Aw come on, Jib. Get on with life now. Your guy won. No questions asked. Give up the whining already. I know you wanted W to win Wisconsin just as much as I wanted Kerry to win Ohio.I can see how this can seem like a case of sore winnerism. Our guy won the election, and here we are complaining about the fact that we think he should have won in Wisconsin, too. That's really not what is going on here, though. There is probably nothing that can be done to change the results in Wisconsin at this point, no matter how loud the Wisconsin blogosphere is about this. I think most of us realize this. There are two things that are at play, though. First, a lot of us are concerned about the dramatic slide that is occurring in the legitimacy of Wisconsin elections. This started quietly in 2000 when a Democratic election worker was caught trying to buy the votes of Milwaukee area homeless people with cigarettes. There is also a great deal of concern about Wisconsin's very lenient voter registration laws. These laws, which make it excessively easy to register to vote in Wisconsin, also make it excessively easy to commit voter fraud. It would be nothing for someone from Illinois who has a summer home in Wisconsin (and there are a lot of these individuals) to register in the area of their summer home and vote in Wisconsin as well as Illinois. The laws also make it easy for anyone to show up the day of the election, register to vote at an address of a vacant lot or a business, and get away with it. On this count, I was sounding the warning bells before the election. Additionally, we watched as Milwaukee (heavily Democratic) allowed over 5,000 very questionable voter registrations to stand prior to the election. We watched as Milwaukee insisted that it needed over twice as many ballots as it had eligible voters. We've seen Milwaukee's disregard for justice when vans rented by Republicans to take voters to the polls were rendered inoperable with slashed tires, and no one was brought up on charges. Now we watch on as Milwaukee shows an utter disregard for its responsibilities, and does not verify its same day voter registrations, allowing the votes to stand long enough for the election to be certified, even though the ineligible votes could have been of a large enough quantity to swing the election. We cannot change any of this that is in the past, but we are beginning to feel besieged by what we feel is a corrupt Democratic establishment in this state. By trumpeting this story and applying pressure to the principles, we can help halt this slide towards corrupt elections that we've been watching. If we are quiet on this story, the Wisconsin media will not pick up on this story, and Wisconsinites will go to the polls in 2006 and 2008 ignorant of these issues, and nothing will be done to shore up our ailing electoral process.
But none of that happened. So enough already.
Let's start thinking of what needs to be done by the President to make him 'legendary'. Not about the voting.
If anyone, it is Kerry and his supporters who should be whining about voter fraud and stuff. Not you and yours.
A secondary issue that plays into this is a sense equality, of fairness. There is legitimate doubt about what is going on here in Wisconsin, primarily in Milwaukee and, to a lesser extent, Madison. Despite this legitimate doubt, nobody outside of Wisconsin is paying any attention to it. Instead, the story is a Democratically spun fairy tale out of Ohio, which is less than legitimate. We don't want the spotlight per se, but we do think that if the story was a legitimate one for the media to drone about, then they should be paying a lot more attention to what is going on here in Wisconsin than what happened in Ohio. But they're not, they are ignoring it. The results of the election in Ohio were never in doubt, despite efforts on the part of the left to find a Democratic vote under every rock. This story coming out of Milwaukee means that foul play may have very well turned the election results. Whether "our guy" ultimately won or not, it leaves a sick feeling in your stomach when you realize that foul play may have changed the results in your state. Even if you are one to believe that there was no foul play at all, you still have to be disgusted at the outright incompetence.
But given all that, RPM, if you would like to see me talk about what needs to be done to enshrine Bush in the legions of Great Presidents, I'll be happy to go to work on that, too :-).
2 comments:
Excellent post, Jib. And you're right, it's the threat of a fraudulent process that has us worried, more than the fact that once again Bush lost Wisconsin. I was extremely concerned about that in 2000, and found myself angry in 2004 that we hadn't insisted on election reform. Granted, we would have it except for our Democrat governor, but we should have pushed the issue harder. When I say "we", I mean all Wisconsinites who care about free and fair elections. Which should be all of us, Dem or Repub.
Good post. Even though I did not click on each and every link you have mentioned in it, I of course want election reform and one of the things you should agree with me on, is that fraud exists not only in one state but many.
It is not good for a democracy to have fraudulent elections. Does not matter who is committing the fraud, the bottomline is that we are never going to be confident of the results. Is that considered a democracy? Not really. How different are we then, from Ukraine? In fact, they may actually be a 'better democracy' because the people's voice was heard and the people were able to peacefully protest and overturn the fraudulent election.
And as for W enshrinement - I am still baffled at how many people (including you) think he is a good President. It is one thing to support him during elections, but now that he has won it, it is ok to admit that he has flaws. Many flaws. But he has 4 years to change that perception and become the 'People's President'. He can become moderate in his policies, befriend people like me who don't care much about the party, but more about the policies. He needs to bring the scarily divided population of this country closer.
Can he do it? If he can, you won't have to work on anything. It will be all there in front of you and he will automatically go into the 'Hall of Fame'.
I do wish it happens in the general interest of the nation. But frankly, I am not too hopeful.
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