Interview from Camp Kerry - my talk with Cam

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011105W.shtml

Interview from Camp Kerry
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Interview

Monday 10 January 2005

I spent some time today with Cameron Kerry, the younger brother of Senator John Kerry. A May 04 2004 Boston Herald article on Cam Kerry described him this way: "He doesn't draw screaming headlines or grab face time on the political talk show circuit, but low-key Cameron Kerry has emerged as one of U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry's most powerful and trusted campaign advisers this election season. The senator's younger brother, known as Cam, is playing the same pivotal role that the late Robert F. Kennedy played for his older brother back in 1960: confidant, adviser and powerful inside player. It's a mission that stretches far beyond simple family loyalty and brotherhood...'Cam Kerry is a force in the campaign, make no mistake about that,' said one veteran political strategist with strong ties to Kerry. 'He's at the core of Kerry's inner circle.'"

The interview dealt mostly with the ongoing debate over election reform, but touched as well upon Senator Kerry's recent trip to Iraq.

------

William Rivers Pitt: What is the impression of the Kerry campaign on the events of last Thursday in Congress, with the Electoral College hearing and the challenge to the certification of the Ohio Electors?

Cameron Kerry: It was something that we welcomed. It put a spotlight on the issues of election reform. We have made some progress on that since 2000, but we still have a long way to go. This election, particularly in Ohio, showed that. I think the action the other day helped to highlight that, as John indicated in his statement. He was very much in sympathy with it, though he was not there in joining it.

Does it surprise you that Senator Boxer was the only Senator to vote against certification?

I think a lot of people are now looking at the issue, and a lot of people stood up and said there are ongoing problems. There were people also looking at it in terms of whether that wound change the outcome, whether it would be looking backwards instead of looking forward. What Rep. Tubbs-Jones had to say was basically forward-looking. One of the reasons we need election reform is that what has been done on reform didn't prevent abuses. Despite all of the oversight and a lot of things that were stopped, we don't have the tools and the remedies for this watch.

There are a lot of people who don't understand why Senator Kerry chose not to be in the Senate for the Thursday challenge. A lot of people believe he should have been the one to stand up and be the challenger. There are a lot of political implications here, and I am wondering if you might explain the thinking on this.

I have talked to a number of the Congressional members involved. Many of them feel that it was better without John involved, that it put the focus on the issue and not on him. It took away the Republican argument that this was just about sour grapes. Had John led the protest, we would have heard that a hundred times.

You believe it would have torpedoed the boat before it ever got out of the dock?

I think that's absolutely right. I think this was a moving event that was focused on the issue, and at the end of it, it was forward-looking.

(snip)

Ohio wasn't the only state where there were problems in this last election. There was also New Mexico.

I think New Mexico is a fascinating case. I think people there are doing a great job putting together data that shows some very convincing anomalies that could change the outcome. I think it's something that needs to go forward because it is really about counting the votes and not ultimately about the outcome of the election as a whole. My understand is essentially that if Governor Richardson gives the go-ahead for a partial recount, they can get started on that. It is a pretty convincing case, with serious anomalies in Native American and Hispanic voting areas.

Are they concerned in New Mexico about how this recount will proceed? I ask because the main problem with the recent Ohio recount was that it was supposed to be a random recount, but representatives from Triad, the company that had their voting machines in 41 Ohio counties, found out ahead of time which 'random' counties would be recounted. They went around to those counties and made sure that the machine count would match the hand count. This basically obviated the basic premise of the recount, that being the selection of random counties. Will the people in New Mexico be keeping an eye on things like this?

What I gather is that people have negotiated in New Mexico, and that Cobb and Badnarik will select the ten percent, something like ten percent or thereabouts, of the precincts to be recounted.

Cobb and Badnarik will be selecting these?

That is my understanding.

(snip)

Given all this, are there any regrets on the part of Senator Kerry or anyone else from the campaign about that Wednesday morning concession?

At the end of the day, no. I think it was closer, but I am a lawyer, and I'm going to deal with evidence. I have to deal with what I think a court would do. That's the kind of judgments I make. That was a judgment I participated in. A lot of people who know how to count votes, how votes are counted, people who went through Florida in 2000 and have been through other recounts, have been through a lot of tough battles, would have loved nothing better than to do battle with Karl Rove and James Baker again, to take them on and give them their own back.

But we looked at it hard, and there just wasn't the kind of razor-thin margin that we had in Florida in 2000 to work with, or that Christine Gregoire was dealing with in Washington State. The three million vote margin nationally made it difficult, but there was enough of a margin in Ohio that I think we could have closed that margin but would still have been some tens of thousands of votes short.

...more...

[helderheid]

1. thanks Will

[New Earth]

2. awesome interview.

i love his answers. seems like a good guy.

[liam97]

3. seems like a lawyer

[WilliamPitt]

And the problem there is...?

My mother, father, uncle, grandfather, great-grandfather and best friend in the world are lawyers. What is your issue?

Everyone hates lawyers...until they need one.

[Darknyte7]

21. How true, how true... n/t

[liam97]

22. mine too for several generations - and so are Conyers and Bonifaz

I use it as a stereotype (not a great thing to do, I acknowledge readily) - to connote a certain combination of shrewdness and caution that does not necessarily sit well with those who claim to take positions on moral and political issues and ask millions to vote on the basis of those positions...

[sepia_steel]

94. I love lawyers

The ones I've met always looked out for me and are not the shady people they are painted as.

GO LAWYERS

[TruthIsAll]

106. Kerry won FL, OH, NM and who knows where else.

I can't stand it when they say Bush won by 3 million votes.
That is an urban legend. A myth.
Kerry won by over 4 million votes.

They don't want it bad enough.
They let us down Nov 3.
They are still letting us down.

Milquetoast.

[Carl Brennan]

112. Good post TIA

This whole thing is really beginning to stink. I mean how in the hell do you know what the vote lead was if there is massive fraud????

Something else is going on.

[Klimmer]

124. Great interview Will---it confirms what I believe about JFK

The man is on the job. He hasn't abandoned anyone. He knows that he was robbed as well as we. I always believed this in my heart and now I know it in my head. Thanks Will and Cameron for letting us in John's head for a moment. He is acting like the President he is.

JFK please be careful out there when checking out the "real scene" in war torn regions (though I'm impressed, you would never see Shrub in an really hot area). Hey, just don't go John Wayneing on us. We need you!

[WilliamPitt]

4. He was

It was interesting, because I interviewed Kerry a couple of times for the campaign. Cam looks a hell of a lot like his brother. It was weird. But he was a straight shooter.

[Kota]

5. Thanks Will.

[mattclearing]

6. Awesome interview.

This sheds a lot of light on Kerry.

Can't believe he's in Mosul and Fallujah. Watch him come back pissed.

edited for typo

[liam97]

7. Will, I don't exactly know what a "straight shooter" is

but they need to honestly apologize to the people they abandoned.

[mamalone]

17. Oh Sheeeesh!

Did you even read the article? Making a choice you do not agree with does not equate being abandoned...please grow up, just a bit. We are all disappointed with the way things turned out, but that doesn't make it their fault. Try to look beyond your own dashed hopes- if we don't work together and affirm each others' efforts we will never succeed.

[merh]

44. Hey, let me ask you - did eveyone of your friends & family vote

vote for Kerry or against the weed or did some of them or just one of them vote for the weed? If any voted for the weed, you owe us an apology, you failed us and the campaign, hell you failed the nation. You couldn't convince your friend to vote against the weed and for Kerry, how could you do that to us?

Did you know they were going to use fraud and deception to steal the election? Did you suspect it? If you did and you didn't stop it, how could you have let us down. Have you been able to convince all of your family and friends that there was election theft? If not, how do you expect Kerry to convince millions without solid evidence?

We were not abandoned by Kerry - anyone who thinks that abandons reason and is allowing their "need to be rescued" to cloud their senses. I think it is called being overly emotional rather than realistic and logical.

[liam97]

57. you have every right to be angry at my comment

just as I and many others (such as JJ and the freepress folks)have the right to feel abandoned. I think we are free to feel as we do, no?

[merh]

68. I wish to god that all of those folks that suffer from "abandonment"

would tell me just exactly they expect Kerry to do.

Do you want him to take up arms?
Do you want him to cry on national tv that he won and the weed stole it?

What exactly would you have him do?

[electropop]

128. It isn't complicated

I expect him to do SOMETHING besides send little sad letters to his supporters. I expected him to speak out publicly, on TV. I expected him to lead the legal charge with his 10,000 or 17,000 lawyers. I expected him to stand up and challenge the electors, even if the Repugs might say mean things and hurt his feelings. I expected him to keep the promise he repeatedly made.

[merh]

133. Then you live in a fantasy world.

If he had done what you "expected" then he would have hurt the party and the efforts to get election reform legislation written and passed. Your expectations are just for your comfort, they would serve no useful purpose. Seems kind of selfish to me, pitching a fit about what I wanted, and not looking at it rationally, logically and practically.

[electropop]

140. I strongly disagree

It's not just about my little feelings. It's about standing strong and keeping a promise. If the leaders of our party are not strong enough to say a few words in public about the crime of the century, how can we possibly think they'll bother to put serious effort into fighting the republicans and passing real election reform? Weakness is what's hurting our party, and every time we meekly accept another republican crime, our chances of achieving anything are reduced. We have become so obsessed with seeking republican approval for our every action, that we forget to do what needs to be done.

Our total submissiveness only emboldens the abusers in the republic party. It also presents the American public with a choice between right wing extremists and ... vapor.

[merh]

141. But that is assuming he has not kept his promise, which is assuming

a great deal. You have no idea what he has done on the investigation of the election fraud, how indepth he has gone, how much money he and his family have spent. Dear God, he was the one running, he was the one that campaigned for over 600 days, he was the one that mortgaged his home, it was his honor that was attacked, he was the one ridiculed and it was his family that was put through the ringers. If you think, after his 30 years of service to the nation, that he just gave up and walked away and said "oh well", then you are mistaken.

It took great strength personally and for the party and the nation not to stand up and whine about the results. If he had, the 6th would have been about him and not election reform, any attempts we make to get the legislation out of committee, let alone passed, would be stymied and shoot down because it was about "Kerry and his sore losers dems" trying to prove he won. It would not be about the screwed up process, it would be about the results.

[electropop]

142. But it _is_ about the results

I don't buy the endless mantra that "we're not interested in claiming our rightful victory, we'd rather just pass another bland weak 'reform' bill and maybe better luck some day." If you don't enforce the current laws (plenty of which have been broken), you can't realistically expect to enforce any future laws. You have to push back or nothing will ever happen.

[merh]

143. The only way that it could be about the results is if we took up

arms and violated the laws. If we did that, then we are no better than the vermon that is running our nation. Legally, and yes, legally, is the key word, there is nothing that John Kerry can do to over turn the election. The process is to blame for that. Each state has the legal obligation to run its elections and Blackwell is the man that was elected to run Ohio's elections. Though assumptions can be made that he violated the law and there was fraud, there is not hard evidence that supports that contention.

Morally, ethically, they screwed us. Legally, because the SOSs called the shoots and stalled things, the fraud cannot be proven in time to make a difference regarding the results.

You have no idea what he is doing to continue the fight. Personally, I think his working with Carter and monitoring the Palenstine elections just shows he is still concerned about election reform. He wanted to see how elections that were monitored by internationally accepted monitors were actually held. Sadly, he had to go out of the country to view fair elections. :shrug:

Your anger at him is just a waste of energy, imho.

[electropop]

145. Take up arms?

Wow. We didn't have to take up arms to dump Tricky Dick. It is still legally possible to can the chimp. It's not realistic to expect that any time soon, but I think it's reasonable to expect our side to at least speak out and vote in a way that stands up for the US Constitution. Sure they will get Repuke name-calling, and they should proudly wear that as a badge of honor. It's time to eradicate the counter-intuitive notion that taking a strong moral stand will lose votes. The reverse is clearly true. Even though most voters disagreed strongly with at least one of the chimp's policies, most of his voters report that the fact that he takes strong stands is what impressed them.

If you are right about Kerry, I will be mollified. But issuing quiet letters to supporters will not suffice. I worked hard to help him with the election he won, and I am disappointed that he broke the one single central promise that mattered: "I will ensure that every vote is counted." He has not only let every deadline slip so far, he actually ran away and hid when it was time to stand and be counted. If you are right and Kerry pulls another BCCI, I will personally carry him on my shoulders down PA Ave. With my bad back and all.

[merh]

155. That comment about arms was an extreme example - sort of to get

your attention and an effort to figure out what you expect.

The process is to uncover all of the weed's crimes and to make them stick is on going and Kerry has not abandoned that. There are plenty of people working on that, you can bet, plenty of people are sick of his crap.

Put yourself in Kerry's shoes, would you sit back and just say (as others assume he has done) "what the hell, we lost, next time we will get them", or, would you be doing your best to work on slamming them so hard that you can make it stick? How do you think he feels, he worked his ass off on the BCCI and all that came of his work was poppy's pardons and none of it stuck to anyone, hell the weed, the son of evil poppy was elected for gosh sake.

He has not given up.

[ginnyinWI]

135. I think they want him to take to the streets

and march on Washington, with a huge crowd, like the Ukraine had. And yell with a bullhorn that he was the actually winner of the election. And then they would all yell in approval and wave signs and have a great old time. There would be riots, and arrests.

Then Kerry would be laughed out of existence by the media and all of Washington, and would never be able to do a single thing in public life, ever again. His credibility would sink lower than Dukakis' after his defeat. All the talk shows would have him on just to laugh at him. The media would love the red meat. He'd be throwing his career over a cliff for no reason.

People are totally deluded if they think John Kerry would ever do something that stupid. Even when he was a spokesman for the VVAW in 1971, he always wanted to work for change within due process of the law, not outside of it. And those were some very turbulent times, when most felt that the only way to effect a change was to be a radical.

[pacalo]

47. Straight shooter = straightforward; tells it like it is.

Have patience, liam97. Kerry didn't abandon us. I bet he comes back from his first-hand talk with the troops in Iraq with both guns cocked. By visiting the troops on their terms in the most dangerous areas, Kerry will have been more educated about the reality than WhatsHisFace, who was terrified to venture outside of the Baghdad airport hangar last Thanksgiving, when he was beginning his campaign photo ops, I might add.

Don't misplace your anger: It should be aimed squarely at WhatsHisFace&Gang.

[bunny planet]

131. for these posts you receive.......

the snooze button
geeez, give that judgemental attitude a rest already.

[keepthemhonest]

11. thanks will

Tasteblind good point about him coming back pissed, I hope your right.Maybe it will put a little more urgency to the matter.

[mattclearing]

14. Someone came back recently shocked and amazed at the misinfo...

...the administration has been supplying to Senators.

Bush should be terrified to learn that an undercover true-believer like Kerry is in Fallujah.

[keepthemhonest]

32. I guess he had to go see for himself n/t

[blm]

35. I didn't know he was in Fallujah and Mosul. My undergod, I look forward to

hearing what the hell is really going on there. Weren't most reporters staying clear from those areas?

[mattclearing]

38. Yeah. And with good reason. We shoot at them when they are loose.

Ever see Control Room? It's not in journalists' best interest to leave the compound.

[tex-wyo-dem]

8. Thanks, Will!

Great interview...

Interesting point about NM. Maybe we have been focusing too much on Ohio...could be the state that yields solid evidence to support theories that have been talked about and that could then apply to other suspect states.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Yep

----------------------------------------------------------
Save this nation one town, county, and state at a time!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm#why

[Darknyte7]

9. Show off...

:-)

[Tuesday_Morning]

12. Good interview...

...but I still wonder how they figured that they would have been "some tens of thousands of votes short" so quickly.

[Raster]

13. "The three million vote margin nationally made it difficult..."

It appears in states where bush* was expected to win, no one paid close attention to the actual totals and anomalies that took place. I mean, why would they. bush* was going to win, right?

Smoking gun number 73: I will bet you that upon closer scrutiny you will find that the numbers are just as screwy in states where bush* was expected to win. I believe that in addition to suppression tactics to repress probably democratic voters, other methods and devices were used to increase the bush* vote totals to give bush* an *APPEARANCE* of actually winning the overall national popular vote. Just think, if bush* did not have that suspicious 3 million vote lead and the totals for each candidate were far closer, we wouldn't be so quick to give up the fight. The number one thing that had to happen for the bush* machine to pull 2004 off was that somehow bush* had to have an apparent clear victory in the popular vote.

[understandinglife]

39. Here is a specific example for your sg#73:

http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/mediaSnohomishCounty.htm

Wouldn't take too many "Snohomish Counties" to shift ~ 1.5M votes from Kerry (and others) to Bush (and, that's all it takes to create a 3 M margin). And, if one were going to be successful with SG#73, you'd be doing it in counties throughout all States not just those expected to go to Bush, or be classifed 'battleground.'

As I wrote here before, the analysis that Lehto and Hoffman have already done should spur even more focused investigation in OH, NM, PN, FL, NV. Quickly analyzing the tapes, for all races, from all touchscreen devices in Snohomish and Yakima county will enable all Americans to have a more detailed understanding of the vapor ballot issue.

And, thanks to Dino Rossi’s attracting national media attention by his vehement, vitriolic demand for a re-vote, the electronic voting issue in WA State should receive the immediate and broad media coverage it deserves. We all know that unless a Republican screams ‘fraud’, corporate American media have little interest in the actual status of our franchise of democracy or of all the mechanisms used to disenfranchise a large number of eligible voters.

Peace.

"Its About Bush!"

[anamandujano]

76. But understandinglife, it won't get any attention

Did you see the article today about the people at CBS being fired for the Bush AWOL story?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=4&u=/nm/20050110/pl_nm/media_cbs_dc

Nobody got fired for or even had to apologize for printing years of rubbish about Clinton.

Kerry and team didn't get to first base in the common sense department. Bush/Rove fooled them by padding everywhere.

Nope, it's a Bush steamroller and we'd best get out of the way. Time to find a really good book or new hobby to disappear into.

[understandinglife]

81. I've been preparing to crush the steamroller, instead. Please...

....feel free to join me for the adventure at:

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/index.php?Main=ELECTION2004

Much more fun than reading a book or hobby!!

We will prevail my friend; count on it.

Peace.

"Its About Bush!"

[anamandujano]

91. Thanks. I've bookmarked it

and will read there later.

I'm posting less and less because I've pretty much given up and have nothing to offer except my dark thoughts. I'm here looking for whatever optimism is available and you always fill the bill.

Having said that, I feel it's going to be a very long time before we can throw even the tiniest monkey wrench into their plans to destroy the country, our constitution and the rest of the world.

[understandinglife]

115. We're just getting mobilized, my friend, and we need you....

...come on over to VR and contribute your insights and know that a bunch of us (the 'bunch' getting bigger all the time) are committed to disabling the 'steamroller' and saving our dear American heritage of democracy.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6

We Will In_DEED Prevail.

Take good care of yourself.

"Its About Bush!"

[ginnyinWI]

136. as Shakespeare said,

"The truth will 'out' ".

[Amaryllis]

88. See in-depth study of Snohomish Co. showing many machine "anomolies" :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=268654

[Carni]

70. BINGO! You have hit on the key IMO

I have often thought that we should have been looking where bushit was expected to win -- not just in Ohio and Florida.

[Amaryllis]

87. That is what Arnebeck says too.

[Zan_of_Texas]

96. Agreed, Raster.

[theboss]

154. That was the theory behind the New Hampshire recount

That's where we were going to prove that the exit polls were completely correct.

And then the recount showed that the exit polls were completely wrong.

Which is why we don't talk about New Hampshire anymore.

[KittyWampus]

15. He Mentions Making Transparent code on the machines& paperballots

"Absolutely. One of the earliest things he is going to work on is election reform. We've got to make the process transparent, whether it is the counting of votes or the code on the machines. That is basic to the electoral process. That is one of the great virtues of paper ballots. People can sit there and watch the counting. I've been through that in past elections, and it's a great ritual. We've got to strengthen the remedies that deal with voter suppression; challenges based on race ought to be prima facie violations of voting rights. There have to be standard for the allocation of voting machines."

[MelissaB]

43. That tells me he has knowledge

about the issue and has been reading or listening closely to somebody who knows what some of the problems are.

[stellanoir]

16. typo alert

I think in Cam's second response

"wound change the election"

LOL understand totally from where that "slip" originated.

on edit-then I had to edit my own grammar

[WilliamPitt]

27. Good eye, thanks

[stellanoir]

34. which one? I've three.

And I do hear that sniffa charges a small fortune for those lower case "L's" he's been hoarding for so long.

Great article and thanks.

[MellowOne]

18. Worth repeating

Many of them feel that it was better without John involved, that it put the focus on the issue and not on him. It took away the Republican argument that this was just about sour grapes. Had John led the protest, we would have heard that a hundred times.

Kerry did the right thing. Enough said.

[Darkhawk32]

19. Basically from this I get....

Kerry knew the election was bullshit. Cam knew the election was bullshit. They just didn't have the "AHA!" needed to proceed.

How about we all find the "AHA!" for them in the coming weeks, months and years?

[whometense]

59. That's exactly

what I get as well.

[Zan_of_Texas]

97. Aha aha aha.

1. Will -- you wrote that Cam said:

"Yes. We've got a federal constitution guaranteeing the right to vote..."

But, Jesse Jackson the younger and his father are speaking out for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. They are saying it is NOT in the Constitution.

Is Cam saying it is already? Or, did he mean to support Jackson's efforts?

2. What was that answer when you mentioned Triad? It sounded like Cam quickly changed the subject to 80-weight paper. What that your impression?

3. Compare and contrast with Cam Kerry's op ed on the day of the challenge, last Thursday. The sentence at the end of the excerpt, where he said that at the time of the concession "we knew much of what has emerged publicly since then" puzzles or angers me, depending on my mood. How in the world could the Kerry team have known what would emerge about the myriad kinds of vote suppression, anomaly, and fraud between November 3 and January 6?


Op Ed
By Cameron F. Kerry

January 6, 2005
The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/06/counting_every_vote/

SO NOW the votes in Ohio have been recounted, and it's time for Congress to tally the Electoral College. But while the election is over, a fight goes on to protect everyone's right to vote and make sure every vote is counted.

I wish it weren't so, but the final facts look like the picture on the morning of Nov. 3 when my brother, John Kerry, ended his campaign for president. As campaign leaders sat in a Boston war room overlooking a dwindling Election Night rally in the plaza below, on the phone was a team of smart, tough veterans who know how to count votes and how votes get counted. All were veterans of Florida in 2000 who would have jumped at a rematch with Karl Rove and James Baker III.
In the room was Deval Patrick, former assistant attorney general for civil rights. In Washington was Michael Whouley, the never-say-die loyalist who stopped Al Gore from conceding; Jack Corrigan, who helped fight Bush v. Gore in the courts and the precincts; and Robert Bauer and Marc Elias, leading election lawyers and Kerry campaign counsel. On the phone from Ohio was the chief of the legal team there, David Sullivan, longtime election counsel for the Massachusetts secretary of state, who himself was a plaintiff more than 30 years ago in a lawsuit to register college students and -- with me -- a defendant in unsuccessful lawsuit brought against us for properly challenging vote fraud.

<SNIP>

These lawyers made a difference. In Ohio they pursued federal court cases that deterred Republicans from carrying out announced plans for wholesale challenges and got local election officials to stop the few that occurred. They got election officials to take malfunctioning machines out of service in Mahoning County and correct the infamous 3,800-vote error in Franklin County. In two lawsuits on Election Day, they got paper ballots issued when lines in two counties were too long and later did the same for students waiting in line for hours.
Thanks to their efforts, by the early hours of Nov. 3, election lawyers had audited the Bush margin. We knew the scope of problems lawyers had been unable to remedy quickly. We knew how many provisional, overseas, and absentee ballots were left to count. We knew there were up to 94,000 "undervotes" or "spoiled ballots," punch card ballots rejected by machines (a far lower percentage than in Florida in 2000 due to education about punching carefully). The distribution of these uncounted votes across Ohio and experience indicated they would not be enough to dent the margin. Only the discovery of wholesale fraud might change the outcome. And, with thousands of observers to the process, this was unlikely. Not every fact was in, but we knew much of what has emerged publicly since then. <SNIP>

[Blue in the face]

107. Thank you

"Only the discovery of wholesale fraud might change the outcome. And, with thousands of observers to the process, this was unlikely. Not every fact was in, but we knew much of what has emerged publicly since then"

There was no investigation done and even the Greens said that Kerry and his campaign were hindering the recount and seemed clueless to the potential for fraud. All you have to do is look at Kerry's buddy in NM, Richardson, to see how the Dems were playing this.

I was disgusted during the election watching all the party Dems and media line up behind Kerry. I'm even more disgusted to watch them all line up behind the "Move on" party line.

I applaud everyone who is going on with the effort to reform our election system, and I'm sure in time I'll do the same. But right now, I'm so pissed at all of them, I just want to go back to my family that I neglected working on the Clark campaign and trying to light a fire under election fraud issues.

All of this double-talk and disinformation has really soured me to the whole national political experience. Now I remember why I stuck to issues and local politics.

[alexisfree]

20. always reading .... truhout..

thank you for your hard work.

[mordarlar]

23. Great, but some questions. Isn't it sort of redundant to try + pass bills

in Congress after they try and do away with the filibuster? Particularly if some of the opposing Senators were the ones benefiting from fraud? This is where this fix it before next time gets me. I am not very wise to the deep end of the processes but as i understand it we are at a SERIOUS disadvantage in Congress and they are looking to make it far worse. Another thing is i cannot possibly see how they can suggest the votes are simply not available to turn around for Kerry. There are enough instances to more than cover the differential. I understand the points he makes about the system and knowing what you can and cannot do, but it will not be any easier in Congress. If this election was stolen, and we all know it was, it was not simply beneficial to Bush. There are potentially quite a few people who MIGHT NOT WANT corrections to the system that they cannot manipulate.

[mordarlar]

58. ^^should be Great! But... Have not slept since yest. I Liked it

[Amaryllis]

89. I have all those questions too but am thinking if we use the same tactics

we did to make Jan. 6 happen; bombard them with emails, calls, faxes, that there are still enough of them who were actually elected by the people (rathere than fraud), and consequently are interested in what their constituents want, that we could pull it off.

Our other big job is to EDUCATE them. One of the big things I have learned in this process is how ignorant many of them are about the whole e-voting issue. My senator keeps talking about paper trails. But they must be educated about tabulators, and how easy it is to hack the them.

I say we get Howard Dean to do his 90 minute demo in Congress!

[mordarlar]

93. I believe we can do it too.: D Just fear losing sight of the potential ..

of what can happen

[Amaryllis]

114. I alternate between hope and discouragement. Keep hoping good will

triumph over evil. There have been many times in history when it's looked really bleak...Conyers letter today was very inspiring. We did it with the internet, in spite of MSM.

[myschkin]

24. Awesome

Unfortunately you didn't ask him about the Steven Freeman paper and the Baiman paper as well... (do he think they are just weirdo?)

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. Falluja and Mosul. "That's a tough couple of neighbourhoods"...

And some...!

[stray cat]

26. Thanks Will

[DearAbby]

31. You know I received a application for absentee ballot in the mail without

requesting one this election, I didn't think too much about it because my Husband and I voted absentee for the mid-term elections. I am now wondering if our votes were even counted. I am in a red state that usually votes GOP, But in a Democratic area of that state... :think: maybe I should look into this further.

[Gloria]

28. Memo to Cam: Gov. Richardson has been in DC prowling

around trying to get on track for a run for higher office. He has blocked efforts for a recount and our Sec. of State backs him up by saying that it isn't unusual to have so many voters who voted for the likes of county commissioner but not the President. NAH, happens like that all the time...they don't want to vote for President!

It's in the courts, last I heard....

As for Richardson....ugh

[whometense]

60. Yeah, what is that all about?

Are you from NM? Why would Richardson be blocking a recount? Sorry if I'm being dense, but I just don't get it.

[all.of.me]

Gloria...

Where is the best place to get progressive news about NM? I live here, and I'm beginning to get very interested in what REALLY goes on, but don't know where to look.

Thanks,

Geneva T

[Amaryllis]

90. I wish Cam and Kerry would be more active in supporting the NM recount.

Get in there like they have legally in OH and join Cobb and Badnarak, because they sure aren't getting any cooperation from Richardson or the SOS.

[Patsy Stone]

29. Thanks, Will. Nice interview.

"Were there people who were disenfranchised? Yes. Were there mistakes and irregularities and fraud? Yes. I think this was a closer election than 119,000 votes." -- Cam Kerry

Uh, Cam... Me, too.

[frictionlessO]

30. whelp, there ya go...

I hate reading between any kind of lines, but since there was almost no lines in this one comment...

>snip
I have talked to a number of the Congressional members involved. Many of them feel that it was better without John involved, that it put the focus on the issue and not on him. It took away the Republican argument that this was just about sour grapes. Had John led the protest, we would have heard that a hundred times.
>snip

Thats what I was waiting to hear and if anyone who has been paying attention in the last two months doesnt get what this signifies, well... then you're not a chess player.

Thanks much Will, my hope grows brighter everyday!

[MelissaB]

45. That jumped out at me, too, but I'll bet somebody

will have to repeat this 1000 times. :)

[frictionlessO]

80. Oh count on it! and then it'll be a matter of no consequence to

them anyway!

Silly wabbits...

[Laurab]

86. I'm not a chess player and I get it

Matter of fact I got it right from the beginning. My thought is that anyone who DOESN'T get it needs to study up on the * administration and their tactics. I have yet to see anyone who feels Kerry did the wrong thing(s) say what he should have done differently. Something he should have done differently that would have done any good, I guess I should say. He could have done a lot of things diffently, and he could be the laughingstock of the right right now. He has denied them the opportunity to make him look like an idiot is what he's done.

Not that I had any doubt, but for all the people who continually bash Kerry, this should enlighten them to the fact that Kerry is in fact aware of what went on. He is also aware of what would have happened had he contested WITHOUT EVIDENCE THAT A COURT WOULD ACCEPT. Why is that so hard to understand? He is fighting them in a way that will be far more effective in the long run - even in the short run. He would have been DESTROYED by the rw machine if he had so much as disputed the results. He KNOWS and he has not abandoned anybody. Sometimes I get the feeling people just want to bash the guy.

I don't feel abandoned at all. The interview with Cam basically told me what I already believed, but it was a pleasure to "hear" him saying it. I feel screwed over by the * machine, that's what I feel, and that's where my anger will be directed.

Thanks, Will Pitt - another excellent article.

[lavenderdiva]

33. Great interview, Will!

Thanks for posting... I agree with the comments about NM, maybe we shouldn't be focusing so much attention on Ohio, as the scrutiny NM deserves hasn't been happening. At least not so publicly. Cam Kerry came to Houston before the election, and spoke to a small group of us at the Democratic Headquarters here, telling us about how the campaign was going, etc. He seemed to be a very intelligent and thoughtful person. Boy, does he ever look like John K.! The resemblance is remarkable... Anyway, after hearing him speak, I liked what I heard, and felt reassured about Kerry as candidate. Can't say I agree with everything he did after the election, but that would be another discussion.

[mzmolly]

36. Thanks again, I've bookmarked and plan to pass this on.

:toast:

[troubleinwinter]

37. He did use the word "fraud" (a crime needing investigation)

[pacalo]

40. Thanks, Will!

It was the issues and suspicions surrounding Triad Systems and their voting machines that motivated Senator Kerry to enter that matter?

Yes. That is one of the things that is highly suspect. Look, Kenneth Blackwell's conduct throughout this election, going back months beforehand and through the recount, has been disgraceful. What people have to recognize is that the election protection effort, with 3,300 Kerry/Edwards lawyers who were there on the ground, plus other lawyers, the voter protection project, and other efforts out there did a lot.

Not only was/is Blackwell's conduct disgraceful, but he has handled everything throughout the election as though WhatsHisFace&Gang were pulling the strings. His behavior has Karl Rove's name stamped all over it.

Despicable. It's surreal that there is anyone supporting this corrupted administration.

[politicasista]

41. Thanks Will

Loved your milkman-dog catcher analogy. :yourock:

[seabeyond]

42. We have made some progress on that since 2000,

wrong answer

things have gotten worse, by far, visibly. this is a non answer, and i dont like thses types of answers. what repugs feed to their people and they buy it.

otherwise, thank you for the interview

[Helga Scow Stern]

105. Yes, I keep seeing that and I wonder what they mean. What progress?

In stealing more efficiently?

[madison2000]

46. very interesting, this sheds a lot of light on something that we've all

wondered about...he knows the election fraud occurred.

I hope Blackwell gets nailed for his crimes.

[Blue in the face]

48. What a nice way of telling us to fuck off

I'm so sick of the Kerry's. They folded up like a deck of cards and now trying to spin it like they had no choice because they didn't fight for an investigation.

Thank you for destroying my faith in the Democrats and the political system, John and Cam Kerry. Kiss my ass.

[Goldeneye]

51. right.....

[whometense]

62. Say WHAT??? n/t

[emlev]

49. Great job--is there a "director's cut?"

Anything more that you'd like to share with DU that didn't make it into the final edit? Is that really all he had to say about his bro's trip abroad?

[AmerDem]

50. these people are weak to their core.

Honestly, I am truly sick of their reasoning for giving away our country to a modern day Fascist regime.

You got to laugh at this "Cam" Kerry's quote, "One of the reasons we need election reform is that what has been done on reform didn't prevent abuses. Despite all of the oversight and a lot of things that were stopped, we don't have the tools and the remedies for this watch."....Hey, "Cam" how about mentioning you, your brother and just about every other one of the so called party leaders didn't mention shit about e-voting fraud, no paper trails, or purge lists before this election. You people even promised endlessly that this wouldn't be a repeat of 2000. You were right, it was much worse and still we barely heard anything from any of you.

I want these people out of leadership positions in our party. We need people with integrity that will fight for everything our party stands for not sway it more to the right. We need people with guts and vision. We need people like Clark and Dean to take over this totally corrupt system.

Fuck you "Cam" ( what the fuck kinda name is "Cam".) and your worthless brother!:puke:

[New Earth]

55. what have Dean and Clark done?

:shrug:

[pacalo]

67. One thing about Dean...

After the "scream", he cowed down to the corporate media's (unfair & biased) mockery & shelved the part of his personality that drew people to him. Ever since then, we've seen a much toned-down Howard Dean; the fire & passion disappeared.

I wonder how Dean would have handled himself if he had been attacked to the same extent as Kerry was.

[Beth in VT]

73. Dean has spoken out repeatedly about voting machine

vulnerabilities, including in a recent speech, and he highlighted the need for election reform in his policy positions during his campaign.

[AmerDem]

77. I guess you missed the Dem. primaries.

I'm not about to outline the stance of each of these candidates but I will say that both Clark and Dean both showed strong desire to shake up the current system and put the power of our country back into the hands of the people not corporate America.

[whometense]

64. Not too strong on the strategery, are we?

And the name is Cameron.

[merh]

66. The only ones "weak to the core" are those that expect Kerry

and now his brother Cam to rescue us. Not living in reality would be another way to describe folks that suffer from that dillusion.

[AmerDem]

82. who said anything about "rescue"

This is about living up to their own words. Promises were broken, promises that would have made all the difference to the 2004 election.

Sometimes people push aside painful truths that they can't otherwise deal with in a direct way. I think I see some of that example floating around lately.

[merh]

98. He didn't break any promises to me. He ran a great campaign,

he beat the sack of shit.

If you think his standing in front of the American people and screaming "they stole it, there was fraud" would have made a difference, you are the one that is not dealing rationally with the facts and reality.

There was a big difference between 2000 and 2004. They stole more votes, they used a multitude of methods to pad the vote. They won the popular vote (they padded the votes to make it look like they won) by over 2 million. In addition, they stole and lost and fraudulently padded so many votes that they won the electoral college votes. In 2000 Gore won the popular and the thieve stole the electoral college. The amount of the votes that gave the thieve the election was smaller in 2000.

Pray tell what would you have Kerry do? Take up arms and begin a revolution and throw the bum out? He loves the nation and the rule of law too much to begin a civil war. Do you think it would have made a difference if he started spouted the hate he has for the thieve and screaming from the roof tops that "they stole it"? No, he and the party would have suffered, the outcome would not have changed, but the efforts to bring about reform would have been hindered. If he had stood up on the 6th with Conyers, Tubbs-Johnson and Boxer, the debates would have been about him being a sore loser and not about election reform.

You ought to try to direct your anger toward something positive or direct it to the true enemy of the state, the thieve, the weed that would be king.

[AmerDem]

103. you're hell bent on exaggeration

I'm not getting into this back and forth with you. He made promises through out the campaign about making sure every vote will be counted. This wasn't taken by the general public to mean 6 month, 1 year, 2 years after shrub becomes president. We all took it to mean he would hang in there and fight more than Gore had. He concedes a few hours after John Edwards came out to tell us they will be fighting this to the end. It's pretty well known that Edwards and Kerry were at odds over the conceding.

I wish many here would wake up and see this is the same business as usual from these Washington leaders. How much more of this are you willing to take?

Since 2000 we have had our whole way of life turned around solely because we lacked vocal Democratic leadership. Patriot act, Medicare reform benefiting the pharmaceutical companies, war, and on and on and on, all with the silence and blessing of our so called leaders of the party.

Look, it seems like your the type willing to hang in there with someone until they do you harm. I on the other hand will step up and force people like this out before anymore damage can happen.

Too many years of silence and losing results have gone by. Now it's our time to speak up. This is our party. These people work for us, not the other way around.

[merh]

109. And you appear to be one of those people that refuses to look

at the bigger picture. THE DNC, K/E won the election. Our party is not as messed up as you want to believe or as the repugs try to make it look.

It was election fraud and theft, not a bad candidate, not a bad campaign.

You still have failed to say what he should have done? Hang in there? For what.

Negative people like you that pick apart our leaders rather than appreciate their accomplishments and the adversities they overcame and are dealing with bore me.

No more exchange with you, you have no answers, you only have anger, pitiful, negative anger that serves no purpose and wastes a great deal of energy that should be used to battle the weed and not our guy.

:boring:

[AmerDem]

126. Oh, negative huh? here read this

Start realizing the difference between real leaders like Conyors and those that have failed to lead!

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=19452&mode=&order=0

[merh]

132. OMG - he has a personal life and hung out with folks that (gasp)

are republican?

How dare he not break off a 30 year friendship with Maria Shrivers? What nerve, what a judas.

God, you need to grow up.

[AmerDem]

138. personally, I think your taken with yourself

and quite frankly someone like you calling out others to "grow up" is as hypocritical as it gets.

[merh]

139. I'm taken with myself, you are the one that is judging someone

for having a personal life. Politics works that way. However distasteful you may find it, the reality is that politicians may be on opposite sides of an issue, may be adversaries, but they socialize together. Just like lawyers, you may find them arguing with each other, fighting tooth and nail in the courtroom, spewing venom as if they detest each other, but at the end of the day you may find them having drinks together or they may go to bar conventions together or even attend the same party. That does not weaken their beliefs or make their representation of the issues any less true or effective. It is just a fact.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Don't cut off the flow of information and/or your connections just because you don't share the same views. Hell, love thy brother as thyself. The trick to living life successfully and to making changes in life is to keep the lines of communication open and to know what your opponent is thinking. Trying to understand their positions helps in strengthening your own or at least in being in a better position to counter or deal with theirs.

[Pobeka]

104. I can't agree with you more.

The only likely benefit of Kerry speaking out would have been some of us would feel better knowing that he knows.

But then the media spin would have turned the whole story into Kerry being a losing whiner, and voter suppression and vote fraud would never have made the news at all.

Kerry had no choice, not with reality of the right-wing controlled media.

[politicasista]

74. This post needs to be deleted.

It is mean and offensive.x(

[AmerDem]

78. maybe you should use ignore

and not try to stifle my heart-felt opinion.

[Starone]

52. Thanks Will! (n/t)

[Vektor]

53. Thank you, Will, this helps a lot....

...to reaffirm my belief that Kerry and camp are proceeding in the most prudent way possible. I'm sure there are compelling legal reasons why they have made the decisions that they have, and that those decisions are based on information that we on the ground are just not entirely privy to. I think it was wise for Kerry to not be present during the contest - as Cam said, it lets the focus stay on the big picture of election reform, instead of on Kerry wailing "Me me me" and making it about him alone.

Another great Gem, Will, thanks!

[Zan_of_Texas]

99. Oh take "prudent" and stow it.

The Kerry supporters and worshippers on this forum kept saying all since November 3rd that Kerry had a plan, Kerry was doing strategy, this was a chess game, don't show your hand, bla bla bla. Kerry would show up at just the right time and do exactly what was needed.

Well, the fact is,

1. Kerry conceded before any reports of fraud or anomalies could be gathered, much less vetted.

2. Kerry's people joined in one lawsuit already filed, in one county. The Greens and Libertarians raised the money to do the lawsuit. Kerry's campaign promise that they had millions of dollars in a warchest just in case there was a challenge or recount -- well, maybe they did, but what exactly did they spend it on? Bupkis as best I can tell.

3. And, when push came to shove, he was out of the country.

Kerry is already a Senator; it's not like he is seeking office for the first time. Where was his outspoken support for election reform for the past two years? Promising every vote will be counted doesn't do the job.

On Jan. 6, the first speech out of the mouths of those drooling Rs, Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, STARTED with a tale of Kerry's concession -- that was her first point - the candidate has conceded.

Grace and good manners are nice in a tennis match, if you lose. When the country is rapidly spiraling downward in an unprecedented gob of messes led by an unelected president, and taking the world with it, good manners and prudence are less important.

[StephanieMarie]

54. Thanks for sharing. n/t

[Coexist]

56. I am so glad this issue is not going away because the

coronation is imminent

[Der Blaue Engel]

61. Thanks for this, Will

And for your continued dedication to true journalism.

I think anybody who can't understand these straightforward words doesn't WANT to understand them. Clearly, this is, and always has been, about what can be PROVEN. Saying that it can't be (or hasn't yet been) proven is in no way suggesting that they don't believe there was fraud, or that they don't care that there was fraud. They must act within the law, and any reasonable person would accept that, rather than continuing to insist that a man who campaigned so hard for president just didn't give a fuck when it came to the finish line.

I, personally, am BLUE IN THE FACE from having to repeatedly refute such arguments. :eyes:

So thanks, again, Will. :)

[suffragette]

63. great interview

"Cobb and Badnarik will select the ten percent, something like ten percent or thereabouts, of the precincts to be recounted."
This is good news if they can get the recount going there.

Thanks so much for conducting this interview and giving us more of a picture of what is going on.

And nice meeting you on Jan 6th.

[merh]

65. Thanks Will!

As you can tell from some of the posts, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time!

:hi:

[bush_is_wacko]

69. Thanks WillPitt! n/t

[bleever]

71. Good interview, Mr. Pitt. While I sure wish that Camp Kerry was

a lot faster on the uptake in catching the crime itself, I am encouraged that they sound like they may well make up for it in persistence and thoroughness.

[mirrera]

72. Question for Will,

Will,
Great interview! I keep hearing this talk about "Transparent Code", but I never hear anyone talk against machine counting, period. These machines seem to be costing us on so many levels. Do you get the feeling that these corporations have a permanent strangle hold on the election system? I NEVER hear paper ballots being offered as a solution. For every reason given against paper, the solutions seem easy and cheap, and I am not an expert! You know when a doctor prescribes a medicine, and then another to fight the side effects of the first, it seems like the U.S. is having to "fix" a huge amount of problems associated with the use of machines, all in order to save time. I see the beneficiary of these problems being the voting machine companies, not our citizens. What is your take, since you have their ears?

[seito]

75. Excellent interview

Amid all of the criticism, I think it is important to remember the good work that was done to prevent and expose fraud and voter disenfranchisement in Ohio.

They dealt with this ridiculous business of the paper weight on the voter registration and put a stop to that. The Republican effort to mount challenges, they put a stop to it. The efforts to exclude reporters and exit pollers from the polls, they put a stop to that. The malfunctions in machines in Mahoning County, they put a stop to that. They put a lot of focus on the incredible amounts of time the students at Kent had to wait. There were people there to bring them food, and there were people there who offered those in line paper ballots. They didn't want paper ballots. They wanted to get in there and cast their votes the regular way.

One of the reasons we know about all these things is because there were people there observing and recording, and they prevented a lot of the large problems. Did they prevent everything? No. Were there people who were disenfranchised? Yes. Were there mistakes and irregularities and fraud? Yes. I think this was a closer election than 119,000 votes.

I wholeheartedly agree that Senator Kerry should not have been in DC on the 6th. The Democrats captured the issue of voter rights that day. The Republicans were left squirming in their own slime. There was no way for them to spin the issue.

Thanks for bringing a dose of reason and sanity to DU. :toast:

[fooj]

79. Thanks for always keeping us informed! You Rock!

Illuminating interview!

[fearnobush]

83. Great interview Will, It's really awesome to see our emerging media

here on DU. Where else on this planet can schmucks like my self actually interact with the reporter's who write the stories being read. This is the most awesome form of media EVER!!!

As far as those who are pissed at Kerry - take that anger and put it to positive use. Protest the crowning of the Chimp-Pansy on the 20th, spray paint billboards etc. I for one can no longer be pissed at Kerry. The election was a joke, a formality and I'm sure most of us could see that. The death wing indeed had full control over everything. The Media, The States, the Congress and the Supreme Court. I knew, Kerry knew that we needed at least a full 5% margin in the vote just to break even. Micheal Moore predicted this back in 2003 as well. So stop blaming Kerry and get on with the fight for freedom and the fight for our democracy, our right to vote.

[graywarrior]

84. Intelligent and informative interview

Thanks. You asked great questions and seemed to get some honest answers. Good job. You get an A. (Would have been an A+ but you had a typo.)

[FogerRox]

85. There are a few things that still piss me off-- Since I was recruited by

"SOmebody" hi up in the campaign to go to FL.

[IndyPriest]

92. If they're important to understanding this interview, list them.

There is a "doubleness" in Cam's style of speech that seems to allow his thoughts to be taken many ways. "Frictionless" seems to hear that Kerry knew exactly what was going on and is going to come out strongly in pursuit of the fraud. "RaulVB" seems to hear that those who surround John Kerry truly don't get the gist of the fraud argument at all.

[FogerRox]

130. The one over-riding concern was not that Kerry would win--or that he

Would win Big--we both agreed that Kerry would win big --about 10%--The one concern was massive fraud--That the fraud would be widespread enough to soak up the HUGE numbers we were going to generate on NOv.2nd
That and I talked about legal contingency funds-- that I knew this stuff-- was the reson I was recruited--from NJ--sent down FL.

ANd they paid me--gave me a mini van and 2 cell phones and let me stir the pot---HHHEEEEeh ahaw

[flyarm]

110. thank you..i am in fla

and as an elected delegate for the state for the d.n.convention , may i thank you for all the help you gave us...we had so many wonderful citzens from all over the usa come to my area to help us out, and on behalf of those who worked so hard side by side with us from all over..i sincerely thank you..

ps...we won fla..they stole it...from a very blue heart fly in fla

[FogerRox]

129. I was in Broward County--I know--we won

[peacetalksforall]

95. I posted recently that I was giving Kerry 30 days.

I was offended by his letters and interviews that stressed 'thousands of lawyers' found 'nothing' and I accused Kerry of providing fodder to the right wing. I felt that they would latch on to his words and shout that 'even Kerry said they found nothing in spite of having thousand of lawyers' and would outshout anyone who tried to explain a reversal of approach.

Though few propaganda talking heads seem to be speaking out on the networks presently, the minute Kerry or his brother or anyone who is part of his campaign (or even a John Conyers type person) starts talking about fraud in a verbal accusatory or lawsuit form that implicates the machines, humans, or the networks and their poll takers, the Kerry words that have sent the thousands of lawyers found nothing message will erupt in his face and the flip-flop accusation will reign.

I think 'the Kerry's' have been trying too hard to 'carefully consider' their approach, but have let down millions of supporters who, without a DU, have given up trying to understand what is going on and are disallusioned. This also includes thousand of DUers who usually benefit from insight of other DUers, but who still don't 'get it'.

If we at DU don't get it, is there something to get?

I understand that words from him that imply that the election wasn't fair could set off a storm. So maybe he shouldn't have written those letters or allowed that interview because I don't think it did much for anyone out here in our world. I think it just keeps the press off his back. It that the whole idea? What it I phrased the question to ask is he trying to keep the press of his back AND keep us ticked?

My 30 days is to allow me to 'get it' and see if anything comes out that would reverse my disappointment with the letters and interview. I also need to get over the disappointment I feel when those in power talk about doing something for the 2008 election and don't talk about the 2004 election. How many people outside of DU know about Conyer's work? What did the DNC and DLC who put Kerry in place do about the fraud since 2000?

I also appreciate everything you contribute, Will. I don't include you in my discomfort. We are fortunate for your work.

Though we are in pretty much of a lock down by our own leaders and it looks like the election will never get reversed, I'm still hopeful for the remainder of my 30 days. But how is anyone ever going to change the system if our leaders are saying that Bush won fair and square (except for lines and adequate numbers of machines)?

[OKthatsIT]

144. Thank You. I think we're both 'seeing' on the same wavelength

I really appreciate your insight.

[Carolab]

100. Very cool; he used the F word

"One of the reasons we know about all these things is because there were people there observing and recording, and they prevented a lot of the large problems. Did they prevent everything? No. Were there people who were disenfranchised? Yes. Were there mistakes and irregularities and fraud? Yes. I think this was a closer election than 119,000 votes."

[New Earth]

102. ha, i didn't even see you just posted that

we both picked up on the same thing :)

[Time for change]

156. I disagree

I think Kerry won by over 300,000 votes. That's what the Mitofski exit poll shows. And all the findings of "irregularities" in Ohio just add confirmation to that. And the exit polls don't even take into account the hundreds of thousands of voters who didn't get to vote because of Blackwell's dirty tricks.

[New Earth]

101. wow, i just noticed Cam said, yes there was fraud

" One of the reasons we know about all these things is because there were people there observing and recording, and they prevented a lot of the large problems. Did they prevent everything? No. Were there people who were disenfranchised? Yes. Were there mistakes and irregularities and fraud? Yes. I think this was a closer election than 119,000 votes."

w00t!

[stillcool]

108. I have a brilliant suggestion...

to all those that are still ripping mad and pointing fingers all over the place. READ. Thats right....read...alot...if you aren't actively seeking information from credible sources you are doing yourself an injustice. The problems facing this country are so way bigger than any politician. This whole voting issue is a symptom of a much larger scale of what our government has become. And its been going on for alot longer than 2000. Nobody is going to tell you this stuff...you have to seek it out. Wake the f*ck up!

[Blue in the face]

111. You're right

But these issues won't be addressed unless some politician stands up and makes them heard. Kerry let Conyers, Boxer, Jackson and others take the heat. If he was going to "report for duty", then he had a responsibility to speak out about what happened in Ohio and demand answers.

If he were to prosecute his criminal investigations as a prosecuter the way he did this issue of election fraud, every criminal he faced would have gotten off scott-free.

I wanted to see him stand and fight, instead he started making plans for 2008. Doesn't he realize that there will be no 2008 if we don't fix what went wrong in 2004?

[stillcool]

113. Well now.....

He could have, and he decided not to. End of story. Anything else is speculative, and neither you nor I know what facts were taken into consideration that resulted in that decision. What is perfectly clear, is that neither he nor anyone else could proove the existence of ENOUGH fraud to change the outcome. This is where we are. The election system in this country is broken, and has been for some time. What we need to wake up to is the fact that we are becoming a militarized empire, and will remain so if we are not allowed to elect our representation. We have no voice, and neither does the Congress.

[Blue in the face]

116. Yes and No,

I am just as negative about our electoral system as you are, however how do we know this?:

"What is perfectly clear, is that neither he nor anyone else could proove the existence of ENOUGH fraud to change the outcome."

If DU, the GLIBS and some regular people could uncover fraud and irregularities all over the country, why couldn't Kerry's 17,000 lawyers get some of their investigators on the case? Why could the Dems leaned on the media to keep this issue on the forefront instead of parroting the GOP's talking points of moving on?

I believe that Kerry could have done more than put his toe in the water and waited for Nader or another third party to uncover his ammunition for him. But we'll never know because Kerry (as did a vast majority of us) sat on the sidelines and hoped someone would find the silver bullet.

[stillcool]

117. What legally defined "Fraud" are you referring to? n/t

[Blue in the face]

118. Fraud

The kind that would make mainstream Americans stop watching Fear Factor and pay attention to election fraud and make the mainstream media stop talking about The Apprentice and start talking about election fraud.

The kind of fraud that people can understand in the 10 second soundbites they listen to between the commercials for Viagra and the commercials for Fox News (or Chevy trucks or whatever).

The kind of fraud that may have been found by a graduate of Strayer if they had gotten a lot at some of those machines.

That's what it will take to make Americans protest for their democratic rights...

[ROH]

127. "But I hasten to add that until we complete our investigation ..."

"But I hasten to add that until we complete our investigation, I don't know if it will change the result or if it won't change the result." ... Rep. John Conyers

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010705W.shtml

[garthranzz]

119. A Theory Why Kerry Didn't Challenge

A good military strategist - or chess player - knows when to sacrifice, temporarily. Sometimes the "ground" can't be maintained, so losses are minimized. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice your queen for checkmate. Sometimes the sacrifice gives you a better position.

So let's assume that Kerry knows what we know - what any objective viewer of the facts would have to admit: there is evidence for a prima facie case of fraud and voter suppression. Now let's also remember Kerry was a prosecuting attorney and that his major triumphs as a Senator have been investigative rather than legislative. And that to make his investigations stick (Iran-Contra, BCCI, MIAs), he had to have the kind of proof that would convince Congress - that would stand up in a court of law.

We have first-hand testimony, but not enough to overturn the election. We have statistical evidence, we have suspicions but not proof of machine tampering. Sure, the Triad operatives look suspicious, but we can prove that they tampered with the machines?

Then there's the Judge on the case. Any lawsuit in Ohio would go to the Ohio Supreme Court - stacked with pocketed Republicans. (Did they make any rulings that favored the citizens, especially the poor and disenfranchised?) And any lawsuit in Federal Court would go to the Supreme Court; Rhenquist would get off his deathbed to do what he did in '00. Or if he couldn't, the 4-4 tie would leave the decision as Blackwell's fiat. If it went to Congress, even with all the facts, if Delay can strongarm his way out of an ethics charge, he surely would cow the conscience of what few courageous Republicans there might be in the House.

So Kerry proves to the American people, at least those not dittoheaded into clonespeak, that the election was stolen. But the power structure still anoints sh*** emperor. There won't be a revolution in the streets - too much sports and internet distractions - so Kerry loses his reputation, his effectiveness - and the smear campaign makes it harder for us to communicate.

If this "Supreme Court" had been sitting in '73 and '74, Nixon would have become dictator. If this Congress had been in power then, Nixon would have remained dictator.

Perhaps it's a Vietnam lesson. If you can't win, don't fight. Choose another battle to win the war.

The theft must be fought another way.

[grasswire]

120. hmm

"forward-looking" = "2008 candidacy" I presume.

I hope they aren't counting on the nomination.

[Bill Bored]

121. Will: Margins mean NOTHING if the vote cannot be verified.

CK: "...there was enough of a margin in Ohio that I think we could have closed that margin but would still have been some tens of thousands of votes short."

This was the conventional view, thinking like a lawyer, before the non-random, illegally-performed Ohio recount mentioned in one of your previous questions. But with all we know now about the way this recount was done and the conscious avoidance of a full hand count, WHY does he keep stating this stuff about the "margin" as if it were fact?

Do you think he was actually aware that the Ohio 3% hand recount was not performed randomly (according to law) before you mentioned it Will?

I'm really not sure the Kerries "get it."

[Zan_of_Texas]

125. Let's get down to brass tacks.

The current resident of the White House is there because he is the son of a former president. That former president was head of the CIA for a period of time.

What kinds of things does the CIA do?

1. Spying

2. Infiltration

3. Fix or manipulate elections in foreign countries.

4. Assassinations

5. Facilitate torture

6. Engineer coups

7. Disinformation

8. Slide propaganda into normal channels that are expected to be relatively objective.

9. Disrupt dissidents and dissent when convenient, or the reverse when convenient.

10. With the help of the NSA, do MASSIVE electronic spying and surveillance using state of the art electronic wizardry -- monitoring communications by email, phone, cell phone, and with the help of bugs, even in-person communications.


This is not a recent phenomenon. Even before the CIA began, we have two-time Congressional Medal winner Marine Smedley Butler (and the guy who prevented a coup by corporate leaders against FDR in 1934) admitting he had helped to fix elections in Nicaragua in 1912.

If you are a former president and you have had access to all these sorts of dirty tricks, and your name is George H. W. Bush, and your son is running for office, would you even be tempted just a teeny weeny bit to use any of these tricks?

Come on folks. The surprise would be if he DIDN'T use them.

And, if Kerry was taken by surprise? Well. Gee.

[Peace Patriot]

148. Zan_of_Texas, add Diebold, ES&S & Triad to this picture of...

...Bush I CIA and oil corp capabilities--traceless election fraud, a line of computer code at a strategic moment, in an extremely insecure, hackable system (built that way) owned and controlled by your buddies, big Bush donors ($100,000 bracket--"Pioneers"), with no public review of the source code, and no paper trail in a third of the country...

...and anybody with any intelligence thinks they didn't USE it??!

Of course they did! And we have a mountain of evidence that shows that they did, shows where they did it, shows the discrepancies between paper and electronic voting, and shows the states they had to have which just happen to be where the Exit Polls go screwy.

It's obvious. The real mystery is how the Democrats could allow this election system to be put into place with hardly a breath of protest.

Certainly the voters deserved to be warned. Staggering failure of leadership, in my opinion--if not some darker motive (although, for the life of me, I can't figure out how the Democrats could be that suicidal).

[59sunburst]

149. Warning! Contains Satire.

Another angle:

http://home.att.net/~sunburst59/Interview_from_Camp_Kerry_Satire.htm

[Bill Bored]

152. The Dems are not necessarily suicidal

Did you see the article about the Dems being the Washington Generals?
It refers to the exhibition basketball team who played against the Harlem Globetrotters and always lost. That was their job.

To perpetuate the illusion of democracy, you need an opposition party. They don't ever have to win, they just need to be there in opposition. So some of them are selected to be allowed to win to make the ruling party and the democracy look real. The media is used to affect public opinion as a cover for the election fraud. Makes us think that most of use are actually stupid enough to vote for the ruling party, even against our own best interest.

So if you have enough Dems who either have their heads in the sand or who don't mind being the opposition party as long as _they_ keep getting reelected, which can now be guaranteed by the ruling party, they won't say shit about what's going on.

Both parties can continue to collect donations, run campaigns, etc. (another part of the fraud, BTW!) and life goes on.

Now this is a BIG bi-partisan conspiracy, but it's certainly a possibility.

[La Femme]

122. Recount

Pitt
"....the recent Ohio recount was that it was supposed to be a random recount, but representatives from Triad, the company that had their voting machines in 41 Ohio counties, found out ahead of time which 'random' counties would be recounted. They went around to those counties and made sure that the machine count would match the hand count. This basically obviated the basic premise of the recount, that being the selection of random counties."

Kerry
"What I gather is that people have negotiated in New Mexico, and that Cobb and Badnarik will select the ten percent, something like ten percent or thereabouts, of the precincts to be recounted."



I am very disappointed in Cam Kerry's response to the Ohio recount. He expresses no concern for whether the recount was performed properly. The recount, as it was performed, was completely useless.

[Bill Bored]

134. Welcome to DU Femme!

And you you are 100% right, hence my earlier question:
Do the Kerries get it?

[sellitman]

123. Kerry should have stood up with Senator Boxer.

I lost alot of respect for him. T

[Machiavelli05]

137. Are you for real?

After such eloquent and explanatory remarks from Cameron Kerry youre still going to grandstand on the "Kerry is a coward, he should have led the DNC's charges of election fraud right into a barrage of gunfire" issue??

GET OVER IT. Kerry could NOT stand on the issue. Now its the DNC's job and the states partys' job to make a stand. Boxer and Tubbs-Jones gave the foder, now its the party ops' responsibility to run with it.

[spooked911]

150. No-- I think he played it right. Staying out was a good strategy.

Otherwise it was Sore-Kerryman over and over.

[Peace Patriot]

146. I'm sorry, Will, but this interview just really pissed me off!

I think I understand your position as an interviewer. You're in personal contact with people and don't want to alienate them unnecessarily. But I am just so-o-o-o skeptical of these answers, not in the sense that Cam is lying (I don't think he is), but in the sense that he is being evasive and telling half-truths. For instance, on election reform...

-----

"We have made some progress on that since 2000, but we still have a long way to go. This election, particularly in Ohio, showed that. I think the action the other day (Jan. 6) helped to highlight that, as John indicated in his statement. He was very much in sympathy with it, though he was not there in joining it."

-----

"We have made some progress on that since 2000..."

What they have done since 2000--the Democrats and Kerry--is permit BushCon companies to gain control of our voting system, with secret proprietary source code and no paper trail, without screaming bloody murder about it, and at least making it a campaign issue. How is that "progress"?

Let me put it another way, if Cam and John Kerry THINK that that is "progress," then they are a lot stupider than they appear to be, or they are hiding something.

-----

"...but we still have a long way to go. This election, particularly in Ohio, showed that."

Christ. Why wasn't John Kerry ON THE GROUND with those black voters in ten hour voting lines in Ohio? Why didn't he KNOW about voting machines that were changing Kerry votes to Bush votes all day long? Why wasn't he IN Ohio, fighting Blackwell over every precinct allocation?

He KNEW Ohio was critical. He must have heard of these abuses. Why didn't he make his presence felt? Why didn't he stand by people, who were voting in unprecedented numbers, and suffering the icy rain and every inconvenience TO VOTE FOR HIM?
-----

And on both issues--BushCon electronic voting, and Ohio and Florida and New Mex abuses:

WHERE WAS HE AS OUR RIGHT TO VOTE WAS TAKEN AWAY?

-----

"He was very much in sympathy with it (Jan. 6), though he was not there in joining it."

I don't care if he was there or wasn't there. That's immaterial--it's a strategic decision in a very dicey, dangerous legitimacy of the government situation. What I don't buy is that he was "in sympathy with it." I just don't buy it. I don't think he gives a crap for my right to vote or anyone else's.

If he cared, he would have done something about Diebold et al A LONG TIME AGO.

And I really, really, really don't understand where the Democrats' heads are at, on this. Are they suicidal or what? Pro-war, but didn't want to RUN the war? In Diebold's pocket? Is it corruption? Is it anything simple like that? Understandable? Fixable? Or is it that they just didn't ever want to have a Democratic president or Congress ever again?

[FogerRox]

147. I have similar feelings--this whole issue smacks of amibiguity

If the goal is to make a bunch of pissed of Dems---that did happen.
These are the cards dealt to us --now they must be played--I'm pissed and I'm going to fight-fight to the day I die. If thats what Kerry wanted--fine--but I was already pissed off and pissed on--I didnt need no stinking incentive.

Not just pissed at Bush but now I'm pissed @ Kerry

[Peace Patriot]

151. I think a lot of posters here are missing the point...

...this is not about how Kerry ran the campaign. He won! He ran the campaign just fine--and truly it was a grand and unprecedented coalition of grass roots and Democratic leaders that made that victory possible.

...except for this: he needed a 10% to 20% cushion, rather than a 5% cushion, to beat the electronic fraud.

And this is where the point comes in (my point anyway): He didn't tell us that! He didn't tell us that it was UNFAIR, that we didn't have a chance with only a 5% margin, and that he sat in Congress while they put this election system in place, and damn well knew about it, and said nothing.

And then to compound the irony--the betrayal--he repeated time and again during the campaign that they would see that "every vote was counted."

Well, that was a damn lie. The OPPOSITE was true. And most voters and election volunteers and donors were given not a clue that their efforts--often truly heroic efforts--to elect John Kerry were a lost cause BEFORE the election even occurred.

And then he lit out, on election night, with votes still being counted, and was barely heard from again.

And that's him--Kerry. But there are a whole lot of other people responsible for sitting back and saying nothing about this fraudulent election system. Virtually the entire Democratic Party leadership, with few exceptions. WHAT can they have been thinking?

And so this is the core problem that we citizens and voters and Kerry supporters are faced with--not Kerry's policies on Iraq or the Patriot Act, not liberal or centrist and rightwing-ass-kissing ideas. Not that discussion. (Who are we? What do we stand for? What happened to the great party of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and the New Deal?) Not any of that.

This is more fundamental. Our very right to vote. Our very right to participate in choosing our representatives. We have Democrats, including Kerry, mouthing PLATITUDES about how we need "election reform" NOW, with the horse well out of the barn, and our right to vote smashed all to pieces. And what are we to think of these promises?

And what are we to expect from them--in a BushCon Congress?

I'm just very, very distrustful of any federal solution at this point. I think we have to get this done (getting rid of electronic voting machines--into Boston Harbor with the lot of them) LOCALLY, before they take that right away, too (state power over election rules.)

I think the federal government and the Congress are our enemy. A few good people in Congress. That's it. And even THEY (Conyers, Boxer) think that, somehow, BushCons are going to give us back our right to vote.

I don't think so. And I think they are a clear and present danger to ANY mechanisms we still have to fix this problem ourselves.

[Bill Bored]

153. P P, the Constituion guarantees

the states the right to run their elections. Now consider the fact that there are those who want to amend it to "guarantee" the right to vote. Their main argument is that this should NOT be left to the states. And they are on OUR side!

I think the first thing we all need to do, WHICH WE ALL AGREE ON, is verified voting. Without that the rest is all just a diversion.

States can always exceed whatever federal requirements are put in place. I see the federal ones as a way to ensure some _minimum_ level of accountability for failed states such as FL, who currently can't verify their vote at all.

What do you think?

[FogerRox]

157. I beg to differ--Kerry won by 10 to 11%--there 14 -15 million votes that

were scrubbed or moved.