Imaginary flap over Marco Rubio

Imaginary flap over Marco Rubio

The VP flap yesterday over Marco Rubio’s not being ‘vetted’ as Mitt Romney’s pick for the second spot on the Republican ticket was pretty weird, even for television. I’m all for imagination, the play of color and the zodiac of human wit and all that, but there’s supposed to be a limit. Lo-mein-for-brains took over the airwaves yesterday, at least in politics.

Rubio

Seriously: Not that this writer bears any brief for Romney, but to call him out for not vetting Rubio for the GOP nomination for Vice President of the United States is just baseless.  This is what passes for political analysis nowadays–a flap because Marco Rubio is reportedly not being considered for the VP spot?

Why should he be considered? Why in the world should the Romney campaign, or any presidential campaign, spend time and resources vetting Marco Rubio?

Let’s run down a quick list of the premises of this remarkable criticism of Romney. For perspective, it might be remembered that Romney is the man who, as they say in convention nominating speeches, recommended letting Detroit go bankrupt; who has never met a war he didn’t like except the one in which he could have served; who gives every sign of wanting another trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich and another trillion-dollar war if he can get it.

So what are they talking about, chez Romney? –Rubio. Marco Rubio?!?

Let’s have a little correction here, or at least a rethinking of some of those glib assertions all over the place yesterday.

No, passing over Rubio is not somehow an ‘insult to Hispanics’. There is less than no evidence that Rubio would draw Latino voters to the GOP or to the Romney ticket. Rubio is Cuban-American, not from Mexico or points south–and not even a refugee from Castro at that. His parents fled Cuba, as we know from the reporting of the WashPost’s Manuel Roig-Franzia, under the Batista regime. More importantly, every typical GOP policy Rubio supports is antithetical to the preferences of most Latino voters as expressed in recent elections. Immigration is only a partial exception–and Rubio’s comparative mildness or non-xenophobic position on immigration runs counter to that GOP ‘base’ we hear so much about. Back to Latinos, it would be more insulting to assume that Latinos are going to vote in a bloc for a man just because his last name ends in a vowel.

No, Rubio is not overwhelmingly ‘popular’ nationwide. He did well for himself in Florida, where the civic infrastructure has been laid waste by GOP state administrations and legs. The general public knows little about him except that he is young and Republican and male and married. There is no indication that he would help carry any other state. In fact, there is no hard evidence that he would help Romney carry Florida. If placed under nationwide scrutiny, his policies, his finances–that misuse of official credit cards, for example–and his misstatements about family history might well catch up with him. Then there’s the nature of his donors. He is no shoo-in, not somebody to be considered automatically a plus.

No, Rubio would not necessarily carry Florida. If Florida voters get a clear choice and a clear look at GOP policy–another trillion-dollar war, another trillion-dollar drain of public resources set up by tax policy for the wealthy and for corporations–there is no reason to think Rubio would somehow outweigh that in the balance. Self-adoration is not the same as the adoration of a multitude.

No, Rubio is not qualified to be Vice President. Cast of thousands, admittedly. Virginia’s Gov. McDonnell Douglas is also not qualified to be VP–unless VP stands for vaginal probe–but gets talked about that way anyway, as does Rubio.

No, Rubio is not such a significant political figure that he automatically gets entered in the veepstakes. What, exactly, has Marco Rubio done as a senator? What if anything did he accomplish in Florida, aside from some credit-card shopping?

No, Rubio would not necessarily be an overwhelmingly popular choice for the Republican ‘base’. The first choice of the GOP ‘base’ is not black; not female; not Latino. Never. They don’t say it, they are chagrined at being considered prejudiced, they tend to be defensive about it–except in private conversations–and they put up with tokens, exceptions and the Herman Cains of the world cheerfully. They don’t have a high opinion of politics, of candidates for office, for public office or for civic engagement in the first place, after all. But they still have their preferences, their base attitude so to speak. The national political press has spent a good fifty years ignoring this attitude and thus covering up for it. Meanwhile, the politicians the  insiders have protected have spent decades ignoring the racial disparity in applying the death penalty, just to take one example.

It’s still remarkable that they can get away with it, after all these years.

That said, from a certain perspective it might be beneficial if Rubio did actually end up getting put through what former Vice President Dick Cheney called the meat grinder.

In narrowly political terms, however, that’s another good reason for the Romney campaign not to subject him to it. All these commentators speaking, ostensibly, from the perspective of Romney’s political advantage–suppose the Romney team found out something about Rubio? What then?

BizarroWorld veepstakes.

Indirectly the flap yesterday may have been of benefit to the public, at that. If Romney can be pushed around this easily–doing an apparent 180 on a potential VP choice, just because some television commentators discussed Rubio’s not being on the list–then it’s good for American voters to know it.

Funny how you never hear the blowhards on air talking about a ‘Sistah Souljah moment’ when a Republican candidate is involved.

Policy matters

But then it is seldom suggested that a Republican candidate is actually trying to help a disadvantaged person or group, so there’s no bar to raise for hypocrisy in that regard.

 

Michigan and Arizona primaries 2012

February 28, 2012, primaries in Arizona and Michigan

Santorum in Michigan

GOP primaries in Michigan and Arizona today–and it will be mildly interesting to see which candidate Republican voters will be stuck with, if either. On the one hand they have the lurid imaginings of former Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Santorum, who is more and more coming to seem like the type of religio more hell-bent on damning other human beings than on sharpening his own conscience. Deafness to the promptings of conscience might or might not be expected of someone who spent his years out of office working as a corporate lobbyist in DC, even if the lurid version of religion dominating Santorum’s idiom is not stereotypically associated with the kind of inside-the-Beltway job Santorum held, and profited from.

 

Romney

On the other hand primary voters have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who famously penned an op-ed for the New York Times Nov. 18, 2008, titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” ‘Flip-flopper’ or not, Romney has stuck by his argument on this one, following up recently in Michigan with a Feb. 14 op-ed in a Detroit paper calling the auto rescue “crony capitalism.”

 

Automobiles and candidates

Santorum has been proclaiming a “two-man race” in the Republican primaries for several weeks. It seems like years. Most of the political press is following suit for the moment–while waiting to see whether Newt Gingrich’s race-baiting resuscitates the Gingrich campaign in the South in March. It is tempting to streamline the Romney-Santorum contest as a contest between the corporate-insider and barking-dog segments of the Republican Party, dignified as ‘wings.’ This would be over-simplification.

Not that Romney isn’t giving this over-simplification all the help he can. Set aside the off-the-cuff references to the two Cadillacs (American-made cars; that’s why Romney mentioned them in Michigan) his wife drives, or to the Nascar team owners Romney knows. More importantly, Romney also advocated letting the foreclosure crisis run its course, an argument obviously not targeted for Arizona. While Arizona’s foreclosure problems do not equate to those in neighboring Nevada, in December 2011 Arizona hit the top-ten list for foreclosures by state. Spikes in oil prices that deter travel to the wide-open spaces in the Southwest will not help over coming months.

Needless to say, Rick Santorum is even farther to ‘the right’ on the auto-industry and foreclosure issues. Santorum may speak touchingly of miners related to him personally, but when it comes to holding mine owners accountable for mine safety—or any other wholesome and necessary regulation to save lives and health—he’s on the other side, if quietly.

 

Speaking of oil prices–

There are a few facts that the GOP candidates—except occasionally for Ron Paul–do not mention on the campaign trail:

  • Gasoine prices spike when oil prices spike. When the price of crude jumps, the price at the pump is sure to follow. Historically, by the way, a decline in crude price is less swiftly followed, and less equivalently, by a decline in pump price.
  • Spikes in the price of crude oil come largely from rampant, unchecked speculation on oil futures; less from demand for the oil than from betting on the future price of oil
  • Speculation on oil futures in recent days—heightened buying ahead of retail, which has driven up the price of crude–has been fueled by the public discourse, if you call it that, over Iran
  • Iran, as we know, is now newly and again being touted as the favorite hot spot for right-wingers in politics and in Fox-ified media outlets, ever on the look-out for the next war to send other people to

Then these cats vilify President Obama for not doing something magical to hold down the price of oil or of gasoline. Even rightwing columnist George Will criticized that one. (It would be interesting to know why.)

Forget the sense of honor and of patriotism that used to keep even lunatic-fringers from attacking a president on foreign policy, on the campaign trail, while he was in the midst of delicate and tense negotiations. Can Romney, Gingrich and Santorum honestly be oblivious to the fact that their own super-fatted rhetoric—figuratively the equivalent of pouring grease on a kitchen fire—contributes to the tension of disagreements over Iran, and thus to spiking oil prices?

If so, they may be the only ones oblivious. Donor lookup is key. The oil and gas industry so far has contributed far less in 2012 than has the finance sector. Oil and gas are obviously holding back to see who their 2012 standard bearer will be, rather than picking one. But contributions from the energy industry are going—not surprisingly—overwhelmingly to Republican candidates (not including Ron Paul). Six to one, they’re donating to GOPers rather than to Dems. Now that Rick Perry is out of the race, they’re donating mostly to Romney. Predictions are silly, but it’s still hard to see Santorum as having a chance.

more later

[update 10:45 a.m.]

“It’s important not to be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.” –heard from a registered Democrat who voted for Santorum in the GOP primary. Also said he was not trying to make trouble; he voted for Obama in 2008 and is not sure, he said, whether he would vote for Obama again in 2012.

There is more than one quick, efficient, on-the-nose lesson here. For one, it nutshells what is  most damaging to Mitt Romney as a candidate: that he comes across as consistently afraid, depending on audience, to stand up for what he believes in. Second, that anyone with this perception would gravitate toward Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich–as though their loathesome fulminations were courage–testifies again to the poor political analysis and weak political reporting most of the public gets.

Third, something about this reminds me of David Plouffe’s epically stupid remark when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. Plouffe’s response? –to warn against blaming violence in any way on violent rhetoric. (In other words, propaganda doesn’t work? If it doesn’t work, why does the lobbying-candidate cabal use it?) This voter’s comment should be a reminder. The White House would be mistaken to fall into the same hole. The president cannot afford to come across as afraid to stand up for what he believes in.  To do him justice, I think Obama is in fact able to stand up for what he believes in. And he has brought about tremendous change, most of which he has not been given credit for.

But the Rahm Emanuel wing of the party–what they stand for is them, as the saying goes in Texas–has influenced too much of the discussion coming out of media outlets (especially since AOL bought the supposedly progressive Huffington Post).

For the record, I oppose voting in the other party’s primary. No one should be voting for the policies espoused by Romney or Santorum, which boil down quite simply to rich-get-richer and at the expense of the general good. That’s the message to send.

[update]

9:44 p.m. The networks/channels are still calling Michigan too close to call, even though it does not in fact look too close, let alone too close to call. Romney won Arizona, as expected, and looks set to pick up Michigan too–also as expected, though not in the most recent hours. Something like 43 percent Romney to 35+ percent Santorum, with Ron Paul and Gingrich finishing at 11 percent and single digits respectively.

Back to that note on oil prices: legal cases on oil-gas speculation are working their way through the judicial system. I wonder whether something might be accomplished by executive order of a president.

Speaking of legal cases, it is funny that Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post are still being characterized as having “credibility” after selling to AOL without repaying the millions of dollars’ worth of value contributed to HuffPost by unpaid bloggers. With whom does HuffPost still have credibility as a progressive outlet?

Revisiting the 2004 election, part 7: Florida

2004 election revisited, part 7: Florida further

Following up previous posts

Obama at SOTU

President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night demonstrated again the greater quality of this president over the loon rhetoric coming from our current GOP debates. The quality gap is huge, and growing larger.

Mitt Romney

As written before, the guys coming out of the GOP field are going to need all the help they can get at election time, and previous elections involve some warning signs. Forewarned is forearmed.

In the 2000 election, 25 Florida counties used the maligned punch-card ballots, 41 used op-scan, and one county used paper ballots counted manually. Seventeen counties switched to optical scanners for the 2004 election.

Florida

Counties that switched from punch-card to op-scan did not necessarily show the biggest swings to Bush, but there was a distinct difference—in Bush’s favor–between op-scan counties and other counties. The picture over-all:

  • Total registered voters in the 15 counties using touch-screens:  5,576,264
  • Total registered voters in the 52 counties using op-scan ballots:  4,725,026
  • Outcome in the touch-screen counties:  Kerry 1,983,210 to Bush 1,845,876
  • Outcome in the op-scan counties:  Bush 2,110,414 to Kerry 1,591,790

Statistics come from election results and from election researcher Kathy Dopp’s analysis of touch-screen machines versus optical-scan paper voting in 2004.

There were further differences between op-scan voting results and touch-screen results, Florida 2004:

  • 15 Florida counties used touch-screen voting machines. Only 3 of these counties showed a 100+ percent jump in Republican votes, and 3 others showed a 100+ percent jump in Democratic votes. Neither party jumped more than 120 percent.
  • 52 counties used op-scan ballots. Of these, 43 showed a triple-digit jump for Republicans, two for Democrats. One had a whopping 602 percent jump in votes for Repubs, one over 400 percent, and two over 300 percent. Another ten op-scan counties had an over 200 percent jump in votes for Repubs. Nothing equivalent for Dems.

Leaving the eye-blearing numbers aside, think about the larger context of the 2004 election. Was John Kerry two or three times less popular in Florida in 2004 than Al Gore in 2000? Was GWBush—after the escape of Osama bin Laden, the invasion of Iraq, the war profiteering, the tax cuts for the rich—two or three times more appealing?

Back to those voting machines

Only three counties using op-scan machines had larger jumps for Democrats than for Republicans. The percentages below are vote gains, 2000 to 2004:

 (Dem Senate candidate Betty Kastor won Flagler County over Mel Martinez.)

Only four counties using op-scan had balanced percentage jumps in party voting:

Note that where the jump in voting by party was balanced, the outcomes were also reasonably divided. No one party or candidate (Bush) won all the time.

Turnout always matters.

Ten Florida counties with biggest turnout by number, in 2004:

  • Miami-Dade:  772,743
  • Broward:  707,202
  • Palm Beach:  547,340
  • Hillsborough:  464,253
  • Pinellas:  457,426
  • Orange:  388,095
  • Duval:  379,257
  • Brevard:  265,764
  • Lee:  242,434
  • Volusia:  229,098

Of these, Brevard, Duval, Orange, and Volusia used op-scan voting.

Ten Florida counties with highest turnout by percentage of registered voters, in 2004:

  • Flagler:  81.9% –jump gap only 102 to 103, Bush won, but close
  • Sarasota:  81.6%
  • Jefferson:  80.7% –jump gap 171 to 61, Kerry won
  • Leon:  79.8% –jump gap 105 to 81, Kerry won
  • Lee:  79.5%
  • Nassau:  79.2%
  • St Johns:  79% –jump gap 100 to 84, Bush won
  • Sumter:  79%
  • Brevard:  78.6% –jump gap 101 to 89, Bush won
  • Gadsden:  78.5% –jump gap 207 to 66, Kerry won

Of these, Brevard, Flagler, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and St Johns used op-scan voting. Nobody flipped the elections in Gadsden or Jefferson and Leon counties.

Ten Florida counties with lowest turnout by percentage of registered voters:

  • Hendry 57.2%
  • Osceola 63.3%
  • DeSoto 64% –jump gap 146 to 44, Bush won
  • Okeechobee 65.7% –jump gap 126 to 47, Bush won
  • Union 66.7% –jump gap 263 to 23, Bush won
  • Broward 66.8%
  • Dixie 66.9% –jump gap 305 to 26, Bush won
  • Hamilton 67.1% –jump gap 244 to 37, Bush won
  • Putnam 68.5% –jump gap 144 to 47, Bush won
  • Highlands 69.6% –jump gap 77 to 44, Bush won

Of these, DeSoto, Dixie, Hamilton, Highlands, Okeechobee, Putnam and Union all used op-scan voting. Low turnout, discouraged voters, unappealing voting technology—Bush swept.

The pattern held in the ten counties with lowest voter turnout by number, in 2004. Numbers are local turnout as reported:

  • Liberty 3,051 –Bush won
  • Lafayette 3,352 –Bush won
  • Glades 4,204 –Bush won
  • Union 4,714 –Bush won
  • Hamilton 5,131 –Bush won
  • Franklin 5,973 –Bush won
  • Calhoun 6,006 –Bush won
  • Dixie 6,472 –Bush won
  • Gilchrist 7,047 –Bush won
  • Hardee 7,281 –Bush won

Of these, all used op-scanned paper ballots, and all went for Bush. We have a winner.  Were they Florida’s ten smallest counties? Not quite: A list of the state’s ten smallest counties would bump Hardee, Gilchrist, Dixie, and Union. Baker, Bradford, Gulf, Holmes, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Wakulla and Washington all had populations in the twenty-something thousand range. The smallest counties also all used op-scan ballots, so we have another winner: Of these, only Jefferson went for Kerry, and Madison was close.

On a brighter note, in all these counties but Hardee, about half the total population (2000 census) turned out to vote–not too shabby for the lowest numerical turnout in the state. It was a high-interest election.

The middle

Continuing the test of brain-strain, let’s look at some middling turnout. Since the highest turnout ran 82% and the lowest percentage about 57%, midpoint would be about 70%.

Ten Florida counties with mid-range turnout, 2004:

  • Charlotte:  70.4%
  • Glades:  70.5% –jump gap 134 to 37, Bush won
  • Hardee:  70% –jump gap 182 to 32, Bush won
  • Okaloosa:  70.5% –jump gap 95 to 61, Bush crushed
  • Calhoun:  71.9% –jump gap 381 to 30, Bush won
  • Highlands:  69.6% –jump gap 77 to 54, Bush won
  • Pasco:  72.1%
  • Santa Rosa:  69.9% –jump gap 97 to 54, Bush won
  • Putnam:  68.5% –jump gap 144 to 47, Bush won
  • Polk:  71.5% –jump gap 107 to 68, Bush won

Of these, all but Charlotte and Pasco counties used op-scan. Charlotte and Pasco had predictable results, in line with voter registration and with voter turnout, with some crossover (Dem for Charlotte, Repub for Pasco).

I wrote on this material at the time.

A similar analysis can be found here. The author further pursues similar anomalies in the rural areas of other southern states. The author sums up:

“I started this page when I first saw the breakdown by voting machine of the results in Florida. Since the way people vote shouldn’t depend on the machines they use, it seemed to signal cheating. A careful examination of the voting patterns in Florida in 2000 and in Louisiana in 2000, however, has led me to conclude that the difference was due to the lopsided use of the opscan machines in rural northern Florida counties where there is a preponderance of “Dixiecrats”. A statistical analysis of the data from the 1996 election also supports this conclusion. The remainder of this page contains my analysis and reasoning in detail.”

 

South Carolina behind (way behind), Florida ahead

Two days after

South Carolina behind again, Florida ahead

The Florida GOP primary next up—Jan. 31—is the newest make-or-break or Big Moment, the newest primary event characterized as shaping up to be important or crucial. Gingrich won South Carolina’s heart by acting like a ghastly creep–SC is, after all, the state of Joe “You Lie!” Wilson. Question: What face will Gingrich turn toward Florida?

Newton Leroy McPherson

Partial answer: The day after South Carolina, Sen. Lindsay Graham appeared on Face the Nation, making Gingrich sound halfway decent and humane on the topic of undocumented immigrants. Florida, we are reminded, has a large Latino population. Graham suggested that Gingrich as president would favor extending something like amnesty (although not called that) and legal status to some undocumented immigrants. Graham spoke becomingly about a hypothetical combat veteran with Hispanic name coming home from war, only to see his mother or grandmother deported.

Every little bit helps.

South Carolina polls were mostly right

Back to South Carolina—

Gingrich’s win vindicated most polls leading up to the primary, although it probably didn’t do much for all the experts who shortly before had been writing and talking about Mitt Romney as inevitable.

Rick Santorum made a cogent point on the air Sunday, by the way. Santorum reminded his host that it was not necessary, after all, for religious or social conservatives to ‘coalesce’ behind one candidate, in order for Romney to be beaten.

But on Gingrich–

As a Southerner who has consistently defended the not-David-Duke parts of the South, I would not have thought South Carolina could sink any lower. Shows me. It is scant consolation to reflect that Gingrich probably would have lost to David Duke, if Duke had been running in the primary. If only the pollsters would conduct a poll on a hypothetical match-up of Obama and Duke. It would be instructive to see how many states Duke carried.

There is still time for Duke to jump into the Republican race.

We’ve seen one of them already. Turnout in the primary was record:

 “South Carolina’s Republican voters set a new primary turnout record Saturday when more than 600,000 of them went to the polls, shattering the previous mark set in 2000.

With 13 precincts still uncounted Sunday morning, 601,166 votes already were recorded, topping 2000’s turnout of 537,101 and well ahead of 2008’s 445,499 voters. Earlier in the week, officials had projected a moderate turnout about equivalent to the 2008 primary.

And the vote totals for the individual candidates were just as intriguing. Saturday’s winner, Newt Gingrich, collected 243,153, and second-place finisher Mitt Romney won 167,280. Both of them exceeded 2008 winner John McCain’s total.

And that also means Mr. Romney did far better than his own 2008 performance here, when he won just 68,142 votes en route to a fourth-place finish.”

The 600K+ turnout exceeded even that of South Carolina’s Democratic primary in 2008, an all-time high 532,468 voters, when Barack Obama bested Hillary Clinton. Of course, many people believe that a lot of the Clinton voters there were actually Republicans looking to slow down or hurt Obama. The GOP primary in 2008, as mentioned above, involved 445,499 voters.

John McCain, who got under 200K votes in that primary, went on to get 1,034,896 votes in the general election against Obama’s 862,449–a clear gain of over 800,000 votes for McCain in ten months. McCain must have climbed mightily in many people’s estimation during that time. Maybe somebody gave the populace refresher courses on Vietnam.

Presumably South Carolina voters will turn out in equal or greater numbers to vote against the president this year.

Gingrich won across the state, losing only three counties to Romney—Beaufort, Charleston, and Richland. Of these three, only Beaufort was among highest-turnout counties. Gingrich won in 43 of 46 SC counties.

State election board results show that turnout was 20 percent to 30 percent for most counties. This is high for a primary and especially high for a place in the condition of South Carolina, with close-to-the-bottom per capita readership and number of newspapers, libraries, and bookstores.

Still, it would be distortion to call the primary a landslide, as the example of York County shows. Turnout in York was higher than in 2008, and voter registration is up by 30,000 according to the local press—but turnout in the county was still 23 percent. Nor did women give Gingrich landslide treatment, cat-fight representations notwithstanding. Gingrich won the women’s vote with a plurality of 30 percent. Thus he lost 70 percent of women voters, which strikes me as about where he would stand in a general-election match-up. Women also were only 47 percent of the primary voters. So more of them voted with their feet.

Gingrich benefited mightily from his treatment by ‘media elites’. Wonder whether there might be a grain of truth in the Gingrich accusation that ABC wanted to help Romney. (“ABC acted as an arm of the Romney campaign.”) Either way, calling ABC “liberal” is hooey. ABC,  another union-busting corporation, might want to help Romney as plausible GOP contender, but there’s nothing liberal about it if so.

South Carolina has not benefited from its treatment by educated people who should know better, who have tossed No-prestige-land away, leaving it lying on the floor of a seldom opened closet. A public discourse that ropes off any part of the polity does harm to the whole.

If Matt Kibbe’s bunch have their way, things will get even worse for SC. They’re trying to get a publicly funded ‘school choice’ act on the books. H.4576 would assist, at public expense, any parent willing to pay to put his/her children into a  for-profit school. This would mean that the depleted public schools would shoulder even more of the burden of the poorest children, from the poorest families. So much for opposing an entitlement society. Any time you have a proposal to harm the greatest number, and get the taxpayers to pay for it, you have a good chance of lining up the GOP on your side.

How do they pull off this kind of thing? Well, for one, they call a for-profit school an ‘independent school’ and they include the same taxpayer-funded gift for home schooling, to sweeten the deal. Also, as summarized by supporters, the bill would send the taxpayer money to charity—‘Non-Profit Scholarship Granting Organizations’. Those orgs would then be obligated to pay over the money for tuition, books, etc.—to a private school, if the parent ‘chooses’:

“This bill will encourage parents to have a more direct impact on their child’s education as they will have a stronger voice in deciding how their child is educated. At the same time, the parent or legal guardian will have more money to save and put towards the child’s education. One of the most important aspects of the bill is that it does not favor any independent school or form of education in particular, but rather lets the parent decide what is best for their child. The Department of Education, Department of Revenue, or any other state agency can’t regulate the operations of a not-for-profit scholarship granting organization. Same rules follow that these state agencies can’t regulate the educational program of an independent school that accepts students who receive grants from the not-for-profit scholarship granting organization, except for the school’s compliance with the requirements of the bill. This bill will encourage school competition while engaging the parent directly in their child’s education.”

The legislation is introduced by Rep. Eric Bedingfield (R-Greenville), a staunch defender of one’s right to be poor. Bedingfield also crafted legislation enabling a former state Republican Party director to become a six-figure lobbyist for the University of South Carolina. The legislation was supposed to crack down on taxpayer-funded lobbying.

South Carolina primary, live blogging

South Carolina primary day live blog

Time

10:25 p.m.

As previously noted (below), the gender gap in SC voter turnout was men 53 percent; women 47 percent.

The population of South Carolina is 4,625,364 as of 2010, up 15.3% from 2000 to 2010.

Female 51.4%

Registered voters 2,722,344

So somewhat more than half the state is registered to vote. Not registered by party.

Daily Caller emphasizes that Gingrich won the women’s vote in SC, at least with a plurality of 36 percent. Romney came in second with 30 percent of the women’s vote.

However, most women in South Carolina did not vote.

Dems for Gingrich?

The stridently rightwing Examiner offers a further thesis: Gingrich was elected by Democrats.

 “Consider this–unlike most other primaries, South Carolina voters don’t have to register their party affiliation. With no election this time around on the Democratic Party side, it’s a guaranteed bet that a number of South Carolina Democrats voted in today’s primary. As one could assume, some voted because it was an exciting Republican race. Some voted because they had nothing better to do today. And some Democrats voted to help sway the GOP primary toward President Obama’s hopeful opponent–Newt Gingrich.

How much of an effect did the Democrats have on the Republican Party’s South Carolina primary today? It would be almost impossible to quantify. But rest assured, just as former Speaker Gingrich can thank women and evangelicals for his victory today, he can thank Democrats as well.”

There are already copious signs of Republican and conservative discomfort with Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. This is but one of them. David Gergen and others are openly–already–discussing the possibility of a brokered GOP convention, or of a split convention, or of finding someone else to jump into the race if Gingrich and Romney continue in their present courses. The discussion is undoubtedly premature, but it accurately reflects the party’s widespread aversion to Gingrich, who earned it.

So far, the Examiner is the only publication to blame the SC primary outcome on Democrats. Seems a bit far-fetched. I would think that if Democrats or others really wanted to participate constructively in the Republican primary in South Carolina, they would have voted for Herman Cain/Colbert.

But time will tell.

7:45 p.m.

CNN has now joined all the others in projecting SC for Gingrich, who with a whole 4 percent of precincts in has taken the lead over Romney.  Only question remaining for South Carolina, all hands concede, is how big the lead will be. If it’s double digits for Newtie, Florida–what will the campaign be like?

They haven’t said what the effect will be should Gingrich carry South Carolina GOPers by only single digits. The first three races have resulted in a win apiece for three candidates. Somewhat like 1964? —

Speaking of previous decades, a wonderful book is still floating around on the 1972 election, titled The Boys on the Bus. Author, Timothy Crouse.

Here is Crouse with a still-timely passage on George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father. The effect on the campaigns stems from the success of Teddy White’s Making of the President books:

“As recently as 1960, or even 1964, a coalition of party heavies, state conventions, and big-city bosses had chosen the candidate in relatively unviolated privacy, and then presented him to the press to report on.

Now the press screened the candidates, usurping the partys’ old function. By reporting a man’s political strengths, they made him a front runner; by mentioning his weaknesses and liabilities, they cut him down. Teddy White, even in his wildest flights of megalomania, had never allowed imself this kind of power. The press was no longer simply guessing who might run and who might win; the press was in some way determining these things.”

Side note: Much as the old party bosses over-relied on their own ‘power’ and ultimately ruined themselves by overreaching, the insiders in the national political press went on to do the same thing. Hence the millions of members of the public who turned first to cable television and then to the Internet. People got tired of not being able to find out anything by reading the paper. Thus the press got its comeuppance from the Internet.

Back, meanwhile, to George Romney:

“The classic example was George Romney. Romney had opened his campaign almost a year before the first primary, expecting a press contingent of two or three reporters. Instead, twenty or thirty showed up for Romney’s first exploratory trips around the country, and they all reported Romney’s embarrassing inability to give coherent answers to their questions about Vietnam, thus dooming his candidacy. But Romney was the perfect, textbook example. The process was usually more subtle, and more difficult to describe.”

Not that Romney senior was the only one, by a long shot. But the elder Romney’s experience provides a rationale for Mitt Romney’s perceived distance from the press.

Newt Gingrich, in contrast, cultivates the press. Politico reported yesterday that Gingrich pretty much butters reporters like toast, in fact.

It will be mildly interesting to see what face Gingrich turns to Florida. He got South Carolina by being ugly, if the numbers hold up. But Florida has different demographics and not a lot of fondness for being lumped in with South Carolina.

7:24 p.m.

Most of television has called it for Gingrich. No votes reported, no precincts, in unofficial returns on the South Carolina State Election Commission big board yet.

If the elite media jumped the gun for Gingrich, that might be ironic. Or it might suggest that bullying these guys works.

7:19 p.m.

Only CNN, of all the majors, is not calling South Carolina for Gingrich. Out of an abundance of caution, since only two precincts have turned in votes, they’re not saying. Makes sense.

Votes in so far show Gingrich and Romney neck-and-neck (Romney ahead by one, a minute ago). Rather a different tenor from the other media outlets, from which one would think that Newt had almost all the votes, with all the other candidates scrapping for a fourth-place tie.

7:03 p.m.

Sure enough, seconds past 7:00 p.m. when South Carolina polls closed, Fox News calls it for Newt Gingrich. NBC, ABC et al follow suit.

This is linked by the suits on television to exit polls showing that 45 percent of GOPers voting in South Carolina rated ability to beat Obama their top concern.

The concern is understandable from their (heated) perspective, but that led them to vote for Gingrich? Note that they don’t call it ‘electability,’ which would be a stretch as applied to Gingrich. They presumably just feel that Gingrich would say the ugliest and most shameful things on the stump and perhaps on the debate stage.

Women, by the way, did not vote in the same numbers as men in SC. The men had a 53-to-47 percent margin in turnout.

6:41 p.m.

Back to ‘weather’ and ‘turnout’: What is mind-blowing is to hear this kind of discussion about a Republican election, any Republican election, and about a Republican candidate.

Back when, weather-and-turnout was applied to Democrats, and generally with some undertone having to do with either race, poverty, or blue-collar workers, or all three. The line of thought, you see, was that Certain Paople were more easily influenced than others. Stalwart Republican voters would turn out, out of a sense of duty, in this line of thought, rain or shine. The little blue-haired ladies, the white-belt-white-shoes contingent, retired military, etc, they would always vote, with or without enthusiasm, with or without special issues, with or without hot-button topics in the headlines. Those people with little pins in their lapels did not need any special stimulus to go pull the lever for whatever candidate the party establishment threw at them. Plus, they tended to drive better cars–this is the same line of thought–so they were less affected by bad weather anyway. Maybe an extra car wash during the week, but nothing to affect the election.

Turnout and weather, au contraire, were held to be closely entertwined on the Democratic side. Some paople just can’t handle the slightest obstacle. Even the slightest difficulty keeps them from doing what they should.

We’re hearing this last thought, if you call it that, in the Gingrich campaign. Gingrich is doing it more explicitly and with more sharp-edged ugliness than most people have thought tolerable over the last thirty years.

But to hear on the airwaves that Mitt Romney desperately needs good weather?

Mind-boggling.

Ironically, it has been less current as applied to the Dems, ever since Jesse Jackson ran and won the Virginia primary in 1988.

6:18 p.m.

At six-ish the major cable channels began official coverage of the South Carolina primary, as opposed to just talking about it almost nonstop.

The biggest surprise from MSNBC so far: Keith Olbermann‘s name briefly flashed across the screen, in the crawl. Olbermann was named as one of the commentators providing coverage of the primary.

Not so. Just a stutter. Nothing to see here.

Olbermann will be covering the primary, but from newer venue as of last year, at Current TV.

First exit polls indicate that surprisingly 64 percent of GOPers who turned out describe themselves as born-again/evangelicals, 66 percent support the Tea Party, and 69 percent are conservative.

Question is how this preponderance plays among Santorum–who says he’s felt a surge since yesterday–Gingrich and Paul, presumably.

5:05 p.m.

Not a dissentient voice on MSNBC as to Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. Craig Melvin just reported that every politico in SC says it’s not a question of whether Gringrich will win, just by what percentage. Drumbeat for Newt turning into an avalanche, from all signs. The weather is also touted as a sign of things to come, rain depressing turnout–and Mitt Romney, of all candidates in the world, dependent on turnout. So it is said.

This is a twist in itself. Turnout reported to be high in upstate South Carolina,  voters coming out for Gingrich (and Santorum? and Paul?) Turnout light to steady on the coast, and in the midlands, where the votescasters feel that Romney would get more support.

Entertaining piece by James Carville as CNN commentator, taking some easy shots but undeniably good ones. It might be premature to call the GOP field a “disaster” (aside from their core policy, breaking the middle class and destroying everyone but the super-rich). Abysmally unqualified candidates have managed to emerge victorious before. But politically speaking things are not looking too good for them at the moment, except for the humor. Stephen Colbert as Herman Cain is doing a great job, head-and-shoulders above the other candidates. No other candidate even comes close, although at least Ron Paul has remained consistent on his views and stated positions. He can speak understandably, too.

12:13 p.m.

In all the on-air chatter about Romney’s gaffe and Romney as out-of-touch, no one has mentioned how much like legalized bribery, or subornation, speaker fees are to begin with. No one brings up the Koch-brother-funded functions where right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer and George Will prostitute the art of letters in service to war and exploitation. David Brock of Media Matters noted in his after-the-fall book that he was no longer going to receive six-figure speaking gigs and seven-figure book advances. Has anyone pointed out that those six-figure and seven-figure payments are going to propaganda instead of to legitimate publishing and writing, what we used to call arts and letters? Has anyone talked about America’s intellectual infrastructure?

 

Not this week.

 

All the pundits declare this Romney’s worst week ever. These are the pundits who determined three days ago that Romney was the inevitable nominee. The Rominee. True enough, Romney has suffered a downturn–the Santorum win in Iowa, Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, more verbal slips. Thus we have a new overworked word to be sick of, “collapsing.” (Re Romney’s campaign.) First it was “coalesce.” Then “forgiveness.”

I’m all for forgiveness. The one episode of Modern Family I’ve seen did a nice job with it, too. But there is some woolliness about how this concept is being applied in the current commentary. It is pure, and clean, and noble, to forgive someone who has wronged you. It is less noble to forgive someone who has wronged someone else.

Speaking of gagging, some commentators are also taking a new oddly deferential tone about Newt Gingrich. Partly this reflects the newest opinion polls, partly the standing ovation when Gingrich used John King’s question about the Marianne Gingrich interview to vilify “elite media” and their (fancied) protection of Barack Obama. The man is tripping—or rather, lying—but that’s not the main point right here.

The big thorn here is that Gingrich comes across as rather loathesome. He may have boosted himself in South Carolina by out-uglying everyone else, but there is a reckoning ahead. For King not to have asked about the “open marriage” interview at all would have been ridiculous.

It would have been better not to lead off by asking about it, but ignoring it entirely would have looked odd. There is no reason to bend over backward for Newt Gingrich. A couple of things not mentioned on air: When the candidates entered the room for that South Carolina debate, as each name was announced, Gingrich got boos as well as cheers. And when Gingrich got his standing ovation for attacking King, plenty of women remained seated.

10:39 a.m.

Another ongoing theme of discussion, on air at least–how or why Mitt Romney has so much trouble ‘connecting’ with the average person. Maybe eventually they’ll get around to discussing the rich-get-rich economic policy destined to turn the U.S.A. into ColombiaArabia if not redressed.

Not any time soon, though.

That said, there are moments when I feel sorry for Mitt Romney. It happens when Romney’s calling his $374K speaking fees “not very much” comes up in the news media.

 

Romney announces

It is surprising to feel this way about a candidate whose policies as president would in all likelihood be worse than GWBush’s, but even an offshoring robber baron can be misunderstood.

Take that off-the-cuff “not very much” comment:

  • Romney was brought up to act like a gentleman, and good manners forbid a gentleman to brag about how much he is paid for speeches. He does not put himself forward unduly about anything, in fact—making a parade of anything is antithetical to his background. (Mine, too, for that matter.) Needless to say, this ethos makes running for office a hard row to hoe, although Barack Obama has the same one and handles it brilliantly. But then the president has the additional ethos of cool, an attribute Romney does not have and to do him justice—gentlemanly self-deprecating again—does not claim.
  • So when Romney was asked about his income sources aside from capital gains, he ticked them off–the book sales, which he donated to charity; the speaking fees, “but not very much.” He would not bill himself as one of your top speakers getting six figures for a single appearance. Primarily concerned not to brag, Romney played down his status on the speaker circuit. He does the same kind of thing when he says things like “I worried about whether I would get a pink slip,” and when he laughs (self-deprecatingly), “I’m unemployed.” Not acting grandiose is a big part of his moral lexicon for personal behavior.
  • Unfortunately, his acute attention to one part of the radar screen (don’t brag) left his radar completely down on the fact that $374K is actually a lot of money.

That fact has been duly noted, the point made. Income inequality has finally lighted up on the big board.

N.b. Re the question raised earlier about how well Gingrich is doing among women–today’s Washington Post quotes from 15 women interviewed in So. Carolina, most of whom support Gingrich in the exchange with John King at Thursday night’s debate. Several of them seem from the quoted comments to be more siding against Marianne Gingrich, but it works the same way.

9:57 a.m.

It’s Saturday, the non-Tuesday GOP primary in South Carolina–forget religious observance–and the talking heads are going at it. This is not lawn-mowing weather anyhow.

Big question of course is whether Newt Gingrich managed to out-ugly everybody else enough to pull off a South Carolina win that would be considered an upset. The most recent polls put Gingrich ahead of the field including Romney.

Gingrich

“Callista doesn’t care what I do.”

How people judge the content of the Marianne Gingrich interview is up to them. I believe the woman, but many people reportedly believe Gingrich’s denial. Either way, presenting this issue as public-versus-private muddies it.

The issue as applied to Newt Gingrich is not divorce or that Gingrich is thrice-married. The issue is how Gingrich has treated women—asking for a romantic triangle, etc–with some perceivable parallel to how he treats the suffering and unfortunate, the poor, and minorities; his penchant for bullying and for lying; his ethics violations while in office and then denying same; etc. Whether he has a track record of treating people decently is a reasonable question in the circumstances. To present this question as unwarranted intrusion into a public figure’s private life, like someone sneaking photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, is mistaken at best. Too bad they keep using the vague generality “character” instead of asking, Does the candidate treat people with decency and respect?

The Gingriches, in earlier years

On that question, Barack Obama shows well. He has a track record of having treated the people in his life decently. Maybe that’s why they don’t ask the question on television, during an election year. It would weigh in the president’s favor too much. He hasn’t laid off a bunch of people, either.

Back to Gringrich, what makes the current opinion polls really remarkable is that quoted statement that Callista didn’t care what Gingrich did—i.e. having an ongoing three-way relationship while remaining married to Marianne, for six years. Gingrich is out ahead after that? Maybe: Most times when I have thought one thing and the polls showed another, the polls have been vindicated. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

Forget the overworked and tired terms “Christian right” and “values voters.” Assuming that fundamentalist right-wingers are the only people who care about the conduct in question is like assuming that African-Americans are the only people who care about Gingrich’s misstatements on food stamps. False, but television largely has not caught up with the trends.

Am I the only voter who remembers that right-wing Southern women often disparaged Hillary Clinton for staying with Bill Clinton? Am I the only pop-culture aficionado who remembers Gone with the Wind, that bible of fun-loving white South Carolinians? Remember the laugh the Yankee women got, at the expense of Southern womanhood, when Ashley Wilkes and the guys supposedly got caught drunk in a brothel and their women put up with it?

(Mere) postscript to Iowa caucuses: Who won

(Mere) postscript to Iowa caucuses: Who won

Who won in Iowa: then

2012 is here, and they did it again: After weeks and months of hysterical conjecture about who’s-going-to-win in Iowa, the public gets a staggering indifference as to who won. The Des Moines Register reports that, as far as is known, Rick Santorum came out ahead of Mitt Romney by a near-landslide 34 votes. However, with perceptible mistakes in 131 precincts, there are too many holes in the count, the paper reports, for the true winner ever to be known.

Kudos to Bradblog, for being all over this question from early on, following the caucuses.

A full report containing all the certified results is due to be released this morning.

The morning talking heads have taken note of this development only to discuss it in terms of the horse race. As of now, we have the following consensus: 1) the Iowa results were a statistical tie anyway; 2) this (the outcome) messes up the narrative about Romney as the first Republican to win both IA and NH; 3) old news; and 4) who cares.

There has been no discussion about the problems in getting an accurate vote tally in 2012, in what has historically been one of the most transparent and least manipulable voting processes in the nation.

There they go again. As previously written, all that focus on who will win, little corresponding emphasis on who did win.

There are signs of the times on related matters, however. For one thing, many of the talking heads are intensely touting the line that the election will be ‘close’. This is one way to avoid talking about policy, and talking in specific detail about policy would tend to make the election less close. Let the public get a gander at Romney’s tax plan, for example, discussed by five or six guests and hosts at length and with colorful anecdote the way they talk about being in Iowa or South Carolina.

That close-election firewall protects the GOP.

Notwithstanding the firewall provided by corporate media outlets, MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough seems to be bothered by the display being put on by the GOP field: He is boosting a ‘centrist’ third party candidate, yet to be named, who will blame both parties for the mess in Washington.

That anyone could buy this tactic does not speak well for reporting in our time.

Famous headline

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day–Gingrich on incentive

Live-blogging the Iowa caucus coverage–

Time in a bottle

12:51 They presented Newt Gingrich just now, speaking on the stump in Burlington IA, mainly railing against negative ads. How many of you here are fed up with all the negative advertising? he asked his audience, getting some hands raised up. –So go out and vote for me, and you will be casting a vote against negative ads, a vote that could change political campaigns in this country.

Noble sentiments. They come oddly from a guy who started the day and seized CBS’ attention, this morning, by repeatedly calling Romney a liar. To be precise, it was not Gingrich who used the word liar. He just (repeatedly) answered yes, when Norah O’Donnell asked him whether that was what he was calling Romney. Schieffer helped Gingrich dig the hole deeper, following up with that old eleventh-commandment question as to whether he would support Romney as the nominee. Gingrich said yes, leading to softball Qs as to whether he would really support a “bald-faced liar” as Schieffer put it. Still yes. Gave Gingrich another chance to say something disrespectful about Obama. These people are tiresome.

Back to Gingrich’s Burlington appearance–

Having stated his opposition to negative campaign ads and to donations in the millions from Romney’s millionaire friends, again, Gingrich segued to criticism of federal judges. They’re too strong, he said.

Again, he might be right in some sense. Federal judges can get away with a lot, including selective punishment and caving in to political pressure. (Something the right wing is none too shy to apply; ditto federal lobbyists.) Gingrich comes across as something of a macht haben recht type himself, though. Hard to see him as the right messenger.

Side note: It’s funny how few of these sanctimonious Christian-right-cultivating political candidates cite the Sermon on the Mount. Reminds me of Tim Tebow. A quick physical sign of his religion may have First Amendment protection. But there is nothing particularly devout about it. As all Southern Baptists were taught, following the Sermon on the Mount, it is best to pray in the privacy of your own closet.

The hypocrites, as the Speaker of the Sermon on the Mount pointed out gently and with mild urbanity, have their own reward. You–the genuinely devout–are seeking yours elsewhere.

Speaking of pieties, Gingrich also proclaimed today that he wants to “incentivize the work ethic.” He wants to incentivize invention, to incentivize innovation.

This is the kind of statement you get from a major party that seizes every opportunity to oppose

  • a living wage
  • raising the minimum wage
  • health benefits on the job
  • retirement benefits from working
  • prosecution for fraudulent managers
  • prosecution for endangering workers’ lives
  • prosecution for Wall Street executives
  • limiting bonuses for malperforming executives
  • education in music and mathematics
  • support for the arts and letters at every level
  • physical education and healthful exercise
  • Et cetera

Gingrich, of course, puts it differently. In his spin, the other party–the Democrats– “want to take money from everybody who’s successful to give to everybody who’s failed.” Possibly his term ‘failed’ refers to everyone who has been foreclosed on after unemployment, and in turn everyone who has become unemployed as a result of the worsening economy.

It is beyond incredible that our publishing industry rewards this kind of Orwellian claptrap with mega-bucks book contracts, and that our infotainment industry rewards it with mega-bucks speaking engagements.

In Gingrich’s particular case, the buzzwords innovation etc probably his ongoing willingness to accept money from Big Pharma, which has a vested interest in preventing prescription medications from (ever) becoming generic and thus affordable.

Gingrich and Bachmann in particular seem to share Gov. Branstad’s penchant for using stump appearances and interviews as communiques for potential donors.

Not illegal, just unsavory.

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day

Live-blogging coverage of the Iowa caucuses: First voting of the new year, first voting in 2012, as we are often reminded.

Romney in Iowa

The unspoken refrain here btw is ongoing apologies for repeating things that have already been said, sort of like a continuing objection by defense attorneys in a deposition hearing.

Wish the network and cable commentators felt the same way. Some items from left-over Xmas stockings:

  • as ever, some network analysts are trying desperately to home in on their default analysis for every election cycle–the scenario boiling down to an establishment front-runner and an insurgent challenger from the wings of the party. This narrative has been applied to every GOP race and most Democratic races in adult memory. It seems not to be working this year, but that’s not stopping them.
  • commentators, guest interviewers and guest interviewees alike are by-and-large working to boost Mitt Romney. We’re seeing it right now, on the day of the caucuses, especially. The Reverend Mr. Franklin Graham weighed thus in last night on CNN, not endorsing any candidate including Romney but saying repeatedly that “We are not voting for a pastor-in-chief. We are voting for a commander-in-chief.” He used the word “qualified” more than once, too, generally shorthand for Romney among supporters. Graham said nothing to boost any Christian-conservative candidate against other candidates.
  • Trying to shoehorn this election season into a winnowing-the-field narrative. So far, the winnowing has not occurred.
  • Trying to figure out whether to characterize this primary season as a marathon or a sprint. Both are cliches. Neither illuminates much of anything.
  • Avoiding discussion, in a political context, that would shed light on what Republicans in Congress have actually done this year.
  • Legitimizing dreadful policies and mean statements.
  • Leveling out the differences between the parties, downgrading or burying the Dems and rehabilitating or dignifying Repubs.
  • Refusing to say directly that the GOP top crust in office is trying to break the middle class. You don’t hear that. You do hear NBC’s David Gregory saying, with straight face, that Mitt Romney has a message for the middle class.

Not once do regressive tax policies get brought up. Only infrequently do the costs of GWBush’s two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and unbridled incompentence and fraud on Wall Street get brought up.

Simple, but accurate–almost every Republican in federal office is working for one overarching trend: rich-get-richer.

Regardless of the wishes of ordinary people who voted for them, now being terrorized by rhetorical hammering on ‘the debt’, the function they fulfill in public office is to benefit the few who will hire/retain them in parasitic functions such as consulting and lobbying, once they leave office.

It is no demagoguery to boil down their message for the middle class: Drop dead!

Speaking of winnowing, Sarah Palin is trying to get into the game. Palin is calling on Huntsman and Bachmann to leave the race.

I see Huntsman (counter-intuitively) as vice-presidential material for Romney. None of these candidates has a very good shot against President Obama.

[added]

Commentators also tend to position ‘electable’ versus everything else including every kind of merit. There is more than a kernel of truth to the observation that politics is not for the perfect. But the gross differences between better and worse do not necessarily boil down to a difference between character and being ‘electable’. The large media outlets do not have a good track record when it comes to picking the electable candidate, anyway.

Of course, they have been on the receiving end of a lot of obfuscation themselves. Bush and Cheney did not run on a platform of assaulting the Middle East abroad and the middle class at home. If they had, presumably they would have been perceived as less electable even by the corporate media outlets.

The 2004 election revisited, part 4: Ohio

Rep. Conyers

Revisiting the 2004 election. Part 4–Ohio.

Heading toward the new year, following up previous 2004 election entries. This history may become newly relevant.

GWBush and his ‘brain’

On Election Day 2004, the close states were hit hardest: Voters in some areas in Ohio, Florida, Iowa and New Mexico suffered significant problems casting their votes successfully. Most of the problems were not widely reported, although subsequent efforts in Congress to address the situation did draw some media attention.

Ad hoc committee on election abuses 2004

Anecdotal evidence bears out the thesis presented by statistical researchers, posted previously, that the problems were indeed widespread.

Take for example Mercer County, Ohio, where following the election the information below was relayed to me.

At the time, Washington Journal had just run an article titled “How the Bush camp won Ohio,” remarking that “in some small conservative counties which have experienced net job losses nearing 10% of business payrolls, Republicans still lined up for the president. In Mercer County, which has lost 5% of its jobs in the last four years, residents voted 3-to-1–15,022 to 4,924–for Mr. Bush, a sharp increase over his winning margin in 2000.”

The none-too-subtle subtext here seems to be either that voters in Ohio were peculiarly dumb or, putting the same idea more charitably, that Team Bush successfully persuaded people to vote against their own interest.

book: What Happened in Ohio?

The voter on the ground in Ohio offers a rational second opinion, noting that “this is very peculiar since over 4,800 people voted in this year’s Democratic primary” in Mercer County. So “Mercer County has over 30,000 registered voters and yet Kerry was only able to pick up a measly 87 additional votes compared to the March primary”?

Not only did Kerry allegedly receive only 87 votes above the total cast in the Democratic primary, but Gore had over 5,200 votes in 2000 (when there were 6,227 fewer registered voters in Mercer County).

The reader provides some relevant numbers:

Mercer County, Ohio:

Year 2000:       25,079 registered voters; 18,285 votes cast

Bush 12,485

Gore 5,212

Ralph Nader 392, Howard Philips 13, John Hagelin 24, Pat Buchanan 125, Harry Brown 43

Year 2004:       31,306 registered voters, 20,058 votes cast

Bush 15,022

Kerry 4,924

Other 112

The same reader adds that people might think “this is a conservative county and that many voters may have switched to Bush especially with gay marriage on the ballot. But with 5 percent of the people losing their jobs in the past four years in this county, I think people are far more concerned about putting food on the table and meeting mortgage payments than worrying about gay people getting married.”

Be it noted that Mercer County, Ohio, is among the places where turnout increased in 2004 over 2000. As the researchers previously quoted point out, higher turnout historically favors the challenger, not the incumbent. Voter registration also increased from 2000 to 2004 in Mercer County, by 6,227.

Rampant problems voting in Ohio

Many Americans saw the video footage of voters patiently waiting in line to vote in Ohio, in 2004. Mercer County was by no means the whole story, and the previously indicated statistical anomalies were amply reinforced by anecdotal report from around the state.

Readers and other correspondents sent me an ongoing and growing list of anomalies, deceptions and intimations of vote fraud in Ohio. Part of the list follows.

Discrepancies:

  • Returns certified by officials recorded that all but 10 registered voters in the Miami County, Ohio, town of Concord voted on Election Day. So far, the election challenge team has identified more than 10 registered Concord citizens who did not vote.
  • About 580 more absentee voters were certified in Mahoning County than election board officials identified.
  • Cleremont County was among the counties with challenges to contested returns. In December 2004 a team of volunteer attorneys pored over election records at the Cleremont County Board of Elections, with the Board’s cooperation.
  • In Lucas County, four elections officials were suspended after mistakes or worse in the election.
  • In Cuyahoga County, a third of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out because of alleged registration irregularities.
  • The Associated Press reported a difference of over 17,000 votes in Kerry’s favor after the election more than in the initial vote tallies.
  • In December 2004, Rep. Conyers and Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee asked Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell to respond to inquiries about voting irregularities.

Problems with voting-machine technology:

  • In Mahoning County, election observers have testified under oath, more than a dozen voting machines switched Kerry votes to Bush votes repeatedly, while voters watched.
  • Citizens in Trumbull County using electronic machines, who voted for Kerry, saw their votes register as votes for Bush. Subsequent hearings in Trumbull County, as elsewhere, partially brought to light further possible election fraud.
  • A public hearing at the Warren Heights and Trumbull Library, in Mahoning Valley, where the vote count went to Bush, recorded thousands of complaints of voting irregularities.
  • Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus pointed out that more than half the votes cast in Ohio and the nation were recorded on electronic voting machines owned by Republicans, with no audit trail. One voting machine company, Diebold, also manufactures ATMs (automated teller machines) that do provide a paper receipt for transactions.

Low-tech old-fashioned vote suppression:

  • In Franklin County and other counties, largely Democratic precincts suffered a shortage of voting machines. All the precincts where voting machines were short and lines were long were Democratic precincts. Voters in more affluent neighborhoods reported no shortage of voting machines and no problem with long lines.

Obstruction and failure to investigate by public officials:

  • In December 2004 a legal team partly comprising volunteer attorneys issued subpoenas to top election officials in ten counties where vote-count fraud was suspected.
  • The subpoenas, a first step in interviewing people under oath, were rejected by the Ohio Secretary of State, Republican Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
  • Ten depositions were served by the election challenge legal team; the other side filed a motion to stop the process; the challengers responded.
  • A lawsuit was filed at the Ohio Supreme Court, charging that a fair vote count would give the state and the presidency to John Kerry rather than to Bush. Notice of depositions was sent to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony in Moss v Bush et al. The election challenge lawsuit was filed Dec. 17. Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney campaign, and Ohio’s Republican electors had ten days to respond. Each side then had 20 days for discovery or to gather additional evidence, plaintiffs going first. The Bush-Cheney team moved as slowly as possible, to run out the clock until the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Company logo

Subsequently, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee found that one precinct in Youngstown, in Mahoning County, recorded a negative 25 million votes. Back in Mercer County, Judiciary found that only 51 votes were recorded for one voting machine showing that 289 people cast punch card ballots president–a loss of 248 votes. The county’s website reported that 51,818 people cast ballots but only 47,768 ballots were recorded in the presidential race, including 61 write-ins, meaning that approximately 4,000 votes, or nearly 7%, were not counted for a presidential candidate.

Problems with Triad GSI voting technology company in Ohio reported on the Internet, not in print

Problems with vote technology in Ohio were not restricted to Diebold. Some concrete information is provided below, involving another major voting machine company, Triad GSI, based in Xenia, Ohio.

The following is a 2004 affidavit by the Hocking County, Ohio, deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton. It deserved wider dissemination than it received. Ms. Eaton deserved not to be fired for being a whistleblower.

[Text follows:]

  “On Friday, December 10 2004, Michael from TriAd called in the AM to inform us that he would be in our office in the PM on the same day. I asked him why he was visiting us. He said, “to check out your tabulator, computer, and that the attorneys will be asking some tricky questions and he wanted to go over some of the questions they may ask.” He also added that there would be no charge for this service.

He arrived at about 12:30PM. I hung his coat up and it was very heavy. I made a comment about it being so heavy. He, Lisa Schwartze and I chatted for a few minutes. He proceeded to go to the room where our computer and tabulation machine is kept. I followed him into the room. I had my back to him when he turned the computer on. He stated that the computer was not coming up. I did see some commands at the lower left hand of the screen but no menu. He said that the battery in the computer was dead and that the stored information was gone. He said that he could put a patch on it and fix it. My main concern was – what if this happened when we were ready to do the recount. He proceeded to take the computer apart and call his offices to get information to input into our computer. Our computer is fourteen years old and as far as I know had always worked in the past. I asked him if the older computer, that is in the same room. could be used for the recount. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I did relay to him that the computer was old and a spare. At some point he asked if he could take the spare computer apart and I said “yes”. He took both computers apart. I don’t remember seeing any tools and he asked Sue Wallace, Clerk, for a screwdriver. She got it for him. At this point I was frustrated about the computer not performing and feared that it wouldn’t work for the recount. I called Gerald Robinette, board chairman, to inform him regarding the computer problem and asked him if we could have Tri Ad come to our offices to run the program and tabulator for the recount. Gerald talked on the phone with Michael and Michael assured Gerald that he could fix our computer. He worked on the computer until about 3:00 PM and then asked me which precinct and the number of the precinct we were going to count. I told him, Good Hope 1 # 17. He went back into the tabulation room. Shortly after that he (illegible) stated that the computer was ready for the recount and told us not to turn the computer off so it would charge up.

Before Lisa ran the tests, Michael said to turn the computer off. Lisa said, “I thought you said we weren’t supposed to turn it off.” He said turn it off and right back on and it should come up. It did come up and Lisa ran the tests. Michael gave us instructions on how to explain the rotarien, what the tests mean, etc. No advice on how to handle the attorneys but to have our Prosecuting Attorney at the recount to answer any of their legal questions. He said not to turn the computer off until after the recount.

He advised Lisa and I on how to post a “cheat sheet” on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn’t have to do a full hand recount of the county. He left about 5:00 PM.

My faith in Tri Ad and the Xenia staff has been nothing but good. The realization that this company and staff would do anything to dishonor or disrupt the voting process is distressing to me and hard to believe. I’m being completely objective about the above statements and the reason I’m bringing this forward is to, hopefully, rule out any wrongdoing.”

This dramatic material was ignored by the larger media outlets. It was followed up in the online Free Press, by Ken Hoop here and by Victoria Parks here. Investigation by the House Judiciary Committee found copious indications of problems with Triad GSI. Daily Kos pointed out that the Rapp family behind Triad GSI was headed by a longtime contributor to the Republican Party.

The Judiciary Committee’s analysis stated,

Based on the above, including actual admissions and statements by Triad employees, it strongly appears that Triad and its employees engaged in a course of behavior to provide “cheat sheets” to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets told them how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law. If true, this would frustrate the entire purpose of the recount law–to randomly ascertain if the vote counting apparatus is operating fairly and effectively, and if not to conduct a full hand recount. By ensuring that election boards are in a position to conform their test recount results with the election night results, Triad’s actions may well have prevented scores of counties from conducting a full and fair recount in compliance with equal protection, due process, and the first amendment. In addition, the course of conduct outlined above would appear to violate numerous provisions of federal and state law. As noted above, 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides for criminal penalties for any person who, in any election for federal office, “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.” Section 1974 requires the retention and preservation of all voting records and papers for a period of 22 months from the date of a federal election and makes it a felony for any person to “willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter” any such record.398 Ohio law further prohibits election machinery from being serviced, modified, or altered in any way subsequent to an election, unless it is so done in the presence of the full board of elections and other observers. Any handling of ballots for a subsequent recount must be done in the presence of the entire Board and any qualified witnesses.399 This would seem to operate as a de facto bar against altering voting machines by remote access. Containers in which ballots are kept may not be opened before all of the required participants in are attendance.400 It is critical to note that the fact that these “ballots” were not papers in a box is of no consequence in the inquiry as to whether state and federal laws were violated by Barbian’s conduct: Ohio Revised Code defines a ballot as “the official election presentation of offices and candidates…and the means by which votes are recorded.” OHIO REV. CODE § 3506.01(B) (West 2004). Therefore, for purposes of Ohio law, electronic records stored in the Board’s computer are to be considered “ballots.” Triad’s interference with the computers and their software would seem to violate these requirements.”

[emphasis added]

The 2004 election revisited, part 3

Election Integrity

Revisiting the 2004 election. Part 3.

Still working in the holiday season—a useful change of work from hearing about Gingrich/Santorum/et al. is to remember the problems in 2004. Whoever wins the GOP nomination this year will have to do some fancy stepping to win the White House. Re past tactics, forewarned is forearmed.

Title says it all

On March 31, 2005, a group of solidly credentialed faculty scholars and researchers released a comprehensive study of the discrepancy between exit polls, in the 2004 election, and the published vote results.

The researchers found no “statistically-plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofsky’s exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally.” The irregularities in the presidential election thus posed “an unanswered question of vital national importance that demands a thorough and unblinking investigation.”

Election Integrity

The comprehensive investigation failed to take place, although some members of Congress including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) pursued inquiries. Where did the information go? Not into print in major newspapers. Not onto the airwaves. Like the U.S. Constitution, it is accessible on the Internet.

The 27-page “Analysis of the 2004 Exit Poll Discrepancies” reinforces earlier studies along the same lines, with further detail on election 2004. Authors and endorsers include professors in statistics, numerical analysis, computer studies, finance and mathematics from the U. of Utah, U. Wisconsin, Cornell, U. Pennsylvania, U. Illinois, Southern Methodist University and Notre Dame among others.

The introduction notes numerous election problems, including

  • “voting machine shortages;
  • ballots counted and recounted in secret;
  • lost, discarded, and improperly rejected registration forms and absentee ballots;
  • touch-screen machines that registered ‘Bush’ when voters pressed ‘Kerry’;
  • precincts in which there were more votes recorded than registered voters;
  • precincts in which the reported participation rate was less than 10%;
  • high rates of ‘spoiled’ ballots and under-votes in which no choice for president was recorded;
  • a sworn affidavit by a Florida computer programmer who claims he was hired to develop a voting program with a ‘back door’ mechanism to undetectably alter vote tallies.”

Campaigning Florida-Feeney style, 2004

These authors are not political hacks, whatever that term means. They are not hired guns paid to spin election results. They are genuine experts with earned credentials in the fields of inquiry, not backgrounds in public relations. They show a scholarly and patriotic passion for the truth.

“Under such circumstances” as the problems in this election, the authors wrote,

“we must rely on indirect evidence–such as exit polls, or analysis of election result data–as a check of the overall integrity of the official election results. Without auditability or transparency in our election systems, the role of exit polls as a trigger for further scrutiny is of paramount importance.”

They conclude,

“If the discrepancies between exit poll and election results cannot be explained by random sampling error; the “Reluctant Bush Responder” hypothesis is inconsistent with the data; and other exit polling errors are insufficient to explain the large exit polling discrepancies, then the only remaining explanation – that the official vote count was corrupted – must be seriously considered.”

Regrettably, the polling company, Edison/Mitofsky, did not release all the raw data from the exit polling. Having published the exit polls–referred to in previous posts–the company went back later and changed the published exit polls to make them conform retroactively to published vote tallies. It also attempted to repudiate its own original exit polls.

The exit polls were dismissed with argument, not fact.  A typical argument was that Bush voters were more reluctant to be interviewed by pollsters than were Kerry voters.

The faculty scholars make short work of this claim. As they point out,

“The Senate and presidential races were both questions on a single exit poll survey. If Bush supporters were refusing to fill out this survey as hypothesized, the accuracy of the exit poll should have been just as poor in the Senate races as it was in the presidential race. The presidential and Senate poll results derive from exactly the same responders.”

However,

“In 32 states, Senate elections took place on the same ballot with the presidential race. The exit polls were more accurate for Senate races than for the presidential race, including states where a Republican senator eventually won (pages 19-24).”

[emphasis added]

As the researchers point out, even while exit polls across the nation were being debunked as unreliable by the White House and its partisans, the accuracy of those same exit polls for Senate races was not questioned. The conclusion: “There is no logic to account for non-responders or missed voters when discussing the difference in the accuracy of results for the Senate versus the presidential races in the same exit poll.”

Nationally,

“The many anecdotal reports of voting irregularities create a context in which the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally remains a coherent theory.”

“In fact, the burden of proof should be to show that the election process is accurate and fair. The integrity of the American electoral system can and should be beyond reproach. Citizens in the world’s oldest and greatest democracy should be provided every assurance that the mechanisms they have put in place to count our votes are fair and accurate. The legitimacy of our elected leaders depends upon it.”

Then and now, the points are unassailable:

  • “Well-documented security vulnerabilities and accuracy issues have affected voting equipment” back to the 1960s.
  • “The recent and ongoing proliferation of sophisticated computerized vote recording and tallying equipment” has drastically enhanced capabilities for vote-tampering.
  • “That the lion’s share of this equipment is developed, provided, and serviced by partisan private corporations only amplifies these serious concerns.”
  • “The fact that, in the 2004 election, all voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies all favoring the same party certainly warrants further inquiry.”

As previously written, close-outcome states needing attention after the 2004 election included Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa. Some of the work on these problem areas will be posted.

One example: researcher Richard Hayes Phillips did magnificent work on election problems in Toledo, Ohio.

What we need meanwhile, among other things, is for our so-called ‘backwaters’ not to be left to the tender mercies of the GOP, corporate-funded influence groups, anti-human quasi-religious organizations, and the DC political press. It is wrong to neglect small towns and rural areas.

Returning to that interesting analysis from a reader in North Carolina who compared the NC 2004 early turnout to 2000 early turnout–

In 2004, the SBOE recorded 705,462 early voters. In 2000, there had been 393,152 early voters–an increase of 312,310.

Furthermore, in 2000, early voters were 46% Democrat and 38% Republican. In 2004, early voters were 50.4% Democrat and 36% Republican. That’s a 6-point net gain in Democratic turnout.

The reader points out that one would expect John Kerry to gain “at least several percentage points over Al Gore’s showing four years ago. But when the votes were tallied, Kerry registered virtually no improvement on Gore’s vote in North Carolina (Kerry 43.6%, Gore 43.2%).”

The reader anticipates possible objections:

  • Crossover voting might be a factor. But nothing indicates that crossover voting was bigger in 2004 than in 2000.
  • Southerners might have voted more for Gore than for Kerry. But that does not explain why Democratic turnout increased significantly, while GOP turnout decreased.

All in all, it was reasonable to expect Kerry to perform better in North Carolina in 2004 than Gore did in 2000, even aside from the fact that John Edwards was on the ticket. Although Kerry could not have won the state, there’s still an issue.

Again–as he points out–if Kerry got 47% in North Carolina, he would have another 130,000 votes in his column. “It’s not enough to win the state’s 15 electoral votes, but a 4-point upward shift across the country is in line with the exit poll projection of a 51-48% popular vote lead for Kerry.”

Four points or less would have moved close states to Kerry, costing George W. Bush the election.