Election 2008

Remember way back in 2008, during the big primary, when Rush Limbaugh was telling Republicans in Ohio and Texas to switch to Democrat just so they could vote for Hillary and screw up the primary? People listened and obeyed, and now it looks like it could be coming back to haunt them:

Victoria Robertson has been an avowed Republican for decades, working tirelessly for conservative candidates and causes.

That is until a typo by a pollworker changed her party affiliation, elections officials say. Now she can’t even run for re-election to the GOP central committee.

“You’re a Democrat as we speak until the primary, and that cannot be changed until you get the right box checked,” Butler County Board of Elections Chairman Tom Ellis told her at a board meeting Wednesday, Feb. 24 — the deadline to certify the May primary ballot.

Now I have no reason to not believe that this was an accident that happened to Robertson. As matter of fact, one of the Democrats on the board even believes so:

“I find it to be a very disturbing situation,” Democratic board member John Holcomb said. “I think it is really a situation that cries out for procedural reform to take that power away from pollworkers.”

I know John and if he believes that then so do I, but there is something else in this article that really got my curiosity going:

Robertson was one of seven candidates for Republican central committee who were disqualified for pulling Democratic ballots in the 2008 primary. She was the only one to contest it, officials said.

Now let me pretend I am a lawyer making some closing arguments. In these closing arguments I want to present all the facts again. Here they are in nice bullet point form:

• Butler County, Ohio has a population of 332,000
• Butler County is a very red county, voting for McCain over Obama in 2008 by 61%-38%
• In 2008 Butler County made national attention when people proudly proclaimed their obedience to Rush stating that they did exactly what he asked for.
• In 2010, the next election cycle, 7 Republicans have been disqualified from running for voting Democratic in the 2008 primary
• In 2010 0 Democrats have had this problem.

Coincidence? Sure, it could be, and unicorns could also roam the earth.

Now let’s think about this. Jumping parties in the primary like people did is actually a crime in Ohio. Out of 7 Republicans having this problem, only 1 has come forward to contest it. And keep in mind that these aren’t just your run of the mill Republicans, these are people who are involved in local politics. They are running for a position that is a foreign word to most people - “central committee”. That means they are devoted to party politics and now are considered to be on the enemy side, yet they aren’t contesting it? Something smells fishy here and I would go back to the plea by the GOP leader, Rush Limbaugh, asking his minions to jump party lines in Ohio in 2008.

Chalk this up a hard learned lesson. When you listen to a moron with a megaphone, some of that moron’s idiocy will rub off on you and cost you in the end.

My previous post got me thinking even more. The Louisiana Purchase brought us a lot of red states. As a matter of fact, 11 of the 13 states from the Louisiana Purchase voted for McCain in 2008. The devil has to be involved in that somehow.

Now it’s time to exit Snarkville and point to a great piece on Salon examining the myth of the “pact with the Devil” that Haitians made and what it really means.

There is a growing movement out there for Norm Coleman to throw in the towel, and it’s not just limited to the right. Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor for the National Review and right wing pundit writes a simple one line post regarding Coleman:

I think it's time for him to give up this fight.

Scott Johnson from Powerline has a much more verbose article, which also appears on the National Review,  about the entire recount and concludes the following:

And I don’t think it can exactly be said that he (Franken) won the election fair and square. Indeed, I can’t find a single good thing to say about him except that he didn’t steal the election

While that is kind of a sinister statement, it pretty much sums it up by saying Coleman is done.

If Coleman continues the fight he is going to not only hurt himself, but also his own party. The governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, is considered a front runner for the GOP in 2012. Now he might have to make a very tough decision – certify the election for Franken, or not. If he does he will certainly upset party insiders, and that hurts his primary chances. If he doesn’t he will risk any chance at winning a general election, already a battle against a highly admired incumbent President.

But Coleman is also committing political suicide. He should take this chance and be the statesman. Bow out of the race and then plan a rerun, or even run for governor – chances are the seat will be vacated. But the longer Norm continues this fight and deprives Minnesota of a Senator, the harder his chances of a political comeback become.

Norm is now in a lose-lose situation, so he does need to do the right thing. Don’t listen to people like John Cornyn, who only worries about building his numbers in the Senate, but rather bow out. The race is over and he lost. Time to move on.

Norm Coleman sued and that ended up giving Franken a bigger lead than before:

Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate election, after the counting of about 350 formerly rejected absentee ballots this morning.

Franken captured 198 of the ballots, while Coleman took 111. The ballots added 87 votes to Franken’s recount lead, enlarging his margin over Coleman to 312.

The result makes it even more likely that, barring an unforeseen circumstance, Franken will prevail in the election lawsuit that Coleman filed in January to contest the Democrat's 225-vote recount lead. The three-judge panel presiding over the case has not said when it will issue a final decision.

Of course the Republican still hate democracy and will continue to deprive the citizens of Minnesota from their full representation in the U.S. Senate. At this point Franken should be certified and seated. If the courts rule something else down the road, then fine, make a switch, but right now the only ones suffering from this are the people of Minnesota.

It sure sounds like it:

Last session's senior senator from Minnesota Norm Coleman, still battling Al Franken to be seated in the Senate, has taken a paid job as a consultant to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which harshly attacked Obama last fall, its executive director, Matt Brooks, said.

Coleman will join the group as a "consultant and strategic advisor," and will also travel the country fundraising on the group's behalf, Brooks said.

"It's an opportunity for him to, now that he's got some down time on his hands, to really help us while this case is being adjudicated," Brooks said. "He hasn't given up at all" on retaking the Minnesota seat.

Since Coleman is now seeking new employment, perhaps we can go ahead and seat Franken today.

Laura Bush was “mad” over some of the critiques Obama had of her husband during the election.

God forbid any jabs be thrown during a campaign – especially towards the incumbent President, who also happens to be one of the least popular in American history. I can’t wait for this walking, talking disaster to just go away. </p>

A sign of the times. Three men are now under federal indictment for seeking out black people to beat up following Obama’s victory. This was the kind of thing we knew would happen, especially given the tone of the Wasilla-billy Sarah Palin on the campaign trail.

No one wants you to be senator anymore!

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Monday rejected Republican Norm Coleman's request to count an additional 654 rejected absentee ballots in his weeks-old Senate showdown with Democrat Al Franken.

The ruling clears the way for the state Canvassing Board to certify results showing Franken the winner after the Supreme Court said the issue is best settled in a post-count lawsuit.

Coleman's attorneys have said they're likely to sue if he loses the recount, meaning it could be weeks more before the outcome is final.

Al Franken is now a Senator. Republicans need to stop dragging their feet, walking with their chins on their chests and allow Franken to be seated. Or is it the Republicans are willing to let one of our states go without full representation into the next Congress?

Looks like the Republican attempts at not counting all votes just got squashed:

Al Franken received a potentially major boost towards his hopes of becoming Senator on Friday, when Minnesota state officials ruled that absentee ballots rejected because of clerical or administrative errors should, in the end, be counted.

The decision by the state canvassing board -- which was unanimous -- is, essentially, an official request for county officials to go back and count the wrongfully rejected absentee votes. This process has already begun in many counties and could portend sizeable gains for Franken.

The Democratic challenger has spent the past few weeks demanding that the state review the approximately 1,500 absentee ballots that they contend were unlawfully dismissed. Many of these votes have come from traditionally Democratic locales where, for one reason or another, voters are more likely to make clerical errors when completing their ballots.

I bet old Norm Coleman is pissed right about now.

The right wing conspiracy nut jobs have been having a field day bogging down our courts with claims that Obama isn’t eligible to be President, claiming he is not an actual citizen. Well the latest claim has been shot down by the SCOTUS:

The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.

I wondered out loud the other day why the party that is all for tort reform is burdening our courts with such outlandish allegations. Will someone in the media ask some right wingers, who support these lawsuits, why they feel it important to burden the courts now?

You’re probably wondering why I am thankful for that. Well it’s because of this:

In a year when national Republican fortunes took a turn for the worse, Louisiana delivered the GOP two seats in Congress in elections delayed by Hurricane Gustav.

Indicted Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson was ousted Saturday from his New Orleans area district, while Republicans narrowly held on to the seat vacated by a retiring incumbent.

The wins followed Republicans' reconquest of another House seat earlier this fall that had been lost to Democrats.

In the 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of New Orleans, Republican attorney Anh "Joseph&quot; Cao won 50 percent of the vote to Jefferson's 47 percent and will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. His only previous political experience was an unsuccessful 2007 bid for a seat in the state legislature.

Jefferson should have just quit, but instead he has decided to keep on going and cost his party a seat. This sounds like a man out for his own interest – something that goes hand in hand with corruption.

The hope of 60 seats in the Senate is now dead:

Relieved Republicans celebrated a resounding win in Georgia's hard-fought U.S. Senate runoff, a victory that denied Democrats a filibuster-proof majority and cemented the state's reputation as a GOP bastion.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss trounced Democrat Jim Martin Tuesday night, winning his second term by a margin of more than 10 percentage points. The race dashed Democrats' hopes of a 60-seat majority immune to Senate filibusters, which would have given President-elect Barack Obama a stronger hand moving his agenda.

I wasn’t entirely sold on 60 seats meaning we had a filibuster proof majority. It’s hard to get 100% of the caucus to vote with the party all the time. Of course that can also apply to the Republicans now. If the Democrats put forth good legislation and get a couple of the more moderate Republicans on board, then filibusters can be broken.

Of course this also leads the Republicans to the cusp of the abyss. Mitch McConnell is a filibustering fool. In the elections this year, we saw the controlling party of the worst approved Congress make major gains in seats. The voters understand that the current Congress performed so poorly because of the obstructing Republicans. If they continue down this path then 60 seats should really be a viable option in 2010. I believe some of the more sensible Republicans in Senate will also see this and that will force them to break with their caucus on some filibusters.

You know, these guys should watch it. Obama is soon to be running the country, along with his own party. He might decide to suddenly enforce the law and that could mean churches violating their separation from stat could suddenly end up owing a bunch in taxes. Here’s the latest:

Parishioners of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto have been told they should consider going to confession if they voted for Barack Obama, because of the president-elect's position condoning abortion.

<p>"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," the Rev. Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph's, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21.

54% of Catholics voted for Obama. This so called “person of God” is telling a majority of Catholics that they have sinned. That’s pretty ballsy. I wonder if Jesus would have voted for Obama, or if he would rather vote for the party that endorses things like torture and taxing the poor more so the rich can thrive? Perhaps this priest should look at confessing himself.

Latinos is the fastest growing part of our population, so their vote is going to continue to grow in significance. That hasn’t mattered to the Michelle Malkins, Rush Limbaughs and Tom Tancredos of the world. They continue their demonizing of the Hispanic community through illegal immigration. Well it looks like some Republicans are worried about that and wondering what they can do to secure hope for their own survival:

Barack Obama won about two-thirds of the Hispanic vote this year, up from the 53 percent that John Kerry won in 2004.

And the Republicans are very, very worried about the Hispanic vote. They see the African-American vote as largely gone, but the Hispanic vote was a possibility in future elections. If only Republicans knew how to appeal to Hispanic voters.

(h/t Cesca)

The Hispanic support is what helped George Bush win. He is very popular with the Hispanic community, mostly because of his ties to Mexico. George Bush was also not a hawk on immigration, and that pissed off the voices of hate from the Republican Party.

How they can “appeal to Hispanic voters” is to publicly and strongly denounce the racists in their party. The Republicans always talk about improving their image, but they continue to prove Howard Dean right when he said that the Republican party was the party of old white men. Instead what they will do is continue attacking the group and when Hispanics go for the Democrats by even bigger numbers then the Republicans will yell voter fraud. After all, they are the party of the slow learners.

I got to take a minute and acknowledge someone who helped get my interest in politics some 20 years ago. Wayne Coates has won Hamilton County Recorder after the votes were recounted.

When Wayne Coates got the news Monday that he’d won the election for Hamilton County recorder, he exclaimed a word not fit for print.

“I said, ‘What? You’re kidding me,” he said. “Well, I didn’t use ‘kidding.’ ”

Coates has reason to be surprised. After the votes were totaled on election night, the Democrat had apparently lost by about 3,000 votes to Republican incumbent Rebecca Prem Groppe.

Yet, after the Hamilton County Board of Elections’ official count, which included all the provisional votes and late absentee votes, Coates was declared the winner by about 2,500 votes.

Hamilton County has always been a Republican stronghold, but it looks like that is starting to change. The status quo of Republican leadership just isn’t cutting it anymore. Now if we can get the tidal wave to move a county north to where I live.