Y'all know in how exceedingly low regard I hold George W. Bush and his gang of sycophants and handlers. Y'all know that I am willing to believe almost anything they say is a self serving lie or half truth.
I don't think they're quite ready to pull off something quite this brazen. Yet.
Do I think there will be electoral fraud? Oh sure. I think it will benefit both sides equally, which is the same as saying not at all.
Should the pressure be kept up on the touch screen manufacturers? Oh sure. They laid their cards on the table way too early when the president of Deiold promised Ohio to Bush. I can almost guarantee that, whatever the count in Ohio, it will be litigated Florida style. There should be a paper back-up. It's just common sense. In fact, the machines should be used for a preliminary result and then the paper be used for the actual count.
But I really don't think it will come down to fixing the election, and, if they do, I think this time the country grinds to a halt for a while while it gets fought out in the streets.
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Originally posted by seretogis
I'd like to take this time to speak out against subject lines with all caps. It does nothing but make the thread-poster look like a mouth-breather / Counterstrike-player. It also makes baby Jesus cry. Please stop. For the children.
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Now, normally I can be relied upon to disagree with everything that you post in this forum (though not on the TB. Yowza!), but this gets an Amen!
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As for the election being "fixed," yes, it is. Either Bush or Kerry will win, and no one else has a snowball's chance in hell of coming close or even getting one electoral vote. Both Democrats and Republicans will be struggling to maintain control of the system, by means of so-called "campaign finance reform" which scews everyone but themselves.
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Yeah, true enough, but the only way, historically, one has been able to get a third party into the system in any meaningful way is by killing off one of the other two when it has become moribund. I don't for instance, think much of the Whig ticket this year.
The role of a third party is not to win elections, but to focus attention on issues underserved by the major two parties. This is where the third parties have been failing. The only thing of note that has happened lately is the Greens running Nader in 2000, and that was so ill timed that it backfired. (To a lesser extent, Jesse Ventura as a Reform Candidate and <strike>The Librarians</strike>... <strike>Liberetrains</strike>... Anarchists running Howard Stern were both good moves, one of which even worked. A little.)