A Day of Chicken-CountingBy William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 06 September 2006
The Labor Day weekend is traditionally considered the starting gun for Congressional midterm races. The work to gain or hold seats has been going on for months, of course, but Labor Day is when everyone is supposed to start paying attention. Only 63 days remain until the votes are cast. Remember, remember the seventh of November.
Anyone reading the newspapers over this past weekend, however, may have been left with the inescapable sense that the outcome of these midterms is a fait accompli. The printing press punditry appears to have decided that the GOP is doomed, that the Democrats will at minimum regain control of the House of Representatives, if not the entire Congress. One could not turn around on Monday without bumping into an article predicting blood on the moon for the Republican Party.
The New York Times's article was titled "G.O.P. Seen to Be in Peril of Losing House," and read, "After a year of political turmoil, Republicans enter the fall campaign with their control of the House in serious jeopardy, the possibility of major losses in the Senate, and a national mood so unsettled that districts once considered safely Republican are now competitive, analysts and strategists in both parties say."
The Washington Post's headline was "More GOP Districts Counted as Vulnerable," and the article beneath read, "Facing the most difficult political environment since they took control of Congress in 1994, Republicans begin the final two months of the midterm campaign in growing danger of losing the House while fighting to preserve at best a slim majority in the Senate, according to strategists and officials in both parties. Over the summer, the political battlefield has expanded well beyond the roughly 20 GOP House seats originally thought to be vulnerable. Now some Republicans concede there may be almost twice as many districts from which Democrats could wrest the 15 additional seats they need to take control."
(snip)
So the pundits have decided the GOP is in deep trouble, and the numbers do seem to bear this out, but anyone who thinks these elections are a done deal should have their head examined by a whole team of specialists.
For starters, the GOP base is the single most motivated voting bloc in the country; if it starts raining live jaguars on November 7th, that base will still come out and vote. Midterm election turnout is always low, and is always a battle between the bases of the two main parties. The Democratic base is fired up, to be sure, but will have to eat its collective Wheaties to match the passion of the folks on the other side come voting time. The GOP's get-out-the-vote machine is far more efficient and effective than that of the Democrats, and the RNC has more money to throw into tight races.
And then, of course, there are the variables.
Recall, if you will, the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. John Kerry was slated to make his acceptance speech on the evening of July 29th. Hours before he took the podium, the White House made a dramatic announcement: a major terrorist had been captured in Pakistan.
"The timing of this announcement," wrote The New Republic magazine, "should be of particular interest to readers of The New Republic. Earlier this month, John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman, and Massoud Ansari broke the story of how the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistani officials to apprehend high-value targets (HVTs) in time for the November elections - and in particular, to coincide with the Democratic National Convention. Although the capture took place in central Pakistan 'a few days back,' the announcement came just hours before John Kerry will give his acceptance speech in Boston."
Hm. Would the White House play politics with American terrorism fears in order to disrupt the midterm elections? Perish the thought.
Beyond that, sadly, are serious questions about the votes themselves.
Josef Stalin once famously remarked, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything," and it is as true today as when he uttered it. Today, votes cast on electronic machines owned by companies like Diebold become the private property of whoever manufactured the equipment. Once a vote enters the software, it no longer belongs to the citizen who cast it. All too often, there is no paper trail after an election to verify the results.
(snip)
According to Diebold's web site, there are more than 130,000 of their electronic voting machines deployed across the United States. They are used in Iowa, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, Indiana and elsewhere. Many of the states with these machines have elections in November that will centrally determine whether the GOP can maintain its majority in congress. At this point, there is absolutely no reason to believe the counting of the votes in these states will be done with any kind of accuracy.
The pundits can prognosticate all they want about looming electoral catastrophe for the GOP. Anyone who counts these chickens before they hatch is a fool.
More:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090606A.shtml
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
