Op-Ed Contributor
A Different Iranian Revolution
By SHANE M.
Published: June 18, 2009
This article was written by a student in Iran who, for reasons of safety, did not want to be identified by his full name.
Tehran
WE look over this wall of marching people to see what our friends in the United States are saying about us. We cannot help it — 30 years of struggle against the Enemy has had the curious effect of making us intrigued. To our great dismay, what we find is that in important sectors of the American press a disturbing counternarrative is emerging: That perhaps this election wasn’t a fraud after all. That the United States shouldn’t rush in with complaints of democracy denied, and that perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president the Iranian people truly want (and, by extension, deserve).
Do not believe it. Those so-called experts warning Americans to be leery of claims of fraud by the opposition are basing their arguments on an outdated understanding of Iran that has little to do with the reality of what we here are experiencing during these singular days.
For instance, some American analysts assert that the demonstrations are taking place only in the sections of Tehran — in the north, around the university and Azadi Square — where the educated and well-off reside. Of course, those neighborhoods were home to the well-to-do ... 30 years ago. The notion that these areas represent “the nice part of town” will come as a surprise to their residents, who endure the noise, congestion and pollution of living in the center of a megalopolis.
People who haven’t visited a city in decades are bound to give out bad directions. But their descriptions of where the protests are taking place, and why, also draw on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran.
This false geography imagines South Tehran and the countryside as home only to the poor, those natural allies of political Islam, while North Tehran embodies unbridled gharbzadegi (translated as “Weststruckness” or “Westernitis”) and is populated by people addicted to the Internet and vacations in Paris. It is as if political Islam withers north of Vanak Square and the only residents to be found are “liberals” who voted for the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.
We must not assume that the engagement of members of society with their religion is uniform or that religious devotion equals automatic loyalty to a particular brand of politics. To do so is certainly to deny Iran’s poor the capacity to think for themselves, to deny that the politics of the past four years may have made their lives worse — and plays right into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s dubious claim to be the most authentic representative of the 1979 revolution. Mr. Moussavi was, let’s not forget, a favored son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a member of Iran’s original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in the revolution and the framework of the Islamic Republic.
But the United States seems able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution. In the “how did we lose Iran?” assessments after the overthrow of the shah, many American intelligence agents and policy makers decided that their great mistake was to spend too much time canoodling with the royal family and intellectual elites of the capital. Commentators now are worried that, by siding with the opposition today, the United States will once again fall into the trap of backing the losing side.
But the fact is, Tehran is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago. It has become more like the rest of the country. Internal migration, not just to Tehran but to other major cities, has accelerated, driven in part by the growth of universities in places like Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad and Shiraz, and now nearly 70 percent of Iranians live in cities. The much vaunted rural vote represents not a decisive bloc for Mr. Ahmadinejad but a minimum, one that was easily swamped by the increased turnout of city dwellers, who normally sit elections out.
And, of course, Iran in 2009 — better yet, Iran on June 12, 2009 — is not the same as Iran in 1979. Just as Tehran’s neighborhoods cannot be fixed in time, the cultural lives of Iranians have greatly changed in the past 30 years. The postrevolutionary period has seen the expansion of education, the entry of women into the work force in large numbers, and changing patterns of marriage and even of divorce. These have all shaped Iranian society. The pseudo-sociology peddled by so many in the West would easily dissolve with a week’s visit.
Let’s also forget the polls, carried out in May by Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, that have been making the rounds this past week, with numbers that showed Mr. Ahmadinejad well ahead in the election, even in Mr. Moussavi’s hometown, Tabriz. Maybe last month Mr. Ahmadinejad was indeed on his way to victory. But then came the debates.
Starting on June 1, the country was treated to an experience without precedent in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran: six back-to-back live and unscripted debates among the four presidential candidates. Iranians everywhere were riveted, and the poll numbers began to move.
By the Wednesday before the election, Mr. Moussavi was backed by about 44 percent of respondents, while Mr. Ahmadinejad was favored by around 38 percent. So let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later. (And let’s ignore the claim that polling by Iranians in Iran is “notoriously untrustworthy.” A consortium of pollsters and social scientists working for a diverse range of political and social organizations systematically measured public opinion for months before the election.)
Such a major shift has happened before. A month before the 1997 elections, the establishment candidate, Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, was trouncing his opponents in surveys. Then, a week before the vote, the tide changed, bringing to power a reformer, Mohammad Khatami.
The reason for this fluidity in voter preference is simple. Iran has no real political parties that can command a fixed number of predictable votes. With elections driven primarily by personality politics, Iranians are always swing voters. So Mr. Moussavi, hampered by a lack of access to state-run news media and allowed only two months to campaign, began to make inroads into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s lead only during the final days leading into the election, his poll numbers rising with his visits to provincial cities and the debate appearances.
One final note: the election does reveal a paradox. There is strong evidence that Iranians across the board want a better relationship with the United States. But if Mr. Moussavi were to become president and carry out his campaign promise of seeking improved relations with America, we would probably see a good 30 percent of the Iranian population protesting that he is “selling out” to the enemy.
By contrast, support for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s campaign was rooted in part in his supposed defense of the homeland and national honor in the face of United States aggression. Americans too-long familiar with the boorish antics of the Iranian president will no doubt be surprised to learn that the best chance for improved relations with the United States perhaps lies with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Mr. Ahmadinejad is perceived here as being uniquely able to play the part of an Iranian Nixon by “traveling to the United States” and bringing along with him his supporters — and they are not few.
In other words, Iranians believe they face a daunting choice: a disastrous domestic political situation with Mr. Ahmadinejad but an improved foreign policy, or improved domestic leadership under Mr. Moussavi but near impossible challenges in making relations with the United States better.
The truth is, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The open-air parties that, for one week, turned Tehran at night into a large-scale civic disco, were an accident. People gathered by the tens of thousands in public squares, circling around one another on foot, on motorcycle, in their cars. They showed up around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and stayed together well into the next day, at least 3 or 4 in the morning, laughing, cheering, breaking off to debate, then returning to the fray. A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style. Four boys parked their cars in a circle, the headlights illuminating an impromptu dance floor for them to show off their moves.
Everyone watched everyone else and we wondered how all of this could be happening. Who were all of these people? Where did they come from? These were the same people we pass by unknowingly every day. We saw one another, it feels, for the first time. Now in the second week, we continue to look at one another as we walk together, in marches and in silent gatherings, toward our common goal of having our vote respected.
No one knew that it would come to this. Iran is this way. Anything is possible because very little in politics or social life has been made systematic. We used to joke that if you leave Tehran for three months you’ll come back to a new city. A friend left for France for a few days last week and when he returned the entire capital had turned green.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Until last week, Mr. Moussavi was a nondescript, if competent, politician — as one of his campaign advisers put it to me, he was meant only to be an instrument for making Iran a tiny bit better, nothing more. Iranians knew that’s what they were getting when they cast their votes for him. Now, like us, Mr. Moussavi finds himself caught up in events that were unimaginable, each day’s march and protest more unthinkable than the one that came before.
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Al Qaida in the US? What is the problem?
A small port town in Bari, Italy holds key figures in al-Qaeda's European organisation
BIG BAD AMERICA can't handle any?
And guess what? NO WATER BOARDING necessary!
What a joke we are- it is no wonder America does not even rank in the top 25 for education worldwide!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Bari, Italy
Al-Qaeda suspects 'plotted attack on Britain' from behind bars
Italian police have arrested two alleged al-Qaeda terrorists suspected of planning attacks on Britain and France from inside prison.
During wiretapped conversations, the men discussed an attack on Charles De Gaulle airport outside Paris and spoke of the need to "strike at the British", Italian police said.
Bassam Ayachi, 62, a Syrian imam with French citizenship, and Raphael Frederic Gendron, 33, a Frenchman who converted to Islam, were allegedly part of an al-Qaeda cell operating in Europe.
They have been in prison in Bari, a port town in southern Italy, since November, ...
"We are extremely satisfied to have stopped the masterminds, the heads of the organisation, the people who educated would-be suicide attackers in the name of Jihad,"
Police said the pair had for years lived in Belgium, where Bassam was an imam at an extremist Islamic centre and one of al-Qaeda's "spiritual guides", while Gendron, a computer expert, was the "media propaganda point man, via the internet, for the French-speaking community."
BIG BAD AMERICA can't handle any?
And guess what? NO WATER BOARDING necessary!
What a joke we are- it is no wonder America does not even rank in the top 25 for education worldwide!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Bari, Italy
Al-Qaeda suspects 'plotted attack on Britain' from behind bars
Italian police have arrested two alleged al-Qaeda terrorists suspected of planning attacks on Britain and France from inside prison.
During wiretapped conversations, the men discussed an attack on Charles De Gaulle airport outside Paris and spoke of the need to "strike at the British", Italian police said.
Bassam Ayachi, 62, a Syrian imam with French citizenship, and Raphael Frederic Gendron, 33, a Frenchman who converted to Islam, were allegedly part of an al-Qaeda cell operating in Europe.
They have been in prison in Bari, a port town in southern Italy, since November, ...
"We are extremely satisfied to have stopped the masterminds, the heads of the organisation, the people who educated would-be suicide attackers in the name of Jihad,"
Police said the pair had for years lived in Belgium, where Bassam was an imam at an extremist Islamic centre and one of al-Qaeda's "spiritual guides", while Gendron, a computer expert, was the "media propaganda point man, via the internet, for the French-speaking community."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Big Losers Always Make Excuses (BLAME): What does it mean to be a Republican?
As Barack Obama and the Democrats appear poised for an historic sweep, we have a message for our Republican friends: It is time to point fingers.
We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagree strongly with Gov. Sarah Palin who said recently, "Do you notice that our opponents sure have spent a lot of time looking at the past and pointing fingers? You look to the past because that's where you find blame, but we're...looking to the future, because that's where you find solutions." On the contrary, Governor, blame assignment, while much maligned, is essential to determining what went wrong and how to set it right. Besides, it's a hell of a spectator sport. Here's our primer for a little game we like to call Big Losers Always Make Excuses (BLAME):
First -- a couple of ground rules. You can't blame the press or minorities. Sure, media-bashing is part of the conservative catechism, and minority voters are likely to support Barack Obama in record numbers. But finger-pointing is only interesting when you point at someone on your team. Republicans need a civil war -- a steel cage death match -- to sort out what they stand for. Scapegoating outsiders won't purge the party of what's rotting it on the inside.
Here's the most important thing about finger-pointing: you have to start early. If you're a Republican who wants to avoid blame for the current meltdown, you cannot afford to wait until after the election is over.
The smartest people in the conservative movement are already pointing like a bird dog on a South Georgia quail hunt. David Brooks and Bill Kristol are leading the way. Mr. Brooks, representing the intellectual wing of the conservative movement, called Ms. Palin, "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Attaboy, Brooksie. Score one for the brainiacs.
Mr. Kristol, on the other hand, blames neither Ms. Palin nor Sen. John McCain, but rather McCain's campaign advisers, writing of the campaign: "Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic." See? That's how you do it. Kristol can't say McCain's problem is that he supported the Iraq war, (which Kristol advocated) or that he chose Sarah Palin (whom Kristol praised). So rather than play defense, Bill went on offense, blaming McCain's Steve Schmidt-led campaign. But we have a feeling this fight will only begin when the Schmidt hits the fan.
But where are the other voices? We need to hear, for example, from Karl Rove. Whom will he blame? We stipulate that Karl is a genius -- albeit a genius whose advice took Pres. Bush from a 91 percent approval rating down to 26. With the House of Bush ablaze, Karl is going to have to do some quick finger-pointing before they change they change his nickname from The Architect to The Arsonist.
How about Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other radio personalities? They never liked McCain much -- but his campaign cratered only when he embraced their wild attacks on Sen. Obama. It was only after Mr. McCain borrowed the Limbaugh-Hannity line on Bill Ayers, only after Gov. Palin accused Mr. Obama of "pallin' around with terrorists," that the bottom fell out for Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin. We're betting the hot air boys will blame the intellectuals. After all, if you want to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggheads.
The Republican Party is atomizing, and each faction must participate in Project BLAME. The neocons may want to blame the theocons. The economic conservatives will likely blame the big spenders. The conflagration will be so multi-dimensional we'll need a program to sort out the players. They will need to answer fundamental questions: What does it mean to be a Republican? Do Republicans support laissez-faire or nationalized banking? Do Republicans support a balanced budget or half-trillion-dollar deficits? Do Republicans want a "humble foreign policy" like George W. Bush, or preventive war against countries that pose no threat, like, umm, George W. Bush? Are Republicans the party of limited government or a vast Medicare prescription drug benefit? Are they wary of Big Brother or eager to expand warrantless wiretaps? Do they support Christian values or torture? Are they the party that believes that cutting-edge technology can shoot a missile out of the sky or the party that believes humans and dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously?
These questions should define the 2012 GOP presidential primaries. So start blaming, all you would-be candidates. That means you, Ms. Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist. Hurry up. You only have 1,165 days left until the Iowa Caucuses.
James Carville and Paul Begala were senior strategists for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. They'd like everyone to know it's not their fault.
John McCain
Karl Rove
Bill Kristol
Sarah Palin
Barack Obama
As Barack Obama and the Democrats appear poised for an historic sweep, we have a message for our Republican friends: It is time to point fingers. We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagr...
As Barack Obama and the Democrats appear poised for an historic sweep, we have a message for our Republican friends: It is time to point fingers. We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagr...
We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagree strongly with Gov. Sarah Palin who said recently, "Do you notice that our opponents sure have spent a lot of time looking at the past and pointing fingers? You look to the past because that's where you find blame, but we're...looking to the future, because that's where you find solutions." On the contrary, Governor, blame assignment, while much maligned, is essential to determining what went wrong and how to set it right. Besides, it's a hell of a spectator sport. Here's our primer for a little game we like to call Big Losers Always Make Excuses (BLAME):
First -- a couple of ground rules. You can't blame the press or minorities. Sure, media-bashing is part of the conservative catechism, and minority voters are likely to support Barack Obama in record numbers. But finger-pointing is only interesting when you point at someone on your team. Republicans need a civil war -- a steel cage death match -- to sort out what they stand for. Scapegoating outsiders won't purge the party of what's rotting it on the inside.
Here's the most important thing about finger-pointing: you have to start early. If you're a Republican who wants to avoid blame for the current meltdown, you cannot afford to wait until after the election is over.
The smartest people in the conservative movement are already pointing like a bird dog on a South Georgia quail hunt. David Brooks and Bill Kristol are leading the way. Mr. Brooks, representing the intellectual wing of the conservative movement, called Ms. Palin, "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Attaboy, Brooksie. Score one for the brainiacs.
Mr. Kristol, on the other hand, blames neither Ms. Palin nor Sen. John McCain, but rather McCain's campaign advisers, writing of the campaign: "Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic." See? That's how you do it. Kristol can't say McCain's problem is that he supported the Iraq war, (which Kristol advocated) or that he chose Sarah Palin (whom Kristol praised). So rather than play defense, Bill went on offense, blaming McCain's Steve Schmidt-led campaign. But we have a feeling this fight will only begin when the Schmidt hits the fan.
But where are the other voices? We need to hear, for example, from Karl Rove. Whom will he blame? We stipulate that Karl is a genius -- albeit a genius whose advice took Pres. Bush from a 91 percent approval rating down to 26. With the House of Bush ablaze, Karl is going to have to do some quick finger-pointing before they change they change his nickname from The Architect to The Arsonist.
How about Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other radio personalities? They never liked McCain much -- but his campaign cratered only when he embraced their wild attacks on Sen. Obama. It was only after Mr. McCain borrowed the Limbaugh-Hannity line on Bill Ayers, only after Gov. Palin accused Mr. Obama of "pallin' around with terrorists," that the bottom fell out for Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin. We're betting the hot air boys will blame the intellectuals. After all, if you want to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggheads.
The Republican Party is atomizing, and each faction must participate in Project BLAME. The neocons may want to blame the theocons. The economic conservatives will likely blame the big spenders. The conflagration will be so multi-dimensional we'll need a program to sort out the players. They will need to answer fundamental questions: What does it mean to be a Republican? Do Republicans support laissez-faire or nationalized banking? Do Republicans support a balanced budget or half-trillion-dollar deficits? Do Republicans want a "humble foreign policy" like George W. Bush, or preventive war against countries that pose no threat, like, umm, George W. Bush? Are Republicans the party of limited government or a vast Medicare prescription drug benefit? Are they wary of Big Brother or eager to expand warrantless wiretaps? Do they support Christian values or torture? Are they the party that believes that cutting-edge technology can shoot a missile out of the sky or the party that believes humans and dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously?
These questions should define the 2012 GOP presidential primaries. So start blaming, all you would-be candidates. That means you, Ms. Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist. Hurry up. You only have 1,165 days left until the Iowa Caucuses.
James Carville and Paul Begala were senior strategists for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. They'd like everyone to know it's not their fault.
John McCain
Karl Rove
Bill Kristol
Sarah Palin
Barack Obama
As Barack Obama and the Democrats appear poised for an historic sweep, we have a message for our Republican friends: It is time to point fingers. We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagr...
As Barack Obama and the Democrats appear poised for an historic sweep, we have a message for our Republican friends: It is time to point fingers. We are pro-finger-pointing. We disagr...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Republicans are pushing the irrational theory ...and the IGNORANT Americans will suck it up!
Republicans are pushing the irrational theory that Democrats are "cheating" their way to the White House because for them, the real reason for a possible Republican defeat would be irrational.
"We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it" and Other Tales of Republican Delusion
by georgia10
Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 06:31:13 AM PDT
The black guy can't win. The black guy with the middle name "Hussein" can't win. The black guy with the middle name "Hussein" who has "most liberal voting record" in the Senate just can't win. So if and when the terrorist-loving, radical ideology-embracing, "he doesn't see America like you and I see America" skinny black guy from Chicago wins the presidency, the only logical explanation is that he stole it.
So goes the perverted "logic" of the panicked right these days, as the entire right-wing noise machine roars up into another faux frenzy this week regarding alleged "voter fraud."
As McCain's numbers having nose-dived in the last week, some Republicans have dived head-first into the realm of conspiracy theories in order to sow the seeds of speculation that Democrats are going to "steal" this election. This week has provided some news items which they are using as kinder for their tinfoil bonfire.
ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), is an organization which has been registering voters in low-income areas. Volunteers at some chapters (who are paid per registration) have been found guilty of submitting to ACORN fake voter registrations. That, obviously, is a crime.
ACORN is obligated by law to turn over all voter registration forms, even the fake ones, but it flags those it believes are suspicious (Mickey Mouse, John Q. Public, etc.) While the why of the situation remains unclear, ACORN's Nevada office was raided this week in connection with a voter registration fraud probe.
Ben Smith at Politico, like many others across the blogosphere, puts the ACORN story into perspective:
The key distinction here is between voter fraud and voter registration fraud, one of which is truly dangerous, the other a petty crime.
The former would be, say, voting the cemeteries or stuffing the ballot boxes. This has happened occasionally in American history, though I can think of recent instances only in rare local races. Practically speaking, this can most easily be done by whoever is actually administering the election, which is why partisan observers carefully oversee the vote-counting process.
The latter is putting the names of fake voters on the rolls, something that happens primarily when organizations, like Acorn, pay contractors for new voter registrations. That can be a crime, and it messes up the voter files, but there's virtually no evidence these imaginary people then vote in November. The current stories about Acorn don't even allege a plan to affect the November vote.
In other words, what is occurring (and what isn't unique to this election) is isolated incidents of voter registration fraud. Fraud is also being committed on ACORN, an organization that is being tricked into paying volunteers for these fake registrations (clarification: ACORN pays its volunteers by the hour, not per registration). Voter fraud has not occurred. Mickey Mouse isn't show up to vote, even if he did "fill out" a registration form. And if someone registered more than once? They can only vote once at the polling booth once their name is checked off.
But pesky facts like that mean little to certain Republicans who see McCain's plunging numbers and who are looking for any reason--other than the failure of conservatism--to blame for a possible crushing electoral defeat.
FOX "News" has graced the nation with almost wall-to-wall coverage of ACORN's "voter fraud", even dragging out former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (yes, that Kenneth Blackwell, of Ohio voter suppression fame) to cast the outcome of the Ohio election into doubt. Republicans have released ads linking Obama to ACORN's alleged misconduct. And even John McCain's top surrogate has entered the fray, proclaiming that if Obama wins Indiana, the only explanation for such a victory would be cheating:
WASHINGTON - The only way Barack Obama can win in Indiana is to cheat, one of John McCain's stand-ins said Thursday.
He said votes have already been cast by "people who don't exist" and that a national voter-registration effort is "trying to steal the election in Indiana."
In an interview before headlining the Indiana Republican Party's fund-raising dinner in Indianapolis Thursday night, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Hoosiers are too smart to vote for Obama.
Democrats, he said, "can't win fairly out here."
Asked if Democrats could win without cheating, Graham said, "No. They can't win fairly out here 'cause their agenda is so far removed from the average Hoosier.
"We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it," Graham said of Indiana's 11 electoral votes. "I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it."
When the reporter calls him out on the distinction between "voter registration fraud" and "voter fraud," Graham palinizes his response:
Asked to identify non-existent people who have voted in the presidential election, Graham said: "Have you been following the ACORN investigation out there? They're registering people who don't exist." He said there are multiple registrations going on. "One lady registered 11 times. I'm saying that the dynamic out here of voter fraud is something we're concerned about."
News Hounds brings us the Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill's rational take on the matter:
"There has been no fraudulent voting...The people who claim this is a huge problem can never produce any instances where anyone voted fraudulently. They have registered fraudulently.
"Anyone who is registering someone who is not a real person should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," McCaskill said, but she did not accept the accusation that the apparently bogus registrations were "clogging" the system.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the New York Times reports that thousands of voters are being cheated out of their votes because of bureaucratic bungling:
Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.
The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.
Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately.
Republicans are pushing the irrational theory that Democrats are "cheating" their way to the White House because for them, the real reason for a possible Republican defeat would be irrational.
This was, after all, supposed to be the age of the "permanent Republican majority." America is a "conservative country" we've been told. Indeed, as this screencap from John McCain's "Strategy Briefing" demonstrates, the entire McCain campaign was premised on the idea that voters do not think Obama is "one of them":
But that screencap is from many months ago, before the full brunt of the failure of conservative policies has come to the foreground with the resounding "thud" of a stock market collapse. In this atmosphere, maybe having a "liberal" president who favors reasonable regulation and stringent oversight isn't a bad thing after all. And maybe, when voters are worried about how to pay for health care, voting for the Republican who touts the ability of the "market" to deal with the problem doesn't seem that appealing anymore.
The middle class is being cheated. And they know--as much as Republicans would like for them to forget--which party has been in power for the last eight years. And as they flock to a candidate who promises them change from failed Republican policies, panicked Republicans flock to conspiracy theories.
Blaming a possible Democratic victory on "voter fraud" is much easier than acknowledging that a resounding Democratic victory would be a wholesale rejection of Republican governance. And it's easier than admitting that voters--yes, Senator Graham, maybe even voters in Indiana and North Carolia--like what the liberal black guy from Chicago is saying about the middle class.
So let them wrap themselves in tin foil. Let them revel in nuttery now. They can use that tin foil to wipe their eyes if and when--as the polls suggest--they will be wallowing in defeat in November.
::
"We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it" and Other Tales of Republican Delusion
by georgia10
Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 06:31:13 AM PDT
The black guy can't win. The black guy with the middle name "Hussein" can't win. The black guy with the middle name "Hussein" who has "most liberal voting record" in the Senate just can't win. So if and when the terrorist-loving, radical ideology-embracing, "he doesn't see America like you and I see America" skinny black guy from Chicago wins the presidency, the only logical explanation is that he stole it.
So goes the perverted "logic" of the panicked right these days, as the entire right-wing noise machine roars up into another faux frenzy this week regarding alleged "voter fraud."
As McCain's numbers having nose-dived in the last week, some Republicans have dived head-first into the realm of conspiracy theories in order to sow the seeds of speculation that Democrats are going to "steal" this election. This week has provided some news items which they are using as kinder for their tinfoil bonfire.
ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), is an organization which has been registering voters in low-income areas. Volunteers at some chapters (who are paid per registration) have been found guilty of submitting to ACORN fake voter registrations. That, obviously, is a crime.
ACORN is obligated by law to turn over all voter registration forms, even the fake ones, but it flags those it believes are suspicious (Mickey Mouse, John Q. Public, etc.) While the why of the situation remains unclear, ACORN's Nevada office was raided this week in connection with a voter registration fraud probe.
Ben Smith at Politico, like many others across the blogosphere, puts the ACORN story into perspective:
The key distinction here is between voter fraud and voter registration fraud, one of which is truly dangerous, the other a petty crime.
The former would be, say, voting the cemeteries or stuffing the ballot boxes. This has happened occasionally in American history, though I can think of recent instances only in rare local races. Practically speaking, this can most easily be done by whoever is actually administering the election, which is why partisan observers carefully oversee the vote-counting process.
The latter is putting the names of fake voters on the rolls, something that happens primarily when organizations, like Acorn, pay contractors for new voter registrations. That can be a crime, and it messes up the voter files, but there's virtually no evidence these imaginary people then vote in November. The current stories about Acorn don't even allege a plan to affect the November vote.
In other words, what is occurring (and what isn't unique to this election) is isolated incidents of voter registration fraud. Fraud is also being committed on ACORN, an organization that is being tricked into paying volunteers for these fake registrations (clarification: ACORN pays its volunteers by the hour, not per registration). Voter fraud has not occurred. Mickey Mouse isn't show up to vote, even if he did "fill out" a registration form. And if someone registered more than once? They can only vote once at the polling booth once their name is checked off.
But pesky facts like that mean little to certain Republicans who see McCain's plunging numbers and who are looking for any reason--other than the failure of conservatism--to blame for a possible crushing electoral defeat.
FOX "News" has graced the nation with almost wall-to-wall coverage of ACORN's "voter fraud", even dragging out former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (yes, that Kenneth Blackwell, of Ohio voter suppression fame) to cast the outcome of the Ohio election into doubt. Republicans have released ads linking Obama to ACORN's alleged misconduct. And even John McCain's top surrogate has entered the fray, proclaiming that if Obama wins Indiana, the only explanation for such a victory would be cheating:
WASHINGTON - The only way Barack Obama can win in Indiana is to cheat, one of John McCain's stand-ins said Thursday.
He said votes have already been cast by "people who don't exist" and that a national voter-registration effort is "trying to steal the election in Indiana."
In an interview before headlining the Indiana Republican Party's fund-raising dinner in Indianapolis Thursday night, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Hoosiers are too smart to vote for Obama.
Democrats, he said, "can't win fairly out here."
Asked if Democrats could win without cheating, Graham said, "No. They can't win fairly out here 'cause their agenda is so far removed from the average Hoosier.
"We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it," Graham said of Indiana's 11 electoral votes. "I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it."
When the reporter calls him out on the distinction between "voter registration fraud" and "voter fraud," Graham palinizes his response:
Asked to identify non-existent people who have voted in the presidential election, Graham said: "Have you been following the ACORN investigation out there? They're registering people who don't exist." He said there are multiple registrations going on. "One lady registered 11 times. I'm saying that the dynamic out here of voter fraud is something we're concerned about."
News Hounds brings us the Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill's rational take on the matter:
"There has been no fraudulent voting...The people who claim this is a huge problem can never produce any instances where anyone voted fraudulently. They have registered fraudulently.
"Anyone who is registering someone who is not a real person should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," McCaskill said, but she did not accept the accusation that the apparently bogus registrations were "clogging" the system.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the New York Times reports that thousands of voters are being cheated out of their votes because of bureaucratic bungling:
Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.
The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.
Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately.
Republicans are pushing the irrational theory that Democrats are "cheating" their way to the White House because for them, the real reason for a possible Republican defeat would be irrational.
This was, after all, supposed to be the age of the "permanent Republican majority." America is a "conservative country" we've been told. Indeed, as this screencap from John McCain's "Strategy Briefing" demonstrates, the entire McCain campaign was premised on the idea that voters do not think Obama is "one of them":
But that screencap is from many months ago, before the full brunt of the failure of conservative policies has come to the foreground with the resounding "thud" of a stock market collapse. In this atmosphere, maybe having a "liberal" president who favors reasonable regulation and stringent oversight isn't a bad thing after all. And maybe, when voters are worried about how to pay for health care, voting for the Republican who touts the ability of the "market" to deal with the problem doesn't seem that appealing anymore.
The middle class is being cheated. And they know--as much as Republicans would like for them to forget--which party has been in power for the last eight years. And as they flock to a candidate who promises them change from failed Republican policies, panicked Republicans flock to conspiracy theories.
Blaming a possible Democratic victory on "voter fraud" is much easier than acknowledging that a resounding Democratic victory would be a wholesale rejection of Republican governance. And it's easier than admitting that voters--yes, Senator Graham, maybe even voters in Indiana and North Carolia--like what the liberal black guy from Chicago is saying about the middle class.
So let them wrap themselves in tin foil. Let them revel in nuttery now. They can use that tin foil to wipe their eyes if and when--as the polls suggest--they will be wallowing in defeat in November.
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