Burnt Orange Report

=)

You're not much younger than I am. We can work together for America for years to come.

Let's roll.

If I had to devote my energy to just one area in the next few months and years, it would be towards countering the unchallenged right wing media machine. Is it any wonder that Bush won, when so many Americans still believe Saddam was a direct threat to America, and was personally involved in 9/11? If you believed that you'd support the Iraq war too. If you believed that liberals wanted to take your bibles away from you and force you to become an atheist you'd support him too. We need some way to counter the propoganda they feed their faithful.

This advice is coming from a conservative Republican, so feel free to take it with a 5-pound bag of salt, but don't worry -- I'm not going to gloat in your face about the election. My wife is a strong Democrat, and both of us -- despite our political differences -- are genuinely concerned about the Democratic party.

I am concerned about the future of the Democrats, because I believe wholeheartedly in the two-party system, and I think two strong parties are important for a healthy republic. I fear, however, that the Democratic party is in denial about some fundamental aspects of American politics.

The primary difference between the Democratic party today and the American electorate is cynicism. Sure, Americans are distrustful of government, but they aren't ready to elect a party that is, at its heart, cynical about the exercise of American economic and military power. Everything I seemed to hear from Democrats in 2004 was "conspiracy" this and "conspiracy" that. "Bush lied!" "This war is just for oil!" "Bush stole the election!" "Corporate whore!" "Ignorant rednecks!" "Fascists!" "Racists!" In conservative and moderate-conservative circles, this is pretty much all we hear from Democrats these days. I followed the election very closely, but I hardly knew anything about Kerry's "plans" for America. Yeah, a bit of a health care plan, and a few tax proposals here and there, but nothing more substantive. In the end, the Democrats gave people plenty of reasons to vote against Bush, but virtually no reason to vote for Kerry.

In my view, the Democrats need another "Siter Souljah" moment to divorce themselves from the Michael Moores, the MoveOn.org people, the George Soroses, and others on the far left that offer nothing but pessimism and cynicism to the electorate. FDR, Truman, JFK, and other great Democratic leaders would be sickened by their rhetoric.

It makes little political sense, in my view, to blast American "militarism" when most Americans have close friends or family who serve the country. It doesn't do much good to slam big corporations when they are the source of livelihood for millions of workers. It isn't productive to play the politics of racial and social "victimhood" when most people don't feel like victims.

Some of my colleagues on the right want the Democrats to move further left because they believe the party will be easier to defeat on a leftward trend. I don't buy it. I believe the Democratic party needs a new sense of optimism, one that is able to be trustful of American power while promoting a relatively liberal economic agenda on issues such as health care. Your party was built on the optimism of leaders like FDR, JFK, and even Bill Clinton (yes, that was painful to admit). I don't want you to move far to the left, because in a two-party system, you'll eventually be in power again, and a shift toward European social democracy, in my view, would be a complete disaster for America.

As I said earlier, take this with a (big) grain of salt. But now, more than anything, I believe the Democratic party needs a good dose of optimism, hope, and faith in the American system.

There are some very painful lessons in what happened last night. I hope we have the stomach to look at ourselves and our party and evaluate what we need to change.

I think the biggest lesson that we should learn though is that even with the right candidate and the right platform, we still lose. It is not enough to be right, we have to win the election first. I'm hoping that other Deaniacs turned Kerryiacs and bloggers will learn that lesson too. It is going to be up to us in the blogosphere to spread that message.

I also hope my fellow bloggers will follow me in trying to lead the party. It seems rather obvious now that the Democratic leadership doesn't know how to win. It is going to be up to us, in key positions within campaigns, to move that along.

I'm going to be writing later tonight about some other lessons I think we can take away from Election 2004 to change the dynamic of the next race.

The Republicans and social conservatives are realizing the benefits or acting LOCALLY in the late 1980s. They started with voter registration, efforts to get on school boards, and then started coopting local party organizations. Then they ran for state house and state senate seats, and pretty soon had the critical mass of a major political movement.

You guys need to decide what you stand for, then find a majority in some constituency who agrees with that thing. But remember, the goal is that people want their life unencumbered, and a clean ideology without complex rules goes a long way towards winning their hearts and minds.

First, a reminder to everyone: Bush did not win by 3 million votes. He won by under 200,000.

Second, I think the democratic party is not lacking in its principles or ideologies. The DNC needs a Karl Rove. The DNC needs an attack machine that goes mainstream. I've heard people say that Karl Rove won this election by getting the evangelical vote out. I am interested in and will be learning more about this "Amway model" of campaigning. The Dems are going to need it.

Just to post my two cent's worth...I pretty much agree with the 2 Republican voters above and how they say that the Democratic Party needs to refine and streamline it's message. But the party also needs some strong leaders with strong personalities. Clinton had these two traits. Reagan had them also. Bush the First did not. And sadly, neither did Kerry. Senator Kerry was a great guy, and had some good ideas. But in the end, I think he gave up some of his convictions in order to try to appeal to a broader audience. Last weekend I saw an interview Kerry gave with Tom Brokaw. When asked about the war in Iraq, and his position on the invasion, and Saddam Hussein, Kerry did a great deal of waffling. If he thuoght it was wrong, he should have said so with conviction. I told myself right there that Kerry could very possibly lose this thing.
Secondly, something I heard over and over today from people that I would have thought would vote Democratic was that they didn't "think the country should change leaders in time of war". Well, I responded that Truman changed MacArthur in the middle of the Korean conflict, but of course the votes are in and have been counted. As a political survival strategy, Bush scored an ace by starting this war, then appealing to American's sense of patriotism to see him continue in office. without the war as a backdrop, I think Kerry would be our President in January.
Fianlly, I agree with Byron that I do have some fear and reservations about Bush's victory. It has been well documented that Bush truly believes that he serves the Lord's will by being President. Will he see this victory as a sign to continue his hard right, socially conservative course? I think so.

Andrea, since you want to be picky, Bush appears to be winning by about 34 votes. There is no federal right to vote for president. The votes that count are the electors.

I too have trouble giving Bush a fair shake. The one thing that gives me a glimmer of hope is that this time, he did win legitimately. In 2000, Bush knew as well as anyone that he was appointed by the Supremes, he knew he did not win the poular vote. He had no mandate, he had legitimacy problems, so he had to swashbuckle his way through them. This time around, he does have a small lead in the popular vote. The Supreme Court will not decide this election. Bush won fair and square. It's not likely that the GOP majority will be undermined by a party switch right at the beginning of his term again. Maybe this time around he won't have to overcompensate. We can only hope...

After watching Kerry fold after promising that all votes would be counted, why should anyone stand in the rain to vote next time? Like Al Gore before him, Kerry sold these people out. I just wish that we had a candidate with 1/10 the balls of LBJ.

I concur wholeheartedly with Mr. Mackey's comments. Let me also add that the rhetoric of the left often obscures their message. For example, claiming Bush is "far right" when trying to make a point might make you feel better, but it also signals "regular folks" (i.e. the voters you need to influence) that your argument doesn't stand on its merits, and needs a little "spice". Far Right presidents don't create new cabinet departments (Homeland Sec.), they dismantle them. Far Right presidents don't create new entitlements (Medicare drug coverage), they work to eliminate them. Far Right presidents don't run large budget deficits, they wield their veto pen to reduce them (something Bush has never done). Far Right presidents don't create new Federal programs that dictate performance to the states (e.g. NCLB), they protect states' rights. Far Right presidents don't undertake "nation building" abroad, they prefer isolationism. Far Right presidents don't assemble the most diverse cabinet in history, they stick to good ol' boys. And a Far Right president definitley would seek a Federal ban on Civil Unions, something Bush has been criticized from the Right for not supporting. We may disagree on where the center should be, but these are all textbook examples of behavior that is nowhere near "Far Right". For someone who supposedly has "no interest in helping young people get a better education", Bush certainly spent a lot of political capital creating the NCLB Act, against the wishes of many conservatives who'd prefer to see the Education Dept. disappear. The point is...the masses of God-fearing church-going Americans see Bush as a reasonable plainspoken neighbor with centrist convictions and a simple message of middle-American moral values. He does not look or act like an East Coast Elite despite his family heritage. When the Democrats return to being the party of centrists (think Scoop Jackson, Sam Nunn, Zell Miller, Charlie Stenholm, John Breaux, Lloyd Bentsen and yes, Bill Clinton) they will resume being competitive.

After throwing around the ideas of where on Earth I could move to be with my own kind, I realized we need to stay put and start today to retake the term "values." The GOP is not the only group concerned with morals, and it's time we all stood up and made it clear our values are moral, too, perhaps more "moral" than those presented by the extreme religious right. So, pass it on--Liberals (with a capital L) are concerned with people, family, community, which is why our values are so strong. We choose people over private interests. Equality over material gain. It's time to re-establish the Dems as the values-driven party, because that's what we are. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Which means that everyone, including myself, needs to stop the name calling and the negativity (as hard as that may be), and start fresh and positive. And that about sums it up.

yes, john kerry & john edwards are, at heart, good and decent men. that's why they lost. it's time the democrats realized the truth about the american electorate: they are basically stupid. don't believe me? tell you what, ask your average bush voter why they voted for him. the answer you get will, in the case of that average bush voter, make no sense whatever, compared to the actual record of the past four years.

that is the harsh reality my friends, not "cynicism", as our republican friend would have you believe. hell, most bush voters can't spell it, much less know what it means.

they voted for stupid things that, ultimately, don't really affect them: gay marriage bans, terrorism, the war in iraq, god in the pledge of allegiance and public schools.

realistically, the average person has less to fear from a terrorist attack than they do from bad weather. what are the odds that north platte will be attacked? slim to none, and none just left town. and yet, these idiots voted their "fear" of terrorism, for a guy who's done less than nothing to stop it. go figure!

they voted their "fear" of homosexuals, as though a great horde is going to descend upon them, ala genghis kahn and the golden horde, forcing them into same-sex marriages. funny, i don't see vegas making book on that. who knew?

this is what the dems are faced with. until they come up with a guy as smarmy and sleazy as bush and the rnc, willing to do and say whatever it takes, they won't win.

that, my friends, is the harsh bottom line.

"It's a good speech, but nothing too remarkable. It's hard to beat Gore's concession speech though, after everything that he went through."

Dammit, Byron, I'm going to be mean about something: only a modern Democrat could (or would) make qualitative evaluations of the speech their candidate gave when they lost, and then compare it to past concession speeches. Well, considering who ran Kerry's campaign, and his experience in writing such concessions (seven or eight to date?), maybe such contrast and critique is warranted.

Quit sounding like a bunch of losers and get up and fight!

CP's comments fall right in line with what I mentioned before. Along with Democrats' cynicism comes contempt for establishment, which translates into contempt for the mainstream voter. That mainstream voter in North Platte might not fear an attack on his hometown, but even though it's in a blue, blue, state, he was outraged when the planes hit Manhattan. That's because he sees himself as an American, and hates it when America is attacked or trashed. That doesn't make him ignorant, it makes him patriotic. Too many Democrats today are afraid of being patriots, because so many of the vocal Democrats (see, e.g., Michael Moore) view America as a horrible place, the enemy of the world. I know that most mainstream Democrats out there aren't like that; most of the Dems I know love their country and are proud of it. You people need to stand up and be heard, or come join our side. Don't let the Michael Moores of this world take your party over -- it's too valuable an institution to be overrun by an ideology that is fundamentally anti-freedom. And, if you believe that the 60 million people who voted for Bush are "ignorant," then you have two choices: either resign yourself to the fact that you live in an "ignorant" society, or get the hell out. I know some European countries would love to have you, but they do have that 10% unemployment to consider as well.

Sorry Prez,

I got to disagree with you about Howard Dean's chances. While the USA has never been in the business of un-electing sitting presidents in the time of war I feel Howard Dean would have done more to fuel the anti-war voters (who polled at 49 %) and would have held Bush's feet to the flames over his Iraq failures. Lets face it cats. deep down we all knew we were going to lose this one. Howard would have made it fun. After 2002 you had to be blind not to realize that a fundamental change was happening in this country. A change that the Democratic party has I fear not yet recognized. Most Bush voters in the middle of this country voted on what they call "Moral issues" despite the clear fact that Bush's economic policies hurt them. What are these moral issues ? Gay Marriage. Abortion. Prayer in School. Democrats will almost immediately scoff at these voters saying that abortion is a women's right, prayer in schools is unconstitutional and Gay marriage is critical to ensure equal rights under the law. These explanations are noble and ones that I deeply believe in. I have often gone so far as to call these "moral" americans lots of bad names. Rednecks, Brown shirts, Bigots, and backwards hicks. But frankly if anything was made clear at around 11 p.m. last night it was that we need those middle class people to win. Enough with this keep all our blue states and win one red states. We should go after them all. A majority of americans are bleeding because of this administration and yet they did not hold them accountable because they think Bush shares their morals. BELEVE IT OR NOT WE ALL SHARE THE PRESIDENTS MORALS !!!! we just disagree with his use of them. Gay marriage is moral because it allows same sex couples to adopt and build loving families (which can adopt children and reduce abortion). Prayer in school is immoral because it focuses on what divides us and not what unites us. However if christian football players want to pray before a game, for good sakes let them, it might keep them in line. Separation of religion and state was meant to prevent religious prosecution not oppress the majority religion. Let them pray, it will keep them quiet. And most of all Abortion, the A word. We believe in a women's right to choose and we should protect it but we should not embrace abortion over the benefits of adoption and planned pregnancy. We are moral people. For all the talk about Vietnam during this election Kerry avoided his greatest strength, that his war 30 years ago showed him the error of bush's war today, he said not a word about the morals of killing poor people in another country and worst of all he failed to even mention that he opposes the death penalty (a popular christian stance). How moral is that ? Next election don't ignore these "wedge issues" just make them our issues. show this country of red states that we have strong morals too and we stand by them.

chins up

Jordan Kramer

Sorry Prez,

I got to disagree with you about Howard Dean's chances. While the USA has never been in the business of un-electing sitting presidents in the time of war I feel Howard Dean would have done more to fuel the anti-war voters (who polled at 49 %) and would have held Bush's feet to the flames over his Iraq failures. Lets face it cats. deep down we all knew we were going to lose this one. Howard would have made it fun. After 2002 you had to be blind not to realize that a fundamental change was happening in this country. A change that the Democratic party has I fear not yet recognized. Most Bush voters in the middle of this country voted on what they call "Moral issues" despite the clear fact that Bush's economic policies hurt them. What are these moral issues ? Gay Marriage. Abortion. Prayer in School. Democrats will almost immediately scoff at these voters saying that abortion is a women's right, prayer in schools is unconstitutional and Gay marriage is critical to ensure equal rights under the law. These explanations are noble and ones that I deeply believe in. I have often gone so far as to call these "moral" americans lots of bad names. Rednecks, Brown shirts, Bigots, and backwards hicks. But frankly if anything was made clear at around 11 p.m. last night it was that we need those middle class people to win. Enough with this keep all our blue states and win one red states. We should go after them all. A majority of americans are bleeding because of this administration and yet they did not hold them accountable because they think Bush shares their morals. BELEVE IT OR NOT WE ALL SHARE THE PRESIDENTS MORALS !!!! we just disagree with his use of them. Gay marriage is moral because it allows same sex couples to adopt and build loving families (which can adopt children and reduce abortion). Prayer in school is immoral because it focuses on what divides us and not what unites us. However if christian football players want to pray before a game, for good sakes let them, it might keep them in line. Separation of religion and state was meant to prevent religious prosecution not oppress the majority religion. Let them pray, it will keep them quiet. And most of all Abortion, the A word. We believe in a women's right to choose and we should protect it but we should not embrace abortion over the benefits of adoption and planned pregnancy. We are moral people. For all the talk about Vietnam during this election Kerry avoided his greatest strength, that his war 30 years ago showed him the error of bush's war today, he said not a word about the morals of killing poor people in another country and worst of all he failed to even mention that he opposes the death penalty (a popular christian stance). How moral is that ? Next election don't ignore these "wedge issues" just make them our issues. show this country of red states that we have strong morals too and we stand by them.

chins up

Jordan Kramer

shit I posted twice. wtf

sorry mr. mackey, it doesn't make him patriotic, it makes him an ignorant fool. "religion and patriotism are the last refuges of the scoundrel."
can't remember who said it, i think some state supreme court justice. however, it remains as true today as it did when first spoken.

patriotism, without thought, is stupidity. last i checked, 9/11 was um, three years ago. it was quite some time in the making, years actually. what, exactly, has the bush administration done since then to prevent a recurrance? not too damn much.

funny thing, new york, the actual victim of terrorism, voted for kerry. guess they just aren't as patriotic there as in north platte.

it's not a matter of condescension, it's a matter of recognizing who your audience is: not particulary well educated people, living in fear of unrealistic events, because they've been told to by karl rove. i doubt arizona is in great danger of attack either. and yet, there you have it.

i lived on ground zero all my life through the cold war. during the cuban missile crisis, i fully expected to be vaporized. as i got older, and watched people who had seen some silly ass tv movie go for counseling, i laughed at them. because i knew the reality: what was the point in getting worked up over something you had little or no control over?

even more to the point, why bother getting worked up over something wholly unlikely to ever happen? frankly, if they're so patriotic, they should be enlisting, not whining in the nowhereville of north or south dakota. ah, the last refuge of the brain dead as well.

in any event, my point was: the democrats need to figure out some way to penetrate the wasteland that is the space between their ears.

Somehow, I doubt the way to win voters is to talk about the "wasteland between their [voters'] ears."

well drew, i certainly didn't mean to infer that this should be part of the dem marketing plan, no. on the the other hand, if you look at many of the republican ads, they practically do come right out and call their target audiences blithering idiots.

given the apparent effectiveness of those ads, perhaps it shouldn't be rejected out of hand.

think of this in terms of a movie or play: what audience are you going for? what, historically, plays well to that audience? george romero doesn't do shakespeare, and makes no claims to. however, he is very successful at what he does do.

Any specifics on which ads go out and call their target audiences "blithering idiots?" Seems to me that would hurt Republicans at the polls, and we can all see that didn't happen.

Just a question for the Republicans who've posted here (and this is actually nice, the most civil conversation I've seen in a while): you keep referring to why the Democrats have lost "mainstream" americans, yet the Democrats got almost 50% of the vote. Clearly they DID reach a significant portion of mainstream americans. To imply that this victory by the GOP is a mass repudiation of liberalism and Democrats is simply not correct.

"When the Democrats return to being the party of centrists (think Scoop Jackson, Sam Nunn, Zell Miller, Charlie Stenholm, John Breaux, Lloyd Bentsen and yes, Bill Clinton) they will resume being competitive."

Clinton was a centrist, and absent term limits, I think he'd still be president. But let's remember that Democrats supported Stenholm. Bentsen lost as veep. Miller turned into a wacko. None of these men lost the support of the Democratic party. Here in Texas, the GOP went after the Democratic moderates in redistricting. Hard to run 'em if the GOP isn't interested in working with 'em. Having moderates in office doesn't seem to be doing us any good since the GOP tends to legislate like 5 year olds throwing a tantrum (see Gingrich, '95; Craddick, '02).

Part of the problem is that both sides, Democrat and Republican, are more interested in preserving the seats they have than in increasing competitiveness in House races. Both sides, whenever they get the chance, gerrymander districts to produce certain results.

This produces, at least in the House, hardcore, "ideologically pure," candidates from both sides of the aisle, at the expense of moderates on both sides. It is no accident that the more moderate of the two bodies is the Senate. Kind of difficult to gerrymander a whole state.

drew, go to: www.factcheck.org, a non-partisan site that analyzes the ads put out by both parties.

a couple stood out:

1. the first, early on, accused kerry of having voted for higher taxes 350 times in his senate career. that sounded a bit odd to me right off the bat. turns out, there was good reason for that. the 350 was almost every vote on a spending measure he made in 19 years. the repubs threw everything in, because they knew their audience was stupid enough to believe it, without checking.

2. after ad one was outed, they ran a second ad, accusing him of voting for higher taxes 95 times. aside from the obvious conflict with their first ad, it turns out that ad #2 wasn't any more truthful than ad one. didn't matter. again, they counted on the basic stupidity of their audience.

turns out, they were right.

but, don't take my word for it, go to the site and see for yourself. think of it as an educational and enlightening experience.

Kerry tried to be BushLite, like many Dems.
We need someone who embraces the word Liberal and can explain all the good liberalism has brought this nation.

What the hell do you mean, "George Bush won this election fair and square"? This is just like the fucking Democrats... a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards who won't even stand up for the most basic premise in a democracy - that every vote counts. Were you even paying attention to what folks on the ground in states like Ohio, Penn, and Florida were experiencing? Do you even care? I'm not going to reiterate the volumes of material already produced on how the Republicans stole this election just like the last one, but for starts, I recommend reading Greg Palast's latest dispatch from the graveyard of democracy:

"Kerry Won

Greg Palast

November 04, 2004

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast’s investigation suggests that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me."

Oh, so they're counting on the stupidity of their supporters, not calling them stupid. Two different things. Once again, I have to say, the best way to win over a majority in America is not to call them stupid. Instead of dismissing their beefs out of hand, maybe, just maybe, you should listen to what they have to say, and maybe, horror of horrors, make a compromise here and there.

I've been to factcheck.org many times, cp. And I see no difference between the "raising taxes" claim and the "Bush is bringing back the draft" claim. Both take established information and extrapolate an arguable, but in the end, completely incorrect conclusion.

In college, I was a Democrat. As I got older, a Republican. Then George Bush - who makes it very hard to support being a middle-of-the-road conservative. I then defined myself as a "swing voter".

I voted for Kerry - not so much for the candidate (whom I consider to be very smart and respectible) but for being the opposite of Bush's positions/actions (Iraq, environment, anti-Massachusetts, anti-everything which is considered to be the non far-right position).

Kerry made a very good showing, 51% to 48% is not bad (in spite of all the negative analysis occurring).

Democrats - try to go more main-stream and you might win next time.

FYI, I was very scared by the religious groups Bush aligned himself with (as were many people in my demographic).

I, also, am shocked that Bush won. He made so many bad decisions.

Drew, one difference in the issue you claimed is that Bush was making claims about what Kerry HAS ACTUALLY DONE. THose claims can be checked by facts.

The claim about the draft is in the future, and is up to debate, there are no facts on it either way as yet, because it hasn't happened yet.

also, this whole idea that people shouldn't be talking about "conspiracy" - first of all, a lot of that stuff is also checkable, demonstrable fact. The financial connections, the no-bid contracts, the missing millions of dollars in Iraq.

It may be that it is not politically sensible to point out those things because people don't like the kind of arguing that calls on actual facts demonstrating a personal interest. But it sounds like some folks think that if it makes one side look bad, we don't need to investigate the facts.

look, just because someone takes a different side than you doesn't mean that there are no available facts on the matter.

maybe it is true that a little over half the american public doesn't want to hear facts. Maybe democrats will have to get practical and not use them. But I will excuse myself for being a little sad about that.

and to In Aledo - remember that 49% of the people DID vote for kerry. That's mainstream as well. I don't think going "more mainstream" is going to cut it. the deciding factor in this election, according to most, was NOT mainstream, it turned out to be, NOT the war, NOT "national security" but fear of gay marriage. I think the democrats will lose if they try to capture those votes, the republicans are the natural base for that stuff, having a longer alliance with the extreme fundamentalist right.

trouble, you are 100% correct. look at the map, it doesn't lie. the majority of the states that had a gay marriage ban amendment on their ballot, went for bush, and the ban. there's the election right there.

these are the same people who believe that: the earth is 6000 years old, per the bible. it was all created in 7 days. evolution shouldn't be taught in schools, because it conflicts with the bible.

how they reconcile this with modern technology remains a mystery to me. it would seem to be in clear conflict with a biblical based life. i'm sure it couldn't be hypocrisy. nahhhhhhhhh!