News Dissector Blog » Blog Archive » Election Day: Vote Early And Often

02
Nov

Election Day: Vote Early And Often

ELECTION NIGHT 11:12 PM

I just took a Daily Show break—Jon Stewart and the gang hysterical, spoofing the coverage…he had several maps including a topgraphical map, a treasure map, and a map that pictures the US as a handful of swing states….Ohioada was the name of the new nation.

The best line..Tonight, Iraqis who are watching are asking–is this the democracy you want to bring us?

ELECTION NIGHT 10:35

Ralph Nader is on CSPAN attacking liberals for servility for not making demands on the Democrats…..He says Kerry took their votes for granted….He says he and Bush are similar….”Whats their difference on Corporate welfare?”he asked….He blasts corporate crime that has looted money from investors and workers…

He praised the business media for documenting these crimes but nothing happens he says…He charges they expose scandals to build bigger audiences which their advertisers then love…He challenged the media–”what are you doing this for? Do you do it for prizes? Nothing happens!” He then indicts the corporate control of government. The two part electoral dictatorship is carving up the country…..Out of 435 seats in the House, only four lost….ITS OVER, he said in a reference to democracy. We have just started to fight, he said before launching into an indictment of our electoral system…..

Nader is a brilliant man, and a man of integrity, but I still don’t understand why he ran because of how divisive the campaign was on our political culture.

At the same time, he is only candidate quoting Frederick Douglas to the effect that power gives nothing without a demand….

9:48 ELECTION NIGHT

There have been so many new politicakl forces in this campaign–from Move On to Bruce Springsteen to Michael Moore to Puffy Combs, young voters, the bloggers and the Daily Show etc and etc. Wouldn’t they be interesting to hear from?

So who is on public television tonight? Charlie Rose of course had on his perennial guest Heny Kissinger. HENRY KISSINGER!

As I hear about all the voting problems in Florida, I think about my efforts to get PBS stations to rebroadcast our documentary COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY which investigated the farce in Florida in 2000. I even produced an update warning that the same problems could reoccur. What happened? The Independent Television and Video Service, ITVS, made the show available via satellite to EVERY PBS station in the nation.

How many PUBLIC stations picked it up? The same as the number of WMDs found in Iraq:O. ZERO.

Why run a hard-hitting documentary on voting rights when you can have Henry Kissinger on again and again. So much for PBS.

ELECTION NIGHT 9:25

NY went for Kerry along with New Jersey. The two states that experienced 911 did not fall for his demogoguery on an issue that played well in other States. The irony. The Irony.

I have been at home doing interviews. I was on the air with dynamic Liz Brown in St Louis who made the point that real political work has to begin on November. KPFK in Los Angeles and Between the Lines from Connecticut will call next. This is nothing. Kerry and Edwards spent four HOURS doing back to back radio today.

Russ Feingold in Wisconsin was re-elected.

Doug Ireland has some not so good news.

“9:07 PM I am personally extraordinarily unhappy that, in Oklahoma, Tom Coburn has been projected as the winner of the U.S. Senate race. It’s not that his Democratic opponent–a little turd named Brad Carson who tried to run to Coburn’s right–was any good; it’s that Coburn, during his years in the House, was the Number One Enemy of the AIDS community. And, just as he was in the House, as a doctor he’ll become a leading party spokesman and policy-shaper on health matters. Coburn’s war on the Centers for Disease Control to bring it into line with the American Taliban’s anti-condom crusade was very effective. In the Senate, he’ll have even more clout to pursue it…..

Meanwhile, ABC reports that, in Florida, there are 100,000 absentee ballots in Dade County alone that won’t even begin to be counted until tomorrow. And absentees traditionally have a strong GOP advantage. It appears from the actual numbers that Bush is pulling in Martinez to the Senate–an indicator of top-ticket strength.

8:13 PM ABC’s political director Mark Halperin just reported that in the exit polls, Bush’s favorable/unfavorable was 51/47%. That’s not good….

ELECTION NIGHT 8:17 PM

Fox’s “You decide” coverage is focusing on key groups in the conservative fold-gun owners, Cuban exiles, military families. They voted for, suprise, surprise, Bush..Fox projects Bush a winner in South Carolina….

In Iraq meanwhile, another journalist has been killed:

“Marines Say Reuters Cameraman Died in Gunbattle

“BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Tuesday a cameraman killed in the Iraqi city of Ramadi while on assignment for Reuters had died in a gunbattle between Marines and insurgents.

“Marines from the 1st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force engaged several insurgents in a brief small arms firefight that killed an individual who was carrying a video camera earlier Monday morning,” it said in a statement.

“It was the military’s first response to questions from Reuters about the killing.

“Video footage of the incident showed no apparent fighting and no sounds of shooting in the vicinity before Dhia Najim was killed by a single bullet. He filmed heavy clashes between Marines and insurgents earlier in the day but that fighting had subsided.

“Najim’s colleagues and family said they believed he had been shot by a U.S. sniper.

“Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger said: “We reject the clear implication in the Marines’ statement that Dhia was part of an insurgent group. “This claim is not supported by the available evidence. I strongly urge the U.S. military to conduct a proper investigation into this tragic event.”

Reuters had demanded a proper investigation of the Palestine Hotel incident on April 8 2003 in which a Reuters journalist was killed and another wounded. There was no investigation. It demanded an investigation when another of its cameraman was shot. Again, no investigation.

ELECTION NIGHT 7:54 PM

NBC MAKES FIRST PROJECTION

Tonight is the retiring Tom Brokaw’s last hurrah. His last election. At 7:44, he explained how their “decision desk” works basing projections on phone calls. exist polls. the raw vote data using statistical models.

The first NBC projection–West Virginia–For Bush….Earlier, he had Rudy Giulini on followed by Ted Kennedy calling it the “full spectrum” of our politics…..A typical way in which networks narrow the range of permissable debate between mainstream Republicans v Democrats…..

NBC has younger voters going for Kerry in their projections. 13% of the voters are younger…..

My daughter is on the phone telling me of a friend who just received an absentee ballot from Florida YESTERDAY.

My partner Rory called the election for Kerry at 5:30…..Tim Karr and I held back sensing that alot can still happen.

ELECTION DAY 6:20 PM

The Kerry camp is doing war dances. The exit poll data from the swing states has the Bush campain mostly swinging. Here at the Mediachannel, we are debating on whether to call the race for Kerry. The problem of course is that the last time around in 2000, the early calls were biased and irresponsabile. Is this another DEWEY BEATS TUMAN SITUATION? ( A reference to l948 when newspapers called the race prematurly for the Republican challenger and ended up with egg on face) What to do?

The blogs are on fire reporting data that the networks have pledged not to run before the polls close

Tim Karr of Mediachannel is flooding me with stories:

Blogs Send Stocks in Reverse
“U.S. stocks reversed course suddenly on Tuesday and drifted lower as chatter on the Internet speculated that early exit polls had Sen. John Kerry leading the presidential election in key swing states.”

Blogs could pull an election upset
“Forget CNN. Don’t bother with ABC, CBS or other television networks. If you want an early read on election results Tuesday night, take a look at Daily Kos, Wonkette and other political Weblogs.

Early Exit Polling Predicts Kerry “Landslide”
Kerry ahead in MI 51-48, WI 52-48, PA 60-40, OH 52-48, FL 51-48

JESSE’S VIEW: MINORITIES DISENFRANCHISED, FIGHTING BACK

Writing in the Chicago Sun Times, Jesse Jackson writes:

“A record minority vote will turn out today, I predict, the product of an effervescent mobilization to express the vote. But that same minority community is now witnessing a despicable drive to suppress that very same vote.

“President Bush, having waged the most negative campaign by any incumbent president in memory, is presiding over a systematic effort to stop African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans from voting.

“The mobilization to express the vote is a new small “d” democratic eruption. ACORN, the poverty group, registered more than 1.5 million voters this year, overwhelmingly in minority communities, and is gearing up a new effort to get that vote out. US Action, a collection of state groups, added another 500,000. America Coming Together, one of the infamous 527s, added 100,000 more in Philadelphia alone. The NAACP Voter Fund has registered hundreds of thousands also.

“Disc jockeys and musicians summon the young to vote. Voter registration at historically black colleges has soared. In Florida, over a million people - disproportionately African-American - have stood in long lines to vote early.

“Standing against this democratic expression is a systematic Republican effort at voter suppression. The Justice Department reflects Attorney General John Ashcroft’s sordid history of discriminating against minority voters rather than the department’s historic role of enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Ashcroft has the department focused on “voter fraud,” an old Jim Crow trick, not on enforcing voting rights. The Internal Revenue Service has been unleashed, threatening the tax status of the NAACP for criticizing Bush, and calling major African-American ministers, trying to intimidate them from calling on the faithful to vote. “

One more sign. Dave DeGraw has been listening to right wing shout mouth Sean Hannity on ABC in New York. He has been pleading for his fans to vote. When I was with him on Fox last week, he said : “We won his thing.” Now, I guess he is not so sure.

Stay Tuned…….Kerry may be on the verge of achieving another Red Sox type victory…..Believe

A dissenting view from the conspiracy corner. Scott Loughrey writes:

“In my opinion Kerry is playing the role of Gore. The idea is to create the idea that we’re heading for another electoral tie. However, the media will claim that Bush wins by a small margin.

“Once that happens there will be a lot of disappointment. but a lot of people will go back to thinking that they’re still living in a democracy. They’ll denounce the 911 Truth Movement (which is making enormous headway) as being a group of idiots not worth listening to. everything will quiet down until sometime next year when the next “attack” occurs. That’s when they implement martial law….

sorry to come off like i’m totally nuts. “

Totally. You call it!

ELECTION DAY UPDATE: 1:59 PM

At about 1 this afternoon, I was walking back to the office after appearing via satellite as a election commentator on E-TV in South Africa. As I passed Madam Toussard’s tourist trap emporium on 42nd Street, I noticed a wax replica of our heroic leader GWB out front. Suddenly a woman in front of me turned to the wax idol and put a piece of paper in its “hand.” It read “WAR CRIMINAL.”

Check out Mediachannel’s media watch. Add your view. The big question now may have nothing to do with what Kerry or Bush says but how many people vote. 106 million turned out in 2000. The New York Times is projecting 121 million this time around. That should be good news for the Democrats.

“We are the wretched refuge that fights, suffers and dies for the ruling capitalists and politicians of America.

“We are continuously dehumanized, from our initial training throughout our entire time in the military because our tasks, as military personnel is dehumanizing.

“No matter what our military jobs are, regardless of the branch we serve in(army,navy,air force, marines), the reality is that we are trained to kill because we are expected to kill.

“Therefore, the training we suffer is not comparable the abusive parent child relationship. It is the dehumanizing/abuse that is is historically integral to the formation of an effective soldier.

“You have no idea how brutal killing is; the most vicious, dirty and emotional act. If you were to witness our combat training of wrestling, punching, kicking, choking unconscious and slamming you would be sickened.

“We were abused as a class long before we were abused as soldiers….Hoping to feel the touch of a woman again.”

Wow.

THE PAIN IN SPAIN

When I was on the air in South Africa, they were doing a phone in poll on the election. All over the world, people are seeking a say:

Bill D writes from Barcelona, Spain:

“Dear Danny,

You might be interested in seeing how widespread the opposition to our wired “leader” is.

Here is a small website curiously named No Bush from Barcelona (www.nobushfrombarcelona.com) dedicated to his dethronement — from a town that knows what it is to suffer under a dictatorship. The English needs some polishing, but the general ideas are clear from the archive of cartoons, etc.

An article in Sunday’s New York Times ( “Old Friends U.S. and Spain Weather a Time of Tension”) only deals with the current Spanish government’s distate for American hegemony. It doesn’t deal with the`people’s views, of course, which is what that government should represent, strangely enough. In a recent poll carried out by the Gallup Institute and Sigma Dos 51 percent of the Spaniards interviewed said that their general view of the United States was “very negative to quite negative”. The local newspaper Catalonia Today reported on Wednesday 13 October that “The fight against poverty, world peace, protection of the environment, international policy with respect to Spain and the fight against terrorism were the main areas in which most Spaniards believed the US has had a negative effect”.

However, that figure, I’m sure, hides the real seriousness of the problem, viz. that the young here are overwhelmingly against American policies, especially Bush’s, and this is yet another toll of the invasion as sure. We recently did an informal mock lection here in Barcelona among students and many working university graduates. Out of the 115 who voted, there were 80 votes for Kerry, 33 votes for “other” (Ralph Nader is virtually unknown here, so this vote measures general rejection of both candidates), and 2 for George W. Bush.

I’m old enough to remember how the hatred of young people abroad swung from “intense” during the early 70’s, to mild mockery during the Ford Carter period, to strong distaste during the Reagan years, to sheer ennui in George the First’s reign, to bemusement at shenanigans during the Clinton administration. But now we have a whole generation that despises America. This is yet another legacy (along with incresed recruitment for Osama’s troops) that Dubya’s minions have bequeathed future generations .

In contrast, the older generation here in Spain, as perhaps in the US and elsewhere, being well-off for the most part, tended towards the right on matters economic, which explains the success of the Partido Popular in the early 90’s. But, unlike their American peers, the middle-aged Spaniards do not place those economic interests above their revulsion of bloodshed. That really explains why the country swung to the Socialists in the last election. Even the older people voted against Jose Maria Aznar (who, by the way, now has a cushy lecturing job at Georgetown University.)

Nevertheless, I am confident, living here as I do, that as soon as regime change takes place in the US the Spaniards will be “back on board” and support the US in its attempts to secure its own borders — but not others’.

Keep up the good work. I’m pointing all my students towards your blog to restore their faith in the sensibleness of some Americans.

I will update when and if I have more to say. Today we are looking not at the state of the nation but the fate of a nation.

THE DAY HAS COME

THE TIME IS NOW

USE IT OR LOSE IT

Brrruuce was singing his heart out in Ohio as the last Kerry Edwards Campaign hit Cleveland. Bush is back on the ranch in Crawford. One of the most passionate and poisonous campaigns in US history is over. Now it’s time to vote early — and often as the comics say.

The joke inside the joke that’s not funny is that many registered voters may not get to vote or have their votes counted. We have been hearing the stories out of Florida and Ohio but what is not remembered is that an MIT and Cal Tech study published after the fraud in Fraudia noted that 6 million votes were not counted.

So here we are, Election Day 2004, and we live in a divided country reported on and further polarized by our polarized press. So what’s gonna happen?. What are you gonna do? Alternet reports 25,000 lawyers have been dispatched to the swing states for election day.

You have been hearing about the polls for months…some say Bush, others Kerry. A website I heard about on CSPAN last night is chuck full of all the data, stats, and conventional wisdom you could ever want:
www.realclearpolitics.com/

TELL US WHATS HAPPENING WHERE YOU LIVE

The polls and voting stations are opening across America. Mainstream media outlets are standing by with million-dollar, election night extravaganzas ready to break news as it happens. Whether they’ll get the story right or fall victim to the election spin cycle depends not only on their skills as reporters, but also on your vigilance as media watchers.

You can safeguard our democracy against media mishaps by taking part in Media for Democracy’s MediaWatchBlog.
www.citizensmediawatch.us/blog/

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

Somthing else is happening and Mrs. Jones doesn’t know what it is. , You don’t need a weatherman to recognize it, (With heavy rains in some of the swing states this morning paying attention to the weather may help.)

Kerry is hoping for a magical moment: “This is the moment of accountability for America,” Kerry said. “All of the hopes and dreams of our country are on the line today. The choice is clear.” ‘

Bush said: “”It’s like that marathon stretch — the finish line is in WE HOPE (Emphasis ours) it is in sight,” Bush told reporters on a military tarmac west of Pittsburgh. “I just want to assure you that I have the energy and the optimism and the enthusiasm to cross the line.”

Millions of get out the vote volunteers are being mobilized but so are the Christian churches who have been calling Kerry an anti-Christ for month. Its populism versus piety, organized forces versus spontaneous efforts. Ours is a country divided. It will remain divided.

IS THE FIX IN?

Journalist Greg Palast is more pessimistic, writing:

“Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling — ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that “spoil” votes — John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes. ”

Bush had his post 911 ride in a country that was bullied and terrorized not just by Osama’s gang but by his own gang playing the patriot card while playing on our fears and insecurities. As the terror alerts went up and down, as the bombers moved rocks around in Afghanistan and sand in Iraq, he became a man transformed, a servant of his Lord doing his bidding, He ran as a uniter, not a divider. He became, in his words, a “WAR PRESIDENT”, a man possessed heading a political machine that was obsessed. War was the card he played. The casualties were not just over there–but over here. I will spare you the details. You know them,

MEDIA CULTIVATION

And our media for years lined up with him and behind, him cowed and deferential, selling more than telling, cultivating and conditioning viewers and readers to the Presidents World view. You can’t undo this pounding with a handful of critics and websites.

Writer Gore Vidal echoes this theme: “Oh, they’re not just suppressing African American voters. The old Jewish ladies in Miami, Florida, have been made to stand for four hours in the sun, having a heatstroke, while they’re being given their ballots or their registration papers, or whatever it is. No, no — this is a war on all the people, all the time. I mean, if we had a responsible media, we’d know something about it, but we don’t.”

THE STORM THAT WON’T QUIT

Today, Bush the invincible is at the center of a storm that won’t quit. He has provoked a fury and a rage that won’t go away. It’s ironic that this relatively apolitical character has so politicized the country and brought it to the edge of a new civil war.

GETTING PHYSICAL

Activists turned politicos like Tom Hayden says this confrontation is likely to get physical:

“Not since the 1930s have the labor, civil rights and peace movements been this unified in a presidential campaign, and almost never before have the raw realities of power been so flagrantly exposed behind the showcasing of democracy American-style.

It will get worse in the days ahead. Many Americans will have to push their way through the resistance of Republican operatives seeking to obstruct the right to vote. I predict it will get physical.

And it already is, this just in from West Palm Beach whre Election supervisor Theresa Lapore, she of the ballot which confused so many voters there in 2000 and took 6000 votes away from All Gore:

“Deputy Tackles, Arrests Journalist for Photographing Voters

Jane Daugherty reports:

“A sheriff’s spokesman and a county attorney later said the deputy was enforcing a newly enacted rule from Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore prohibiting reporters from interviewing or photographing voters lined up outside the polls.

“But the arrest drew expressions of outrage from a leading Florida civil liberties expert - and even from one of LePore’s fellow county election supervisors. When Deputy Al Cinque tried to grab Henry’s camera, Henry ran about 100 feet across the pavement on the side of the elections office before he was tackled by the deputy . . . ”

HAVE THE CANDIDATES MERGED?

Many on the left don’t see the choice the way many Democrats do. This is not the debate you see on TV:

“Bush and Kerry are both pro-war candidates,” writes Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood. “in the case of Iraq and in general. Kerry voted to give the president authorization for the war and remains committed to continuing the illegal occupation of Iraq. Both pledge virtually unconditional support to Israel in its brutal and illegal occupation of Palestine. The two candidates’hawkish rhetoric on Latin America and the Caribbean is virtually indistinguishable. And both Bush and Kerry are committed to continuing to spend more than $400 billion on an insane military system that has little to do with national security and much to do with the maintenance of empire and corporate profits. On foreign and military policy, Bush and Kerry differ mostly in style and strategy, not fundamental aims . . . .

This may be true, but Michael Moore for one explains it away: “Okay, Kerry isn’t everything you wished he would be. You’re right. He’s not you! Or me. But we’re not on the ballot — Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war — he believed his president.”

MURDOCH MEDIA DOES ITS THING

Fairness and Accuracy in Media reports as Murdoch media distorts:

“In a naked attempt to exploit the September 11 attacks for partisan political gain, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post ran a deceptive front-page headline on its October 30 edition that declared that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden “Urges Bush Defeat.”

“Of course, the taped message from bin Laden played on Al-Jazeera (10/29/04) did not call for George W. Bush’s defeat. Indeed, toward the end of the message, bin Laden declares, “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush.”

“Still, Murdoch’s media empire seems dedicated to convincing voters that Kerry is the candidate of Al Qaeda. On Fox News Channel (10/29/04), when one guest objected to another’s characterization of bin Laden’s statement as “an endorsement” of Kerry, saying, “I don’t think he’s going to have a Kerry-Edwards sticker in the cave,” host Neil Cavuto retorted: “He’s all but doing that. I thought I saw a button.”

“The same night, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly referenced a new anti-Bush video from rapper Eminem: ‘And Eminem joins Osama and comes out against Bush as well.’”

www.fair.org/activism/murdoch-kerry-binladen.html

CONTENT NO LONGER KING

Matt Stoller writes:

“Content has been dethroned as king. For the last fifty years, it has been content that determined who saw what. Now it is trust, community, and participatory ability that matters in terms of influence. While the insiders talk to insiders to determine conventional wisdom, the spin has become so intense as to be debilitating. The quality or accuracy of any individual piece of content is less relevant than ever, because there’s so much of it - what matters is the overall pattern of involvement in the media source. The economics do not yet reflect this new arrangement, but they will.”

www.bopnews.com/archives/002203.html

The Daily Show is calling its program tonight: “PRELUDE TO A RECOUNT” Its on an hour earlier.

YOUR LETTERS

Marty Perlmutter writes from the hills of Oakland:

“So the young folks who tip this election will draw the only possible conclusion: CBS, ABC, CNN et al don’t know squat. Seek your reliable news elsewhere. On the big stories, the semi-official media are as accurate as the CIA on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Oops. My bad.

“There will be no forgiveness, just a simple switching of channels. In two years, the erosion of the sweet-spot demographic from all the major news outlets will so impact ad spending that the cold-hearted suzerains at Time Warner (CNN), Disney (ABC), Viacom (CBS) and GE (NBC) will do the only logical thing — and chop the news bureau budgets. Which will lead to still crappier coverage, which will rapidly cause those entities to implode. In four years, very few folks will be turning to CNN for The Word on what’s really up.

“Such a fate couldn’t happen to nicer guys. Tomorrow’s shocking outcome is going to be the death knell to the big media news operations. And that’s news!”

Wendi Meremark is in Oregon:

“There are many injustices around. They shall have their day in court. None are going to hang-chad this election. It’s over. Kerry won Tuesday. Start the transition Wednesday. Courts will hear elections cases after January first, 2005, especially if the order of business then starts with appointment of Chief Justice.

“The non-negotiable absolute for taking vicissitude’s results in a single roll of the ballot-box bones, is a strategy that alienates many in Kerry’s base. But Paul Krugman gives Kerry similar advice saying, “be not magnanimous in victory” — ‘crack down, first thing.’

http://texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1777

Many have truly suffered voting injustices and have sacrificed unfairly. Just so. The import of Solomon’s ruling to ’split the baby on a sword,’ is not its position but is its velocity. The speed of the order gives its Justice, not the legal precedent in it. (Which reflects the reasoning in Bush v. Gore, 2000.)

“The scales of Justice reach a tipping point now or never. The first determination or none.

Call it in the air. Heads. It’s Kerry.”

Susie Taft:

” Sleepless here, remembering back to the beginning of the Bush-Kerry part of the campaign. Back before “flip flop”. We used to hear the word “waffle” but it was flip flop that took off. Tonight we got some locals on the news saying who they’re for and why. One woman had very little to say except that she guessed Kerry was a flip flopper so she guesses she’s gonna vote for Bush.

“You’re doing a wonderful thing, Danny. I’m so glad you’re watching and writing.

THANK YOU

Ronnie Bennett has a kind word for your dutiful dissector:

“I can’t imagine how I would have gotten through this election year without your newsletters. There just is not enough time in the day to get through everything I’d like to read and the digest/links and your commentary have become the most important email newsletter I get.

“I’ve just made a donation. Even though the campaign comes to an end tomorrow, there will be much more for you to do in addition to your usual monitoring. It is not much right now because I’m unemployed, but that makes me available to volunteer if there is anything I can do to help mostly from home. I’ve checked the volunteer box on the donation page.”