller has been diagnosing our electoral ills longer than almost anyone. Over the last few years, he has been continually fine-tuning his message – with Fooled Again, then its expanded and updated version, and now Loser Take All. Miller is meticulous; his analysis is clear, taking the time to connect the dots in a way that is hard to refute by weaving together the chapters of investigative journalists, election experts, and activists. Two highlights from a stellar group: David Moore’s “Because Jeb said so: What really happened on Election Night in Florida” starts the collection off with a bang. And in “Election 2004: The Urban Legend,” Michael Collins persuasively dismantles the traditional GOP explanation for all their gains. The book bristles with statistics, graphs, and charts, but is not too technical for the average, concerned citizen.

The clock is ticking. Our heel-dragging – borne of naïveté, misplaced idealism, or denial – makes us enablers in our own doom. As Jonathan Simon and Bruce O’Dell explain in “Landslide Denied,” the truth endangers the way we see ourselves, both as individuals and as a nation. Ironically, in our never-ending war on terror, we have less to fear from outsiders than we do from the enemies within. Like a flesh-eating disease that consumes its host, the anti-democratic forces are a poison quietly and stealthily diffusing throughout the body politic.

Nancy Tobi has written extensively about HAVA (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) and the profoundly negative effect it has had on the way our elections are run. The EAC, the misnamed Election Assistance Commission, was created by HAVA to be a national clearinghouse for election information. It has failed miserably at that task. In addition, its stated goal is to create an entirely opaque system without any remnant of paper to get in the way, as Tobi puts it, “Where one computer will check (verify) another. In the EAC paperless verifiable voting scheme, the voter is so incidental as to completely disappear…”

She continues,

The destabilizing effect on America’s mechanism of democracy has been substantial…corporate voting company employees have become part of the election process, assisting poll workers in the use of voting equipment, administering “fixes” when the equipment malfunctions, and keeping vote data and election results in “black box” secret vaults, far away from public scrutiny. A Republican House attorney involved in the drafting of HAVA once remarked to me that “They are trying to complexify our elections to the point where citizens have no idea what is going on.” (p. 218)

According to a Zogby poll taken in mid-August 2006, 92% of Americans believe that the public should have the right to observe vote counting and obtain information about the election process. We are heading in what the public recognizes as exactly the wrong direction.

Steven Rosenfeld writes about how updated Jim Crow pervades our elections. Rosenfeld points to a stratagem that allows a minority party to overcome serious demographic disadvantage and hold onto power by pre-emptively keeping voters from the polls. Voter intimidation and vote suppression have been enhanced by both HAVA and the wonders of modern technology. The state of Florida succeeded in wresting the presidency away from Al Gore in 2000 by developing a database of supposed felons that intentionally disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal, largely African-American voters. That technique has been expanded and used to great effect in every election since then. HAVA required that all voter registration databases be computerized. This election will be the first time that the system will be in place nationwide. And this is just one of the many disenfranchisement wild cards that can affect the outcome in November.

In the meantime, party loyalists, whose fierce allegiance seems to be the sole criterion for their hiring, have infiltrated every corner of our government and public life. It goes far beyond Katrina’s Michael “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie!” Brown. The firings of not-political-enough Republican US attorneys who refused to fabricate voter fraud and/or other cases against Democrats right before elections, and the gutting of careerists at the Department of Justice are just two examples. Don’t think I’m crying “wolf.” Here’s what Joseph Rich, former chief of the voting section in the Justice Department’s civil rights division (1999 -2005), has to say on the subject. In “Bush’s long history of tilting Justice”, Rich writes,

[The DOJ’s voting section] has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.

So, the critical question arises: cui bono (who benefits) from all this?

Looking toward the 2008 election, it appears the purges – as well as the new voter ID laws, restrictions on registration drives, and stricter rules for counting provisional ballots – could be a new and legal way to accomplish a longstanding GOP electoral tactic: thinning the ranks of likely Democratic voters.” (Rosenfeld, p. 238)

The stench of fascism is in the air. The combination of intimidation, the stifling of dissent, the politicization of everything, and the clamping down on whistleblowers rather than their targets, all work together to send a message as clearly as any broken window, or graffitied wall. Give up, you can’t win, we’re too strong, we will crush you. All they want from us is our acquiescence. Just remaining silent is enough.

If you are still skeptical, you need look no farther than, “The Ordeal of Don Siegelman.” Larissa Alexandrova writes about how the former Alabama governor was railroaded in such a travesty of justice that a bi-partisan group of 52 former states attorney generals have called for an investigation. What happened to Siegelman was horrible but, apparently, not unique. I recommend reading this short but thorough article in its entirety to get the scope of the problem. “Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys”

Here’s a taste,

In two states [Alabama and Mississippi] where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively.

The picture is grim. We can’t shoot the messenger; and even if we could, it wouldn’t make the message go away. Hopefully, Miller’s book will cause people to sit up and take notice. I hate it when people are lambasted for speaking out about our country. Discussion, debate, and dissent are the lifeblood of true democracy. That is a point too often glossed over or forgotten of late.

I’m a mom, so I tend to think in terms of parenting. If you have the misfortune to have a wayward child, do you just throw up your hands and let him go, remaining silent? Or do you take the far harder path and fight for your child, using every tool at your disposal, to bring him back into the fold of acceptable behavior? Love can’t stop as soon as your child outgrows the adorable stage. It must stay constant and unconditional, even while he battles his personal demons. Love of country is much the same, only the object of our caring and despair is our very nation, and the direction that it is heading. Much of our national mess stems from the corruption of the political process and our beloved elections. If we can’t – or don’t – point out the pitfalls and problems, how can we ever begin to bring about change?

Miller and company are nothing less than a group of democracy-loving whistleblowers, frantically trying to get your attention. They’ve taken the time and care to show you exactly how our country has gone off track. Their activism is, in fact, the highest form of patriotism. Raising public awareness is the first step towards change. And recognizing that we need to restore and assure fair, secure, and transparent elections is the first step towards making us proud of our country again.

10-Minute Take Away

If you have only 10 minutes to spare, read Miller’s final chapter, “A 12-step program to save U.S. democracy.” Only three pages long, it’s pretty spare but contains all the essentials: what we must do in order to take back our elections and our country. One thing is absolutely clear – we can’t correct the problem if we continue to ignore it. Will you read Miller’s excellent and timely book, take the information, and run with it? Our future depends on it.

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A special thanks to Sally Castleman and Ariella Brunwasser for helpful editing.

Over the past few weeks, I have received some really stupid emails trying to get me to boycott the DNC financially over seating Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic convention. I believe this movement is a trojan horse operation being pushed by Republican trolls.
It smells like a Karl Rove type operation.

The financing of the Democratic National Committee should not be crippled as a result of the Clinton-Obama Presidential contest under any circumstances!

The current round of anti-McCain ads being aired by the Democratic National Committee is proof. They are excellent. As Democrats, we should all be helping to finance them if we want to win in November.

Here are a few suggestions.

If you receive an email urging a boycott of DNC donations, reply to the sender that they are helping the Republican Party and that you will be blocking all future emails from them. Then block them.

If you have a website that includes links to other sites, remove all links to sites that promote boycotting the DNC financially.

Make a small donation to the DNC instead of your favorite Presidential candidate this week. Show that you are a real Democrat!

Urge everyone on your email lists to read this post, copy it and send it to every Democrat they know.

Write the Presidential candidate you support and urge them to do a joint televised appeal for funds for the Democratic National Committee. A joint Clinton-Obama fundraising ad would certainly help strengthen the Democratic ticket in November at all levels regardless of eventual nominee.

Thanks,

Stephen Crockett

Host, Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com

Editor, Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com

CBS Poll: Support For Obama Rebounds

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/04/opinion/polls/main4069259.shtml

May 4, 2008
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(CBS) Democrat Barack Obama appears to have rebounded from some of the damage caused by the controversy surrounding his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

On one key measure, Obama has seen a big reversal since his denunciation of Wright’s remarks on Tuesday. He now leads presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the hypothetical fall contest by eleven points, 51 percent to 40 percent. That compares to a tied match-up in a CBS News/New York Times poll that was released last Wednesday.

Positive assessments of how Obama has handled the situation with Wright are also reflected by a continued lead over fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton in his battle for their party’s nomination. Among Democratic primary voters (those who have voted or plan to vote in a Democratic primary) Obama’s lead over Clinton has increased — he now leads Clinton by twelve points, 50 percent to 38 percent. That’s up from his eight point lead in the poll released just a few days ago.

However, among all registered voters who identify themselves as Democrats (regardless of whether they have voted or plan to vote in a Democratic primary) Obama and Clinton are virtually tied — 45 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Obama. This is similar to the numbers earlier in the week.

The poll also shows good news for both Democrats in a campaign versus McCain in the fall. Just like Obama, Clinton’s lead over McCain has jumped, from 5 to 12 points.

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Complete CBS News Polls:
Wright, Obama, And The Campaign
The Economy And The Gas Tax
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Independents back Obama in a head to head against McCain, but in a Clinton-McCain contest independents support McCain by five points. However, more Democrats say they will vote Clinton in the fall than say they will vote for Obama.

The poll shows that almost eight in ten Democratic primary voters would support either Obama or Clinton against McCain in November. Among Democratic primary voters who support Obama now, 70 percent say they would vote for Clinton in November if she is the Democratic nominee. Among those who support Clinton now, 60 percent say they would vote for Obama if he is the nominee.

This poll was conducted after Obama’s public comments on Tuesday denouncing Wright’s statements, something most voters think he handled well. Democratic primary voters are especially approving.

By a margin of nearly three to one, registered voters who have heard about the situation approve of how Obama has handled it, with 60 percent approving to 23 percent who disapprove. Among Democratic primary voters, the margin is 68 percent to 22 percent.

Just over half of registered voters say Obama has been appropriately critical of his ex-pastor. But one in four voters (and slightly more Republicans) would have liked him to have gone further in his rejection.

However, 47 percent of voters see political motivation as the main reason behind Obama’s decision to renounce his minister. Fewer, 34 percent, think the split came mainly because Obama disagreed with things Wright said.

A large number of voters - three-quarters - say that what Wright has said has not changed their opinion of Obama. However, Wright has caused 24 percent to change their view, with 22 percent saying their view of Obama is less favorable. Republicans are more likely than Democrats or Independents to describe the Wright impact negatively.

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Poll Database
Search recent CBS News campaign polls.
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Favorable views of Obama have rebounded some in this poll compared to earlier in the week when his ratings had dipped in the days after Wright’s recent speeches. Forty-four percent now say they have a favorable view of Obama, compared to 39 percent on Wednesday and 43 percent back in March. His negative rating is 30 percent now, compared to 34 percent on Wednesday and 24 percent in March.

When voters are asked about their support for Obama as a candidate, the impact of the Wright situation is again negative — but limited. Seventy-three percent say say it has not changed their likelihood of voting for him, 18 percent say it makes it less likely and six percent say it makes them more likely. As with personal views of Obama, it is Republicans most likely to report a negative impact.

Most voters also say they do not expect Wright’s impact to linger in their own minds. Only about one in ten say this will affect their November vote a lot, with 73 percent saying it will not affect them at all. The impact appears strongest, however, among Republicans, who are least likely to vote for any Democrat.

However, some perceptions of Obama’s qualities have shifted in the last few weeks, and he has lost his edge over Clinton on some past strengths. He is behind both Clinton and McCain on the question of who is tough enough to make the hard decisions a president must. Seven in 10 think both Clinton and McCain are tough enough to make the right decisions a President has to make. Fifty-eight percent say this about Obama.

But more voters, 52 percent, view Obama as the candidate who would unite the country. Slightly fewer now say this about Clinton and McCain is the weakest on this characteristic. Obama has gone down in this measure from February when 67 percent said he would unite the country.

No candidate now has a clear lead when it comes to the candidate who shares the values of most Americans. Sixty percent now say that Obama shares the values of most Americans, but this is down from 64 percent last week, and from 70% a month ago. Four in 10 of those who do not think Obama shares their values say their opinion of Obama has been negatively impacted by the Wright controversy. And most of these voters say Obama distanced himself from Wright for political reasons and not because he really disagreed with his statements.

The poll also asked voters about their opinion of lifting the federal gas tax over the summer, a proposal supported by McCain and Clinton, but not by Obama. Forty-nine percent think lifting the tax is a bad idea, while 45 percent approve of the plan. Most Republicans approve of the idea and most independents disapprove, while Democrats are divided. Americans are also divided on this issue by income: Americans making under $30,000 a year approve of a gas tax “holiday” for the summer, but most Americans making more do not.

The poll also found that many are skeptical of the motives of the public figures that support the idea of a temporary lifting of the federal gasoline tax: seven in 10 think they support the measure mostly to help themselves politically. Even most Americans who approve of the idea think so.

In this poll, Clinton is the candidate most viewed as pandering: Just 34 percent think she says what she believes, while nearly two in three believe she says what people want to hear. For both Obama and McCain, just over half say they say what he believes and four in 10 think they say what voters want to hear.

The debate over the gas tax comes as America’s view of the condition of the national economy reaches new lows. According to the poll, 83 percent think the condition of the national economy is bad - the highest number recorded by the CBS News/New York Times poll since this question was first asked in 1986. Only 16 percent say the economy is even somewhat good, also a record low. The view of the condition of the economy has dropped six points since last week, and it has dropped 22 points since the beginning of the year.

Lastly, the poll found that President Bush’s job approval rating remains at 28 percent, the same as on Wednesday. Mr. Bush’s approval rating has not risen above 30% in over a year.

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 671 adults nationwide, including 283 Democratic primary voters, interviewed by telephone May 1-3, 2008. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus four percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. The error for the sample of Democratic primary voters is five points.

Democrats Look to Pick Up as Many as Six Senate Seats in ’08

http://www.ncec.org/electioninsider/election_4_24_08.html

Political attention continues to be dominated by the seemingly never-ending drama for the Democratic presidential nomination, but while the Clinton and Obama camps slug it out, Democrats supporting either candidate are working tirelessly to solidify the Democratic majority in the Senate. Early polls suggest that Democrats could capture as many as six Senate seats, giving them a much stronger majority.

Democrats Look to Capitalize on a Wealth of Targets While the GOP Just Tries to Hold On

Following the 2006 election, when the Democrats captured a thin one-seat majority, it was clear that 2008 would be a year of opportunity for Democrats to expand on their newfound majority, because there were simply more Republicans up for reelection. However, it was thought that expecting the kind of six-seat gain that was seen in 2006 and once again in 2008 was unrealistic. At this point, it would seem that all the stars have come into alignment, as Democrats have a realistic chance to match or outdo their performance in 2006. The table below shows the unprecedented opportunity that Democrats have before them. With 12 Senators up for reelection, Democrats face only one significant challenge, the seat currently held by Mary Landrieu in Louisiana . Formidable challenges were expected in Arkansas , Iowa , and South Dakota , but credible GOP candidates never materialized. On the other hand, retirements, political misfortunes, and favorable demographic shifts have created as many as eight fiercely contested Republican seats.

Outlook
Democrats (12 Seats)
Republicans (22 Seats)

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Close

1 Democrat

8 Republicans
Mary Landrieu (LA)

Wayne Allard/open (CO)

Norm Coleman (MN)

Susan Collins (ME)

Pete Domenici/open (NM)

Gordon Smith (OR)

Ted Stevens (AK)

John Sununu (NH)

John Warner/open (VA)

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Leaning

0 Democrats

3 Republicans

Elizabeth Dole (NC)

Chuck Hagel/open (NE)

Mitch McConnell (KY)

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Safe

11 Democrats

11 Republicans
Max Baucus (MT)

Tim Johnson (SD)

Joe Biden (DE)

Dick Durbin (IL)

Tom Harkin (IA)

John Kerry (MA)

Frank Lautenberg (NJ)

Carl Levin (MI)

Mark Pryor (AR)

Jack Reed (RI)

Jay Rockefeller (WV)
Lamar Alexander (TN)

Mike Barrasso/special (WY)

Saxby Chambliss (GA)

Thad Cochran (MS)

John Cornyn (TX)

Larry Craig/ open (ID)

Mike Enzi (WY)

Lindsey Graham (SC)

James Inhofe (OK)

Pat Roberts (KS)

Jeff Sessions ( AL )

Early Polls Give Democrats the Advantage

It is obviously too early to tell if polls done six months prior to the election will be accurate when it comes time to start counting ballots, but they are useful for forecasting legitimate vulnerability. As the graph below shows, Democratic candidates are polling very well in the competitive races.

According to these polls, Democrats already have the Senate seats locked up in New Hampshire , New Mexico , and Virginia and hold a small lead in Colorado . Additionally, Mary Landrieu, the only vulnerable Democratic incumbent, holds a strong double-digit lead over Republican John Kennedy. The most surprising race is developing in Alaska , where Democrats suddenly have an opportunity to unseat longtime incumbent Ted Stevens. Below is a brief description of each of the competitive races as they stand right now.

Alaska : Ted Stevens would normally be considered a lock for reelection, but allegations of ethics violations concerning both members of Alaska ’s longtime congressional delegation, Ted Stevens and Don Young, have made the political situation in Alaska unusually interesting. The scandal stems from allegations of an unlawful relationship between Stevens and the oil-field services and construction company Veco. Allegedly a year 2000 remodeling of Stevens’ home may have been done as an improper gift involving the work of Veco employees at no charge to Stevens. Allegations of corruption swirling around incumbents were a recipe for success for Democrats in 2006, but it remains to be seen if these allegations against Stevens will have an effect.

It appears that Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is leaning toward running for the Democrats. After significant cudgeling, Begich has launched an exploratory committee, giving the Democrats their ideal candidate to win this seat, which Stevens has held since 1968.

Colorado : As was shown in a previous Election Insider, Colorado has been trending blue since the 2004 election. In 2008, the state is expected to receive newfound attention in the presidential race as well as be the site of another close Senate race. Congressman Mark Udall (CO-02) is locked in a tight race with former Congressman Bob Schaffer. Most polls have Udall slightly ahead, but in many cases the differential falls within the margin of error. The latest FEC reports show that Udall has a significant financial advantage, with more than $3.6 million in cash on hand, in comparison with $2.1 million for Schaffer. Schaffer additionally has taken some heat from a story that broke recently connecting him to a Jack Abramoff–funded trip to the Northern Mariana Islands .

Louisiana : Senator Mary Landrieu has consistently been seen as a vulnerable Democrat coming into the 2008 election, due in large part to the still-lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina, which fractured the Democratic voting base in New Orleans . However, recent polls have suggested that Landrieu is faring quite well against prospective Republican candidate John N. Kennedy. A poll released in April gave Landrieu a favorability rating of 70%, an astounding figure. Additionally, recent outcomes in Louisiana , such as the special runoff in LA-06 , show that Democratic voting is picking up in new parts of the state, which could benefit Landrieu.

Maine : Recent polls still show Senator Susan Collins well ahead of Democratic Congressman Tom Allen, but serious campaigning has yet to begin in this race, so later polls will certainly close the gap. Collins will soon need to defend her staunch support for President Bush throughout her term, including voting in favor of the Bush tax cuts, the Bush energy policy, and the war in Iraq — which will be a difficult defense in a Democratic-leaning state like Maine .

Minnesota : What was expected to be a long, drawn-out Democratic primary battle between Al Franken and Mike Ciresi ended unexpectedly when Ciresi dropped out. Franken, now secure in his nomination, has begun campaigning for the general election. Democrats enjoy a natural advantage over the GOP in statewide elections in Minnesota , and recent polls have the candidates in a statistical tie, which is bad news for any incumbent this early in the cycle. Senator Norm Coleman has shown early in the campaign that he is willing to go to great lengths to preserve his seat, even politicizing the 35W bridge disaster. Al Franken outpaced Coleman in fundraising in the first quarter of the year, but Coleman still enjoys the overall advantage, due to his vast war chest. Democrat Amy Klobuchar captured a Senate seat in Minnesota in 2006, and the polls were close throughout the campaign, so it is likely that this race will remain close to the end as well.

New Hampshire : Democratic candidate Governor Jeanne Shaheen has successfully rebounded from a brief drop in polls after controversy erupted over some comments made by her husband. The most recent polls have her ahead by double digits over Senator John Sununu in their rematch for the Senate seat that Sununu won in 2002. Shaheen’s campaign recently announced that it had raised nearly $1.2 million in the first quarter of the year and has nearly $2 million in cash on hand.

New Mexico : Longtime Senator Pete Domenici is one of the surprise retirements of 2008, which has created a golden opportunity for a Democratic pickup. Congressman Tom Udall has solidified his hold on the Democratic nomination after all opposition withdrew from the race, while the Republicans are locked in a contentious primary contest between Congressman Steve Pearce and Congresswoman Heather Wilson. The primary has gotten ugly between the two Republican candidates, as Congressman Pearce recently attacked Wilson for missing votes in Washington in order to campaign in New Mexico . A long and damaging primary on the Republican side is good fortune for Democrat Tom Udall, because it can expose weaknesses in the other candidates and use up their funds. According to the most recent FEC reports, Udall enjoys a significant financial advantage, as the strain from the primary is already being felt in the Republican race. Both Republican candidates have spent more than three times the money that Udall has, and polls suggest that Udall has a commanding lead in general election matchups.

Oregon : This race will become clearer on May 20, when mail voting closes in the primary. It is unclear at this point which Democratic candidate, Jeff Merkley or Steve Novick, will emerge victorious in the primary, but Oregon ’s party establishment has mostly thrown its support behind Merkley. One interesting aspect of this race is what effect the independent candidacy of John Frohnmayer will have. Frohnmayer, a former chairman of the federal National Endowment for the Arts comes from a Republican background — he was appointed to head the NEA by President George H.W. Bush — but it is not yet clear if he will take more votes from Smith or cut into the anti-Smith vote that would normally go to the Democratic nominee. While Smith waits to see who the eventual Democratic challenger will be, he continues to attempt to create a moderate persona around himself by breaking with Republicans on a few votes. For example, Smith voted against providing $70 billion in unrestricted funds for Iraq and Afghanistan , opposing the will of a president he has historically supported. There have been few polls on this race thus far, but we’ll get a better sense of it after the primary.

Virginia : Like Colorado , the state of Virginia has been trending Democratic over the past few election cycles, and if current polls hold, former Governor Mark Warner will cruise to victory. Republican candidate Jim Gilmore has yet to significantly close the gap between him and Warner, and there are those who doubt that he ever will. Along with a large lead in the polls, Warner enjoys significant financial advantage; according to the latest FEC reports, Warner has more than $2.8 million on hand, whereas Gilmore has less than $200K.

New York Times
April 27, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania
By FRANK RICH

IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.

Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.

When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats’ exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war?

But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that party’s nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. That’s more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.

Those antiwar Paul voters are all potential defectors to the Democrats in November. Mr. Huckabee’s religious conservatives, who rejected Mr. McCain throughout the primary season, might also bolt or stay home. Given that the Democratic ticket beat Bush-Cheney in Pennsylvania by 205,000 votes in 2000 and 144,000 votes in 2004, these are 220,000 voters the G.O.P. can ill-afford to lose. Especially since there are now a million more registered Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania. (These figures don’t even include independents, who couldn’t vote in either primary on Tuesday and have been migrating toward the Democrats since 2006.)

For such a bitterly divided party, the Democrats hardly show signs of clinical depression. The last debate, however dumb, had the most viewers of any so far. The rise in turnout and new voters is all on the Democratic side. Even before its deathbed transfusion of new donations, the Clinton campaign trounced the McCain campaign in fund-raising by 2.5 to 1. (The Obama-McCain ratio is 3 to 1.)

On Tuesday, a Democrat won the first round of a special Congressional election in Mississippi, even though the national G.O.P. outspent the Democrats by more than double and President Bush carried this previously safe Republican district by 25 percentage points in 2004. A Gallup poll last week found Mr. Bush’s national disapproval rating the worst (69 percent) for any president in Gallup’s entire 70-year history. For all his (and Mr. McCain’s) persistent sightings of “victory” in Iraq, the percentage of Americans calling the war a mistake (63) also set a new record.

“I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings,” Mr. Bush joked on Monday night, when he popped up like Waldo on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal” to root for an Army captain who was a contestant. But it turns out that not even cash giveaways to veterans can induce Americans to set eyes on this president. “Deal or No Deal” drew an audience 19 percent below its season average. The best deal for Mr. McCain would be for Mr. Bush to disappear into the witness protection program.

But surely, it could be argued, the mud in the Democratic race will be as much a drag on that party’s eventual nominee as the incumbent president is on the G.O.P. ticket. The counterargument, advanced by Mrs. Clinton in justifying her “kitchen sink” attacks on Mr. Obama, is that the Democrats are better off being tested now by raising all the issues the Republicans will. It’s a fair point. The Wright, Rezko, Ayers, “bittergate” and flag-pin firestorms will all be revived by the opposition come fall. Voters should indeed see how Mr. Obama deals with them, just as Democrats also need to gauge how the flash points of race and gender will play out in the crunch.

The flaw in Mrs. Clinton’s refrain is her claim that she, unlike her challenger, has already been so fully vetted that her candidacy can offer no more unpleasant surprises. “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” she says. Perhaps the delusion that she has a get-out-of-scandal-free card comes from her unexpected endorsement from Richard Mellon Scaife, the nutty Pittsburgh newspaper publisher who once spent a fortune trying to implicate the Clintons in the “murder” of Vince Foster. Or perhaps she thinks Fox News will call off the dogs now that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is appearing in network promos endorsing its “fair and balanced” shtick.

But the incessant praise for Mrs. Clinton’s resilience as a candidate by Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan and William Bennett reveals just how eager they are to take her on. The dealings of the Bill Clinton post-presidency, barely alluded to by Mr. Obama in his own halting bouts of negative campaigning, have simply been put on hold while the Democrats slug it out. Close observers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News can already read Rupert Murdoch’s tea leaves, and not just those from China. “Clinton Foundation Secrets” was the title of The Journal’s lead editorial on Friday profiling a rogues’ gallery of shady donors.

Mrs. Clinton’s supporters would argue that she’s so battle-tested she could fend it all off. She’s unlikely to get the chance. For all the nail-biting suspense being ginned up, the probable denouement remains unchanged. When the primary juggernaut finally ends — following picturesque day trips to Puerto Rico and Guam — the superdelegates will likely succumb to the math of Mr. Obama’s virtually insurmountable pledged-delegate total.

There’s also a way that two super-superdelegates, the duo on the Democrats’ last winning ticket, could trigger a faster finale. Bill Clinton could do so by undermining his wife once more with another ill-timed, red-faced eruption. Al Gore could possibly do so with a well-timed endorsement before his party gets mired in yet another Florida recount.

There’s only one way this can end badly, no matter how long it lasts. That would be if the loser, whoever it is, turns sore and fails to rally his or her troops around the winner. It’s all about “the way the loser loses,” as the Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is neutral in the race, likes to say. While the Clintons are capable of such kamikaze narcissism, their selfish desire to preserve their own political future, if not the party’s, may be a powerful check on those impulses.

On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his campaign into an unjustified complacency. The Democrats should “take their time — don’t rush,” the McCain aide Mark Salter joked last week. Yet his candidate, as the conservative blogger Ross Douthat pointed out, keeps bumping up against a 45 percent ceiling in the polls even now, when the Democrats are ostensibly in ruins.

Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.

Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.

The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.

The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.

Why is the Associated Press not carrying nationally Alabama newspaper story about Don Siegelman?

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/04/siegelman-and-alabama-press.html

This is very, very strange!

The national Press should look into this situation.

Analysis: California’s patience running on empty over proposed U.S. fuel rules
By Kevin Yamamura - kyamamura@sacbee.com

Last Updated 12:19 am PDT Thursday, April 24, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A15

President Bush’s popularity may have sunk to a new low this week in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office as it discovered the language deep within new federal fuel economy standards released on Earth Day.

The Bush administration proposed blocking California from imposing its stricter vehicle regulations, which the state believes are necessary to reach its environmental goals.

Mary Nichols, one of Schwarzenegger’s top environmental appointees, convened a Capitol press conference Wednesday to call the federal proposal “insidious,” adding that it was “frankly beyond even what we had thought possible from this administration.”

Though Schwarzenegger was in meetings down the hall, aides said Nichols spoke for him.

The Republican governor endorsed President Bush and campaigned for his re-election in Ohio. But in comments last week at Yale University – Bush’s alma mater, no less – Schwarzenegger gave his harshest indictment yet of the Republican president.

“President McCain, President Obama, President Clinton – I think will all shift this country into a much higher gear when it comes to climate change,” he said.

The governor has endorsed GOP Sen. John McCain, who along with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama has pledged to allow California to regulate its own vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Schwarzenegger has made global warming his signature concern since 2006 and used it to create political separation from an unpopular President Bush.

He signed Assembly Bill 32 requiring California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020, a goal the federal government has not agreed to. The governor has signed agreements with other states and countries on reducing emissions, implicitly skewering Washington for not doing so.

California still needs permission from the federal government to carry out a 2002 state law establishing strict standards on vehicles sold here, and the Bush administration has declined to give it, prompting legal disputes that are ongoing. Every time the Bush administration has refused to grant California permission, Schwarzenegger has responded by attacking the federal government.

“First, if you’re a Republican anywhere, you’re looking for opportunities to put distance between yourself and a very unpopular president,” said John J. Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “Second, the environment has long been a very big issue in California. For geographic reasons we have a greater sensitivity to it. And third, I do think he believes in it.”

The latest battle erupted Tuesday over a proposed regulation in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed fuel economy standards. On Page 378 of a 417-page report, the department proposes blocking states from regulating vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Brian Turmail, a Transportation Department spokesman, said the administration believes it is better to establish a national standard rather than allowing states to decide on their own.

“It’s our feeling that when Congress declined to include language allowing state-specific fuel economy standards in its current bill, that it indeed wanted to have national fuel economy standards,” Turmail said. “From our point of view, these efforts by states would undermine and render moot a national fuel economy standard.”

Turmail said DOT intends to adopt its regulations by the end of the year, setting standards that would raise the combined fuel economy standard for automobiles and light trucks to 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015.

Nichols said California’s standards are 13 percent more stringent than the federal guidelines by 2015. She suggested Wednesday that the Bush administration was being influenced by Detroit lobbyists, referring to “little giveaways to the auto industry” in the latest guidelines.

Schwarzenegger himself began using automakers as a foil last year, declaring that his message was “Arnold to Michigan: Get off your butt.” The governor, however, has not totally broken with Detroit – he took a $25,000 donation from General Motors in March.

Even if Schwarzenegger believes he can count on McCain, Obama or Clinton to reverse course from the current White House next year, Nichols said it remains necessary to fight the Bush administration to avoid legal precedents against California from being set.

Bill Magavern, executive director of Sierra Club California, noted that the 2002 California law in limbo was set to affect 2009 vehicles, which will start being built later this year.

“It would be a mistake to be complacent and say, ‘Well, this wrong-headed president is in his last year and therefore we’re not going to worry too much,’ ” Magavern said. “It’s no small matter to reverse the direction of a federal agency, even when there’s a change of administration.”

About the writer:
Call Kevin Yamamura, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5548.

For the Good of the Party and America, an Obama-Clinton Democratic ticket

Hillary Clinton should end her bid for the White House. Obama should offer her the Vice Presidency. Clinton should accept the offer. It would be a bitter pill for both to swallow but it is what both the Democratic Party and the American nation desperately needs. Neither Clinton nor Obama should place their personal ambition, pride or emotions ahead of the needs of the American people.

Clinton won a big victory in Pennsylvania but the election was tainted by the highly negative campaign and by serious election equipment and logistical flaws. At this point, she could easily withdraw with honor. Clinton is certainly not responsible for the defective voting equipment or the thousands of Republicans who switched their registrations in Pennsylvania to Democratic but were denied their right to cast even provisional ballots.

Brad Friedman of Brad Blog predicted in advance on his website and in an interview broadcast on my Democratic Talk Radio show that the election process in Pennsylvania was going to be a disaster logistically. He told our listening audience in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (WGPA SUNNY 1100AM) and our Internet audience that after the problems arose that the type of voting machines used in Pennsylvania made it impossible to fix errors likely to arise. The voting machines used made it impossible to verify the count or audit the results. Pennsylvania election laws and processes tainted Clinton’s victory through no fault of her own.

This writer believes she won big in Pennsylvania but the voting process was so bad that many voters will always doubt the size of that victory.

Regardless of the Pennsylvania win, Clinton has almost zero chance of gaining the Democratic Presidential nomination without changing the nominating rules to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida selected in unfair primary elections. Even with those delegates counted, Clinton has very little chance of gaining the nomination. It would take a nearly complete sweep of the remaining election contests in places like North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Puerto Rico, Guam and Idaho along with gaining most of the Super Delegates. Basically, it would take a whole series of miracles for her to gain the nomination and place her in a very weak position in terms of defeating McCain in the Fall.

Counting on a series of miracles to win a nomination that would split the Democratic Party in half is a pretty poor campaign strategy. Staying in the race would cast Clinton in a Democratic spoiler role in the minds of the American people should it result in a McCain victory in November. It would ruin her place in history.

A McCain victory would be an absolute disaster for the American nation. It would be basically a third term for Bush Republicanism and the insane policies that have wrecked the American economy. It would mean a foreign policy of endless, pointless, bloody wars. Make no mistake about it, John McCain is a war-monger who has no clue about how to run an economy.

McCain would pack our federal courts with the same kind of partisan, ideologically driven, Far Right judges that Bush appointed. Helping to elect McCain would gut the Bill of Rights and essentially destroy American Democracy. McCain would be both stubborn and inept in the White House just like Bush.

McCain is and always has been a tool of Corporate forces in politics- just like Bush. He and his wife are likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars although the so-called “straight talker” has refused to expose their full family finances. McCain is hiding his conflicts of interests and financially self-serving political position by hiding behind his wife! It is shameful and dishonest.

Electing McCain would mean millions more Americans would lose their homes, their savings and their jobs. It would mean the near collapse of the American dollar, the almost total destruction of America as a manufacturing nation and the end of our military dominance because of economic collapse. The destruction of our Constitutionally guaranteed personal freedoms started under Bush would become complete. It would be in a very real sense a third term for George W. Bush.

McCain was a war hero in Vietnam but since then he has been a disaster for working Americans. Read about McCain at McCain Revealed.com http://www.mccainrevealed.com if you think I am over stating the case against a McCain Presidency. His record and policy positions are about 95 % the same as George W. Bush.

The American nation cannot afford a Bush Presidency. Clinton and Obama should make any sacrifice necessary to spare the American nation of this impending disaster. I am calling on their proven patriotism to work together as a Democratic ticket to defeat Bush Republicanism in the form of John McCain. Please save the American nation!
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Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish or post without prior approval.