Interesting take in new article by Joe Bageant

[Wiley50]

But for now, for liberals, it's all about the 2008 elections. There weren’t even any 2004 elections and when 2008 rolls around, there ain't gonna be no 2008 elections. Just the ritual illusion of one. Liberals still have not figured that out. They woke up after the train was gone and now stand at the wrong station waiting for the next one, which will never arrive. They continue to “work within the system.” They are going to beat a system rigged against them, and this is how they plan to do it: by getting out all those untapped liberal voters who are supposed to be out there waiting to make a difference! Wow! I hope they are right, I really do. Because what I see here in the heartland is a helluva lot more angry conservatives left to be registered. Scads of ‘em.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x96539

[Cha]

1. Oy! Someone speaking truth the

power..not pussyfootin' around the bush.

[Democrat Dragon]

2. kick!

he has a point, that's why the current Republicans should be smeared.

[aquart]

3. Well, a lot more angry SOMETHING.

But as long as this guy refers to liberals as "they," I'll wait for someone else's opinion, because this is a self-proclaimed outsider.

[m.standridge]

4. well, or you could use another term, like "backstabbers"

or "competing fellow Democrats" or "delusional Hillary backers" or "delusional Edwards backers", etc. People who think they're immune to rigged elections.
No one is immune to rigged elections. A rigged election is a non-election.
What I keep flashing back to, is how mucb it takes for the Democrats to win a Presidential election. Look what stupendous turmoil has to occur:
1976: Watergate. A GOP President had been caught authorizing a burglary on taxpayer time.
1992: H. Ross Perot ran a conservative third party, spending into the millions of dollars and using probably thousands of people around the country.
1996: even with incumbency, it was close: Perot was still a factor.

Even third parties pulling conservative votes off the GOP are not guarantor of Democratic Party success (as witness 1968).

In 1988, Dukakis was probably prime to win in the Electoral College only (a feat Kerry may have accomplished). But Bentsen conceded for him, before the polls had closed in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois (for those still in line), western Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, California --and Texas. Then you had Maryland, where it was so hair close it's relatively doubtful a recount wouldn't have turned it around.

In 2000, Gore didn't press the issue of whether a Senator would back the Congressional challenge after he failed in the Courts.
In 2004, did Edwards give Kerry "just one more day"? Or, was the problem that Kerry just gave up too soon?
But, probably, in either case, the real problem was that the GOP cheated. Just as they cheated in 1984 and 1988 to carry New Jersey (by hiring off-duty police officers to intimidate voters, as reported by Ed Baumeister, and to pay "walking around money" to African-American ministers to not deliver voters to the booths, as admitted to by Ed Rollins), Nevada (a quick 80,000 votes appears in Reagan's totals, for exmaple, in 1984 there--contrast the vote totals in "Nevada" in the _World Almanac_ for 1987, page 275 versus page 291), and Pennsylvania in 1988.
So--was Clinton superman? Was Carter? Or did they have tons and tons of help and special circumstances. In just an ordinary, run of the mill election, it's almost impossible to beat the GOP, because, quite simply, they cheat.
How did Lincoln get re-elected? Martial law!
How did Harding get elected? Burned up the 1920 census, which his crony Herbert Hoover had just completed!
In between:
Grant--Reconstruction, South not allowed to vote. Alleged "confederates" around the country banned from voting.
Hayes--remember him?
Garfield--"Boatman Jim" who carried Indiana, a "white" state, by having people vote in both Indiana and Ohio.
1884--Remarkable feat: "gold" Democrats pull enough votes off a disgruntled group of ultra-conservatives in the GOP (shades of H. Ross Perot!) to put Cleveland in.
1888--Harrison. Electoral College.
1892--Cleveland's back
1896-1912--One Republican after another, until Woodrow Wilson wins in 1912, due to a three-party split based on a GOP rift.
1916--Wilson gets re-elected. He'd kept us out of war.
1920-32--One Republican after another, Census, disappeared.
1932-44: FDR. A major Depression, catastrophe, war.
1948--The amazing Harry S. Truman, with help from a third party. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN (HST had 'em take a photo, to prove it'd actually been said).
1952-60: NATO head Eisenhower, with special powers to surveil under anti-Communist McCarran Security Act, gets elected and re-elected.
1960-4: JFK--then he's dead; LBJ--running on JFK's memory, betrays much he stood for in Vietnam.
1968-72: Nixon, destroying Teddy (E. Howard Hunt was photographed at Martha's Vinyard; the sign was removed), shooting MLK(?), shooting Wallace(?); ordering a burglary. Arrested, in effect.
1976-80: Carter, a one-term President, though the GOP did lose control of all three branches--almost: they kept the Court.
1980-92: Reagan and Bush. October Surprise. Iran-Contra. Debate-gate. Calling the election before the polls have opened, much less closed. Or having it called for them, by southern Democratic vp.
1992-6: Clinton, once again with help from a third party.
Is that not the pattern? Is that not the key? A third party? Or some extraordinary circumstance? What could it be this time, that could overcome rigged computers? Only in the blue states do the Democrats have a chance at honest elections. Maybe in the white states. Otherwise, there has to be something to cause some confusion, some consternation--a third party. Or maybe...what? An impeachment? How, with them in control of all three branches now?

[Democrat Dragon]

5. How about

A third party AND an October suprise?

[Wiley50]

6. kick