Don’t it Make My Red States Blue?
June 08, Horsepills June 22nd, 2008
By Hank Stram, June 2008
Don’t it Make My Red States Blue?
Amid the chaos surrounding the 2008 elections, the media has underplayed some very positive news for Democrats. So far there have been three special elections to fill vacated congressional seats. The first of these was a contest to replace former Speaker of the House and heart-attack-in-waiting Denny Hastert’s seat in Illinois’s 14th congressional district.
Once a reliably Republican district, the seat was won by Bill Foster, the first Democrat to occupy that seat in 20 years. Next up for grabs was a seat in Louisiana’s 6th congressional district, another perennially red region that Bush carried handily in 2000 and 2004. Don Cazayoux, the first Democrat to hold that position since 1974, grabbed the seat. On May 13, Democrat Travis Childers won the special election to fill the seat in uber-Republican Mississippi congressional district 1. Bush carried this district in 2004 with 62 percent of the vote and Childers won by an eight-point margin despite a massive capital infusion by the RNC. Remember, these were all reliably Republican districts. I don’t see any way to read this other than as a massive repudiation of both Bush and the GOP style of governance and a harbinger of a tectonic shift in the House come November.
The Only Fraud Here is Alleged Voter Fraud
Make no mistake about it: recent measures to prevent “voter fraud” are nothing more than GOP attempts at voter suppression. It has been proven repeatedly–even by GOP-funded studies that were subsequently spiked–that voter fraud simply isn’t an issue in the United States. In the past four decades there have been scant reported cases of voter fraud, even fewer prosecutions, and a scant few (numbering in the tens) of convictions. The only purpose of these measures is to minimize electoral turnout of minorities and the poor, who tend to vote for Democrats. The first of these onerous measures was a voter ID law that requires voters in Indiana to show government-issued identification in order to receive a ballot. This law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice John Paul Stevens making the unfortunate observation that even if this law seeks to remedy a non-problem, it still doesn’t run afoul of the constitution and will be allowed to stand. A more recent GOP-initiated measure in Missouri that may actually be in place in time for the 2008 presidential election seeks to require new voter registrants to provide proof of citizenship in order to be allowed to vote. Again, this measure disproportionately affects minorities and the poor (hell – I don’t know if I could dig up my birth-certificate if I had to). Designed to thwart the specter of scary, illegal brown people subverting our electoral system, this measure is absurd if one thinks about it for only a minute. Doesn’t it seem logical that illegal immigrants would prefer to remain in the shadows rather than walking into a government building and creating a paper-trail that leads to their address and/or social security number? Simply put, recruiting individual voters to misrepresent themselves and cast stealth ballots is not an effective way to game the electoral system and it just doesn’t happen anymore. Rather, the most effective way to game the electoral system (short of rigging the machines and/or the count) is to throw up impediments to keep “undesirable” (read: likely Democratic) voters away from the polling places. This is a time-honored GOP tradition.
Heads, I Win, Tails, You Lose
Much has been made of John McCain’s comment that he’d be in favor of a United States presence in Iraq for 100 years if that is what it takes to stabilize the region. While this may have been either an unscripted moment of genuine bellicosity or an attempt to placate the hawkish voters who are terrified at the prospect of the U.S. losing a war, McCain is now crying foul and claiming his position is more nuanced. Namely, he says that he’d be comfortable with a long-term presence similar to our engagements in South Korea, Germany and Japan, where our forces are no longer being attacked. Forgetting for the moment the absurdity of such a proposition (neither the situation in Iraq nor the demography in any way, shape, or form resemble those in South Korea, Germany, or Japan), let’s look at the calculus of McBush’s crack-brained notion. It’s as simple as this: we will stay in Iraq and fight until we’re no longer being attacked. Then, once we’re no longer being attacked, we’ll stay in Iraq. Fuckin’ beautiful.
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Don’t it Make My Red States Blue?
June 08, Horsepills June 22nd, 2008
By Hank Stram, June 2008
Don’t it Make My Red States Blue?
Amid the chaos surrounding the 2008 elections, the media has underplayed some very positive news for Democrats. So far there have been three special elections to fill vacated congressional seats. The first of these was a contest to replace former Speaker of the House and heart-attack-in-waiting Denny Hastert’s seat in Illinois’s 14th congressional district.
Once a reliably Republican district, the seat was won by Bill Foster, the first Democrat to occupy that seat in 20 years. Next up for grabs was a seat in Louisiana’s 6th congressional district, another perennially red region that Bush carried handily in 2000 and 2004. Don Cazayoux, the first Democrat to hold that position since 1974, grabbed the seat. On May 13, Democrat Travis Childers won the special election to fill the seat in uber-Republican Mississippi congressional district 1. Bush carried this district in 2004 with 62 percent of the vote and Childers won by an eight-point margin despite a massive capital infusion by the RNC. Remember, these were all reliably Republican districts. I don’t see any way to read this other than as a massive repudiation of both Bush and the GOP style of governance and a harbinger of a tectonic shift in the House come November.
The Only Fraud Here is Alleged Voter Fraud
Make no mistake about it: recent measures to prevent “voter fraud” are nothing more than GOP attempts at voter suppression. It has been proven repeatedly–even by GOP-funded studies that were subsequently spiked–that voter fraud simply isn’t an issue in the United States. In the past four decades there have been scant reported cases of voter fraud, even fewer prosecutions, and a scant few (numbering in the tens) of convictions. The only purpose of these measures is to minimize electoral turnout of minorities and the poor, who tend to vote for Democrats. The first of these onerous measures was a voter ID law that requires voters in Indiana to show government-issued identification in order to receive a ballot. This law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice John Paul Stevens making the unfortunate observation that even if this law seeks to remedy a non-problem, it still doesn’t run afoul of the constitution and will be allowed to stand. A more recent GOP-initiated measure in Missouri that may actually be in place in time for the 2008 presidential election seeks to require new voter registrants to provide proof of citizenship in order to be allowed to vote. Again, this measure disproportionately affects minorities and the poor (hell – I don’t know if I could dig up my birth-certificate if I had to). Designed to thwart the specter of scary, illegal brown people subverting our electoral system, this measure is absurd if one thinks about it for only a minute. Doesn’t it seem logical that illegal immigrants would prefer to remain in the shadows rather than walking into a government building and creating a paper-trail that leads to their address and/or social security number? Simply put, recruiting individual voters to misrepresent themselves and cast stealth ballots is not an effective way to game the electoral system and it just doesn’t happen anymore. Rather, the most effective way to game the electoral system (short of rigging the machines and/or the count) is to throw up impediments to keep “undesirable” (read: likely Democratic) voters away from the polling places. This is a time-honored GOP tradition.
Heads, I Win, Tails, You Lose
Much has been made of John McCain’s comment that he’d be in favor of a United States presence in Iraq for 100 years if that is what it takes to stabilize the region. While this may have been either an unscripted moment of genuine bellicosity or an attempt to placate the hawkish voters who are terrified at the prospect of the U.S. losing a war, McCain is now crying foul and claiming his position is more nuanced. Namely, he says that he’d be comfortable with a long-term presence similar to our engagements in South Korea, Germany and Japan, where our forces are no longer being attacked. Forgetting for the moment the absurdity of such a proposition (neither the situation in Iraq nor the demography in any way, shape, or form resemble those in South Korea, Germany, or Japan), let’s look at the calculus of McBush’s crack-brained notion. It’s as simple as this: we will stay in Iraq and fight until we’re no longer being attacked. Then, once we’re no longer being attacked, we’ll stay in Iraq. Fuckin’ beautiful.
