I wish I had something profound to offer in anticipation of the election tomorrow. I don’t. What I keep thinking of is election night 2000. And the days that followed.
The DNC have never forgiven Dubya for winning that election. And their disappointment grew into hatred when he took charge after 9/11. It was as if they were holding onto a lifeline in December 2000, and by the same time next year were seeing it pulled through their fingers no matter how hard they tried to hold on.
They are close to the end of their rope. And they seem to know that.
I expect the DNC to do everything they can to destroy what is left of the electoral process. They got a taste last time, and found many Americans were willing to let them get away with it. They will go to at least another level this year.
Regardless of outcome tomorrow, we need to cleanse all votor rolls and re-register every eligible person. And we need to eliminate the process of having voter registration by proxy, allowing organizations to handle what should be one of the few tasks government does. When voting laws were first established, people knew nothing of photographs, let alone photo ID. Identification must be presented when registering, and again when voting. These are not difficult. They are essential.
Well, the GOP appears to already be hard at work at toward that same end. The voter fraud story (on yesterday’s This American Life) made for a pretty chilling Halloween morning — listen to it (RealAudio format) if you like. The show has a strong slant to the left, so it’s likely they glossed over much of the Democratic-sponsored shenanigans, but this particular story presents plenty of plain facts from this election season demonstrating that the GOP also has its hands very, very dirty.
I’ll be so, SO glad when this election is over, and it pains me to realize it may be overly optimistic to hope it’ll actually BE over by tomorrow night.
Comment by Bogey — November 1, 2004 @ 11:40 pm
The difference is that the GOP is fighting a defensive battle. And if anyone believes the efforts are equal, they’re wearing blinders.
Al Gore took a very strange step in 2000 which set the tone. He requested a recount–in a few counties he had already won. Who does that? At the same time, he moved to have thrown out absentee ballots in counties he had already lost.
These are not the actions of someone who sincerely believes the votes would have favored him had they been counted correctly.
With the national attitude of “politics as usual”, they see the opportunity to take even more drastic steps. After all, all politicians are crooked, right? Who’s going to notice or care?
I am more concerned about the long-term effect on our electoral system than with who wins this particular election.
Comment by Bunker — November 2, 2004 @ 6:24 am
Go listen to that story I linked to and tell me again it’s a defensive battle. It really isn’t; the facts of these stories are plain even if the presentation isn’t. If anyone believes that the GOP has nobody acting on the offensive to produce large-scale elimination of legitimate votes and voters that might go against them, they’re the ones wearing blinders.
Everybody who was pissed off by it last time, and/or a few hundred thousand guys and gals with blogs just waiting to rake them over the coals for it. They might pretend they don’t know y’all are out there, but they do, and they know the MSM is watching y’all too, for 1) cues to the stories that the public actually cares about, since they can’t discern that for themselves and 2) facts that they can’t or won’t bother to uncover themselves. It just might not be as bad as you expect (a rare moment of optimism from me?!?). Might.
Comment by Bogey — November 2, 2004 @ 6:46 am
I can’t listen to it through the firewall here at work, but will check it out at home. My guess is that the GOP is being aggressive. That doesn’t mean they are on the offensive. Based on what happened in 2000, and what is anticipated this year, they need to be out in force. They still have far fewer lawyers in place, and the rhetoric continues to come from the DNC about disenfranchisement. Their view seems to be if you show up, you get to vote–whether you are registered, are at the proper polling station, or are even a citizen or not.
Comment by Bunker — November 2, 2004 @ 9:36 am
I’m glad you’re willing to check it out, because there appears to be a strong case for a GOP’s view (or at least certain factions in or related to the GOP) that’s more along the lines of “even if you’re a registered citizen at the correct polling place, we just might prevent you from voting, or find a way to negate a proper registration.”
Good job getting your stylesheet back in place, btw! One thing you still need to do in the HTML template: your “branding image” is being resized by the CSS based on the slightly different image I’d used in the mockup I made you last weekend… you’ve swapped it with a wider image, so in your your CSS find your
#branding-imgdeclarations, and change the line that sayswidth: 348pxtowidth: 400px. I realize you’ve declared the correct width on the<img>tag in the HTML, but since it’s floated in the CSS it’s a good idea to have the width in there too to prevent possible display glitches.Looks like your comment links are also white right now… Other than that, great job! You seem to be taming WordPress at last.
Comment by Bogey — November 2, 2004 @ 12:20 pm
Oh, I get it… the link style for your sidebar is applying to all the links in your content area as well (except the post titles). All links within posts are now white with a light gray bg on hover.
You really ought to link your “branding image” back to the homepage in every template, too, btw.
Comment by Bogey — November 2, 2004 @ 12:24 pm
I’ll have to get you to walk me through it tonight. I’ve not been able to figure out how to make the links in the CONTENT area do what they’re supposed to do.
And here I thought I was beginning to understand the ID and CLASS stuff!
Comment by Bunker — November 2, 2004 @ 12:59 pm