In Election Theft Emergency, Terrence McNally seriously reviews a book that seriously argues that the only reason Republicans have been winning elections all over the place, from the 1994 sweep to 2000 (admittedly, a coin toss, and I can see their complaint there)and 2004, which was an unambiguous and clear victory for Bush from an engaged electorate that showed up in the highest numbers ever. And the margin of victory, both electoral and popular, was clear--with over three million votes over John Kerry, Bush won big. And engineering the theft of three million votes across fifty states would be a trick, even for the Evil Geniuses at the RNC.
That so many on the left treat this sort of foolishness with a gravity that should be reserved for serious ideas is yet one more nail in the coffin of liberal electoral and ideological victory in this country. And it works against them on two levels (well, more than two, but here's the two I'm going to point out right now):
- It alienates voters. It makes them appear crazy. It marginalizes them, and pushes them further out on the fringe, even with some true believers--not just left-of-center moderates, but serious liberals who still think Marx had it right can and do find themselves at odds with leftwing loons who think anything and everything, especially if they lose, is a conspiracy. So it alienates them from potential voters, not just folks so far right they would never vote for a liberal or a Democrat, anyway.
- It focuses them on the wrong thing. While costing them potential voters, it also keeps them busy on imaginary problems that will not help them on election day. While at the end of the day, they may be able to console themselves with the idea that they lost, again, because the election was stolen, that's the only purpose worrying over stolen elections will serve. It won't help them win.
But wait! Can't elections be stolen? Doesn't it happen? Don't dead people vote and aren't ballot boxes stuffed?
Sure. It happens all the time. Were there fraudulent votes cast in 2004? Yep, on both sides (which also has something of an equalizing effect) and people bused in and sometimes compensated for their votes when they don't have a clue, really, who or what they are voting for. But you can't steal a nation wide election like that, and you sure can't steal three million votes. And you can't steal every GOP house and senate win, either. And if the Republicans were so good at stealing them, why do they occasionally lose? Why can't they steal more of them in liberal enclaves? What's up with that?
With suitable drama, Terrence McNally writes:
First of all, conservatives didn't argue that "moral values" made the difference. It was liberals and Democrats coming to that conclusion (thus, why the media agreed). In fact, most conservatives argued that "moral values" was liberal code language for "gay marriage", and if that if liberals thought that was the only albatross around their electoral necks, they'd be in for a rude awakening in 2006 and 2008. Most conservatives argued it was our policy positions, and the fact that the Democrats couldn't seem to do anything but run against how bad Republicans were, and the fact that John Kerry was a flip-flopping elitist who was both out of touch and absurdly patronizing toward the average American. But, then, I shouldn't be surprised Terrence McNally gets it wrong: the left is prone to tell itself comfortable fictions, especially when it loses.
For GOP voters, the 2004 presidential election was little short of miraculous: Behind in the Electoral College even on the afternoon of the vote, the Bush-Cheney ticket staged a stunning comeback. Usually reliable exit polls turned out to be wrong by an unprecedented 5 percent in swing states. Conservatives argued, and the media agreed, that "moral values" had made the difference.
Usually reliable exit polls, as McNally notes, are just that: usually reliable. But the pollsters themselves claimed they oversampled women, and that doesn't fly. Dick Morris treated the issue here, and concluded that the polls were sabatoge against Bush (which, if one is prone to suspect conspiracies, is certainly more rational one). But the issue is probably random sampling error, in part caused by the large turn out, and is more rationally treated at Moveable Type. Mystery Pollster also treats the issue, and the general conclusion, even from many on the left, is that the exit polls were in error (although folks on the left like to think that Bush voters were ashamed to admit it, thus leading to the under-reported Bush voting, which, again, is another comforting idea that provides them no insight into why they actually lose).
In the article, Terrence McNally is interviewing Mark Crispin, the author of the new "important" book, Fooled Again: How The Right Stole the 2004 Election, and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), which, naturally, presumes that people don't actually vote for Republicans, so that elections where conservatives win must be stolen.
Crispin says:
[I]t's also a story about the colossal failure of the American press to do precisely the kind of job that the framers had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. What they had in mind was that the press would function as a reliable check on executive power.
Huh? I'll have to check that consitution on that. I thought the First Amendment was about making sure that the press was free, not to specifically "provide a check" on executive power. But Crispin is reliably on the leftmost fringe of the radical left wing, because he complains about the current corporate-owned press and the conservative bias of such right-wing stalwarts as Salon and Mother Jones.
Yet the press has for the most part ridiculed those who have come up with very solid evidence of fraud. They've been in the business less of talking about the situation than of preventing anybody else from talking about it. And this includes some of the progressive media as well. In fact, the most hostile reviews that I've received have been in Mother Jones and Salon.
Which should be your first clue that, even to true believers, you sound like a lunatic. Or that the liberals at Mother Jones and Salon don't want the left to be any further marginalized than it is, and would like the left to actually win elections, rather than lose them, and lose them again, while complaining that they were robbed.
But since Watergate the press has preferred to deal with meaningless and trivial scandals like the Clinton scandals. They will not talk about 9/11, they will not talk about the theft of the last three elections.
So we're supposed to believe the Clinton scandals were nothing--like laundered campaign donations from China, fund raising at Buddhist temples (and having Buddhist Monks destroy documents!), and and here's even more on the Clinton/Gores influence-peddling. And let's not forget the pardon of Marc Rich. But the real scandals are how Bush was somehow responsible for 9/11, and how all the elections where Republicans won were stolen! Even there is some hanky-panky on the Republican side of the aisle, it seems that Democrats steal elections, too. In fact, some Republicans suggest that it's their main strategy to deal with the rising tide of Republican wins. Some things like Motor Voter Legislation seems designed to aid, legitimately and perhaps illegitimately, the election fortunes of Democrats. And more on Democrat voter fraud. Or you can find your own, the list is quite long. And that doesn't even include things like slashing the tires and other forms of sabotage directed at Republican "Get out the Vote" efforts. By Democrats no doubt trying to prevent the "stealing" of the election. And frankly, I think I've seen more in the press about questionable Republican victories than I saw about ballot boxes getting stuffed on Indian reservations for Tom Daschle.
Crispin says:
Although he doesn't mention that democrat activists, "anticipating" Republican voter fraud, were coached where to call and what to say, helping drive that number up substantially.
If people want to get a strong sense of what was happening at the grassroots level coast to coast last year, go to a website called the Election Incident Reporting System, EIRS. Then type in the name of a state or a county, and you'll get a transcript of all the complaints that were lodged that day by people who called 1-866-MY-VOTE.
Tom Daschle was supposedly beaten in South Dakota by 4,500 votes. There was so much chicanery going on there, that it's easy to argue that John Thunes should not have won. I know Daschle believes he was robbed.
Apparently, Crispin doesn't feel it's relevant to notice that almost all the chicanery was on the Indian reservations, by people in Daschle's camp, and in Democrat-controlled districts under the auspices of Democrats.
This isn't only a matter of the White House, it's also a matter of the Congress. I don't believe that this government represents the people of this country. The people of this country, however frightened some of them may be by terrorism, are essentially not theocratically inclined. They don't want a Christian republic.
Oh, jeeze. There are more secular folks in public service and in the public eye that ever in the history. Christianity is much more marginalized in the community than a century ago. Christian symbols have been ejected from public places where it used to be integral. And, finally, there are still plenty of Christians in the country--the majority of people in the country self-identify as "Christians". While they may not want a "Christian" republic, they probably don't want God obliterated from public life, think arguments over Nativity scenes at City Hall are foolish, and don't have their paranoid fear of a Christian theocracy as a big influence on who they vote for.
Talking about the exit polls, Crispin says this:
Now a lot of people think that it's not a reliable gauge, it doesn't tell us anything. That's actually the result of propaganda obfuscation.
Who says that? Where is that from? The people most agitated by the wide divergence of the exit polls from the actual election were conservatives and Republicans, and almost all the ones I have read commented that such a divergence is unheard of, and suspect left-leaning manipulation (but I don't think there is much evidence for that view).
And, as is so often with the left, it becomes even more clear what the real problem is, who is really stealing elections and destroying democracy: those damn Christians!
This has to do with the peculiarly paranoid quality of the crusading mindset. I believe this theft was to a great extent carried out thanks to a kind of crusader mentality. I've got plenty of evidence in the book that the religious right played an enormously large role in the theft of the election last year.
In this vein, Crispin reports:
One Democratic election judge tried to observe the vote count in Pima County, Arizona. A roomful of polling personnel who all belonged to the same evangelical church in the area started to call him a liberal demon, a liberal scum.
Sounds suspicious to me. Any other witnesses? Any actual evidence? The interview is not the book, but it certainly does seem long on accusations and short on evidence. While omitting important facts that I'm aware of (which makes me wonder what else they might be omitting . . . hmmm).
The interview goes on (and on and on):
TM: When you talk about a crusader mentality, you basically mean that if you do not support my candidate you are an infidel -- and the ends justify the means?
MCM: Precisely. See, all these crimes that I attest to in the book were committed with impunity by people who regard their political adversaries as demons. And that's not an exaggeration. You know, this government is to a great extent dominated by people who have that metaphysical view of the current political situation.
It is a very serious mistake I believe to think that all of this is happening only because of the excessive greed of certain corporate powers. That greed is decisive It played an enormous role. There is no question about it. But it could not have succeeded without the vigorous grassroots assistance of a lot of people who are religious true believers. And I think that they include the likes of Tom DeLay and others.
Frankly, I think this is projection. I've met more folks on the left with a crusader mentality for their particular politics than I ever have on the right--and I've met a lot more people on the right. I hear a lot more "ends justifies the means" when it comes to getting the right people elected and the right sort of policy in place on the left than I do from the right (I wish I had the time to do a survey of published materials, because it's not, like, private or anything). And "regard their political adversaries" as demons? Jeeze! That's projection if ever I heard it. Whatever else one says about the political left, they are far more prone to demonization, on the whole, than conservatives. I wouldn't have necessarily thought that after the Clinton impeachment, but the subsequent years have proven it to be true. Bush is a Nazi, Bush is a devil. Anybody else see the map showing America as the blue states being America, and the red states being Jesusland? And then, the red states being "Dumbfukistan"? When have you seen anything like that on the right? Yes, there is some, but come on. Jerry Fallwell might have demonized Bill Clinton, but the rank-and-file left finds a money-stealing, war-starting, gun-toting, banjo-playing, black-hating redneck in every Republican they see.
Then, Terrence McNally almost gives me a heart attack by asking an actual question instead of lobbing a softball:
TM: I've read that in New Hampshire, Ralph Nader's Green Party campaign paid for an actual recount. They picked the precincts they thought were suspicious, and the hand recount confirmed the actual vote totals and showed that the exit polls were, in fact, wrong. What do you say to that?
MCM: Well, the recount that they paid for found no evidence of fraud in that particular case.
TM: It confirmed the hand recount, showing that the exit polls were in fact wrong. So how does that fit your analysis of the whole scheme?
MCM: The only thing one can say about that with any scientific certainty is that the particular hand count that they carried out did not reveal any evidence of fraud. That does not mean that no fraud was committed. This is a very fine point, but when we're dealing with questions of electoral honesty and accuracy, I think we have the right to make fine points.
There ya go. No evidence of fraud, in that particular case. Not that that means that there wasn't any fraud, we just can't find it with a fine-tooth comb. Yet the left has money out the wazoo. The the George Soros's of the world really thought there was fraud, wouldn't they pay for recounts everywhere?
Finally, Crispin addresses why he wrote the book:
TM: To the question "What is the point of revisiting the last election?" you point out that there has never been a great reform that was not driven by a major scandal. Do you believe that true election reform is not going to happen until the people and the media finally wake up to this?
MCM: I think it's going to depend on the people. It's going to depend on the people simply and irresistibly insisting that the media finally deal with this subject. That's why I wrote the book.
Frankly, I think the idea that a parnoid, conspiracy-ridden book is going to "wake up the American people" is hubris of the highest order. I believe folks like Crispin, and their wide exposure, do more the Republicans than the Democrats. Because people who lose, and constantly insist that they were robbed, reveal more about themselves than their opponents with their protestations.
So I hope Crispin gets the public exposure he so richly deserves.
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