We Won, So Elections Were Fair
Mark Crispin Miller joined me on the Lionel Show today. I mentioned that progressives are happy that Obama won, and more Dems were elected to the House and Senate. While we got (most of) the results we hoped for, the outcome doesn't mean that the process worked well. Prof.Miller, author of Fooled Again and Loser Takes All, gave the election a grade of F. He believes that Obama may have gotten as many as 7 million more votes from voters who were purged from the rolls, many of whom were given provisional ballots that may never be counted.
We know some of the tactics were used. In Ohio, as many as 600,000 voters were thrown off the lists the last 2 years, and similar problems occurred in many other states--notably Georgia, where the Senate race will be decided in a December 2 runoff. Miller did not go easy on Obama or the Dems, saying that they are remarkably disinterested in fixing the system. He noted that Tim Robbins had to spend 4 hours on election day to re-instate his name on the rolls after discovering he had been purged--even though he was on the list for the primary earlier this year. Oprah experienced ?The Flip (not a cellphone or a hairdo) when she tried to vote for Obama and the machine preferred McCain.
We can rest on the laurels of victory, we must demand that our election process be fixed: no private companies, no electronic voting machines or tabulators, and an end to the voter suppression tactics used by the Republicans.
It's a day of ironies about democracy. The NYT reports unrest in the streets of Nicaragua amid charges that Daniel Ortega and pals rigged an election. But Americans remained passive in two successive stolen elections. And in Baghdad, members of the Iraqi Parliament descended into a "brawl" according to the NYT, as they debated what they call the Withdrawal Agreement. That won't happen in our Congress, because Bush won't let them debate or vote on the new occupation agreement.
Don't let the election distract you. The fight for democracy here continues.
- FILED UNDER: Host Posts, Diebold, Elections, Mark Crispin Miller, Obama, Oprah, Tim Robbins
- November 20, 2008
"stolen" elections
I don't fear many things, but I do worry about people who are so dense they truly believe the last two elections were "stolen." (Let's hear it for Al "Tax Carbon So My Company Can Profit From It" Gore, who only wanted a recount in liberal counties. There's fairness for ya.)
Newsflash! Thousands of names were thrown off the rolls this year because THEY WERE FAKES! O-Bomber's ACORN buddies are the ones rigging the election. Holy crap, do you people ever read information that DIDN'T originate on your website?
Well, you probably hadn't heard the reason Tim Robbins had a hard time voting was that his address changed. His low IQ allows him to bitch and moan alot, but not to pay attention to election literature. The reason he wasn't on the list was that he went to the wrong place. Duh.
These are facts, Jack. Look 'em up in objective news sources.
Look, I'm not at all happy with the election results. (Well, there was one bright ray of hope in California...) But I'm not stupid enough to go around denying reality. The Republicans had a crappy candidate. They ran a crappy campaign. We lost. I lost. The whole country lost, really. It was a fight between a turd and a turd, and by dang, a turd won.
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By HypnoToadNovember 20, 2008 - 8:08pmHere's a news flash for ya
Say hello to your new President!
Looks like he got too "uppity" to worry about having to call for a recount...he certainly was "up" in the electoral-vote count! 365 to 173...do you need a recount at that margin?
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. ~~~John Kenneth Galbraith
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By nonexistent manNovember 20, 2008 - 11:18pmThat is a great picture
I feel so proud seeing a man like Obama represent the United States instead of that drunk coke head draft dodging babbling idiot Bush. Maybe his leadership can fix the disaster these fuckin right wingers caused.
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By hufflarry2000November 21, 2008 - 12:18amHey hufflarry
Obama is not YOUR president. You were opposed to him from the git go. Now you embrace as if you wanted him all along. You are such a hypocrite.
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By momofukuNovember 21, 2008 - 8:46pmYou have never posted a fact here.
Prop 8 is illegal and will be overturned. Provide proof that ACORN is rigging the election and all the purged names were fakes. Cant provide proof? It is hard to prove a lie, isnt it?
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By hufflarry2000November 20, 2008 - 10:21pmYada Yada Yada
Obama Throws No Bones to Progressive Base
By Matthew Rothschild, November 19, 2008
When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?
He won the crucial Iowa caucuses on the strength of his anti-Iraq War stance, and many progressive peace and justice activists worked hard for him against John McCain.
So why in the world is he choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State when she was one of the loudest hawks on Iraq and threatened to obliterate 75 million Iranians?
And it’s not just Hillary.
Obama’s OMB pick, Peter Orzag, is a Clintonite disciple of Robert Rubin.
Obama’s AG pick, Eric Holder, is a Clintonite who represented Chiquita Bananas.
And Larry Summers’s name is still being bandied about for Treasury, even though Summers, while Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, forced the deregulation of our financial markets and imposed disaster capitalism on Russia.
Worse still, heading Obama’s transition team on intelligence matters are two former deputies to George Tenet, of all people. (See Amy Goodman’s great story about this on Democracy Now!)
Look, there are a lot of talented progressives who could be in an Obama cabinet.
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winner in economics and a critic of corporate globalization. He should be Treasury Secretary.
Senator Russ Feingold is a champion of civil liberties. He should be Attorney General.
Robert Greenstein is head of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He would make a much better OMB director.
Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, would be a tremendous Secretary of Labor.
And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.
That sure would indicate a welcome departure from empire as usual.
But at this point, progressives are getting absolutely nothing from Obama.
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By momofukuNovember 21, 2008 - 9:56am