Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen Too?

[Time for change]

I'm currently working with a publisher, Biting Duck Press, to publish a book (title as yet undetermined) on the corruption in our election system. We hope that it will help to make Americans more vigilant and concerned about the way our elections are run. I’ve drafted most of the book. I am currently intending to post large portions of it on DU, in the hope of stimulating discussion and obtaining useful feedback. I have previously posted a draft Chapter 1 of the book, concerning the stealing of the 2000 Presidential election. This post begins Chapter 2.


WAS THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION STOLEN TOO?

It was well known in the days prior to the 2004 Presidential election that a Bush victory was highly unlikely without Bush carrying both Ohio and Florida. As Election Day unfolded, spirits in the Kerry camp were running high, as it became evident that Ohio’s 20 electoral votes would determine the victor, and Kerry had a comfortable lead in the Ohio exit poll. Even CNN’s right wing hack, Robert Novak, acknowledged that it would be an uphill climb for Bush.

But as the results came in from Ohio, optimism in the Kerry camp began to fade, and by late evening their remaining hope was narrowed down to strongly Democratic Cuyahoga County, and especially Cleveland, where reports of large pre-election increases in new voter registration and exceptionally high voter turnout had circulated. But this remaining hope soon faded, as it became clear that the (official) voter turnout from Cleveland was in fact miserably low, and by noon the next day John Kerry conceded the election, which he officially lost by about 119 thousand votes.

In this chapter I will not discuss all of the evidence for a stolen 2004 election, as I will reserve most of that for later chapters that deal with election fraud by type of fraud. In this chapter I will discuss: 1) the record breaking discrepancy between the many exit polls that were performed as voters left the polls and the official vote count; 2) the widespread silence regarding that discrepancy by our national news media, and; 3) the corrupted vote recounts that were performed when citizens concerned about the integrity of the election challenged the results.


The Discrepancy Between the Exit Polls and the Official Vote Count (The “Red Shift”)

The exit polling on Election Day 2004 was performed by Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research, under contract to six major news media organizations. Warren Mitofsky, who led the project, had been performing exit polls for 35 years and was recognized as the leading expert on exit polling.

For ease of discussion I will refer to the discrepancy between the exit poll results and the official vote count as a “red shift”, the term that is commonly used to describe it. ‘Red’ refers to the fact that the TV networks colored states red that had voted for George Bush. The term ‘red shift’ refers to the fact that the exit polls predicted a Kerry win nationally and in most states, but when the official results were tallied, the vote count was found to be shifted nationally and in the vast majority of states towards Bush.

An analysis by Jonathan Simon and Ron Baiman examined the red shift. The final exit polls, posted at 12:23 a.m. on Wednesday morning, November 3, predicted Kerry with 50.8% of the national vote and Bush with 48.2% of the national vote – a difference of 2.6%. In marked contrast, the machines that were responsible for the official vote count registered a national vote of 50.9% for Bush and 48.1% for Kerry, a 2.8% Bush victory. The difference between the exit poll results and the official vote count – the red shift – was thus 5.4%. The statistical odds against such a large discrepancy occurring by chance were astronomical, approximating one in a million.

Steven Freeman, in his book, Was the 2004 Election Stolen?, reports an analysis of the red shift in the 11 states recognized as battleground states (or swing states) just prior to Election Day. His results showed red shifts in ten of those states, no blue shifts (shifts towards Kerry from the exit poll to the official vote count), and one state (Wisconsin) where there was no shift at all. These are the results:

State …… Exit poll result ….….… Official vote count ….. Red shift
NH………… Kerry by 10.8% ........ Kerry by 1.3% ....... 9.5%
OH………… Kerry by 4.2% ......... Bush by 2.5% ........ 6.7%
PA………… Kerry by 8.7% .......... Kerry by 2.2% …….. 6.5%
MN………… Kerry by 9.0% ......... Kerry by 3.5% …….. 5.5%
FL……….… Bush by 0.1% .......... Bush by 5.0% …….. 4.9%
NV……..… Kerry by 1.3% .......... Bush by 2.6% …….. 3.9%
NM……..… Kerry by 2.6% ......... Bush by 1.1% ……… 3.7%
CO……..… Bush by 1.8% .......... Bush by 5.2% ……… 3.4%
IA ………… Kerry by 1.3% ………… Bush by 0.9% ………. 2.2%
MI ……….. Kerry by 5.0% ………… Kerry by 3.4% …….. 1.6%
WI ……….. Kerry by 0.4% …….…. Kerry by 0.4% …….. 0.0%

Thus, if the official vote count had approximated the exit poll findings, Kerry would have won not only the national popular vote, but four additional states, including Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico (and maybe Florida). Ohio was the only one of those states (other than Florida) whose electoral votes would have swung the election to Kerry. Thus the vast majority of focus by those concerned about a stolen election was on Ohio.


Reasons for discrepancies between exit polls and official vote counts

When exit polls differ substantially from official election results, there can be only three reasons (or combination thereof):

1. Random error, or chance
2. Biased exit polls
3. Impaired election integrity

Let’s consider these possibilities one at a time:

1. The role of random error (or chance)
The first step in the assessment of any statistical discrepancy is to assess the role of chance in producing the discrepancy. This can be accomplished easily with statistical tests. As noted above, the likelihood of the discrepancy between the national exit polls and the official national results occurring by chance was calculated statistically by Jonathan Simon and Ron Baiman as being close to one in a million. http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf">US Count Votes (USCV) estimated that the likelihood of the discrepancy between the combined state exit polls and the official state results occurring by chance was about one in ten million.

2. The potential role of exit poll bias
It is unfortunate that the knee jerk response of the national news media was to assume that the only legitimate explanation for the red shift was that there was something wrong with the exit polls, rather than consider that there may have been a problem with the election itself. Mitofsky himself conducted a quick analysis and http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/EvaluationofEdisonMitofskyElectionSystem.pdf">produced a report that supported the news media assumptions. Paramount among the conclusions of the report were two statements: “Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment” AND “Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters”. The first of these statements implies that a problem with the election was not the reason for the red shift. The second statement implies that exit poll bias was the reason for the red shift. Unfortunately, both of these statements were stated as conclusions rather than as hypotheses, even though there was almost nothing in the report to back them up. I will discuss both of these hypotheses separately in a moment, but first let’s consider two basic types of exit poll bias.

Exit poll bias can be broken down into two components: Biased sampling of precincts AND bias within precincts – referred to as “within precinct error” (WPE). The former can be easily tested, and the latter cannot be easily tested (and many question whether or not it can be accurately tested at all). Mitofsky tested bias due to sampling of precincts and concluded that this bias actually favored Bush. Therefore, the hypothesis that the exit poll bias (in favor of Kerry) might explain the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official election results becomes less likely, since all of this bias must be concentrated within precincts (WPE), and this bias must account for not only the discrepancy between the poll results and the official election results, but also it must cancel out the bias in the opposite direction due to sampling of precincts, which works in Bush’s favor.

So with that in mind, let’s consider the Mitofsky statement that “Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment”. What was this statement based on? The report states:

Our analysis of the difference between the vote count and the exit poll at each polling location in our sample has found no systematic differences for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment….

This is the sum of the report’s evidence for the absence of election fraud.

But both touch screen and optical scan machines count the votes by computer. And so do all other methods of vote tabulation except for the hand counting of paper ballots. Deep in the report, but not in the executive summary, is the average WPE data by type of voting equipment:

Type of voting …....WPE – i.e. within precinct “error”
Paper ballot: ………. -2.2
Mechanical: ………. -10.6
Touch screen: ………-7.1
Punch cards: ………. -6.6
Optical scan: ………..-6.1

Note that the magnitude of the negative WPE (i.e. within precinct error, with the negative sign meaning that the official vote favored Bush compared to the exit poll results) is considerably less in precincts where paper ballots were used, compared to any other method. How does the finding of a much smaller WPE (i.e. less negative) for precincts with paper ballots than for precincts using machines to count the vote support the conclusion that “Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment”?

Next let’s consider the statement in Mitofsky’s report that “Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters”. This is commonly known as the “reluctant Bush voter hypothesis”. If the reluctant Bush voter hypothesis was valid, where would you expect the lowest voter response rates to be? One would think that the lowest voter response rates would be most likely to occur in precincts that leaned heavily to Bush – since the hypothesis postulates that the reason for the biased polls (producing the red shift) is reluctance of Bush voters to participate in these polls. However, when USCV analyzed the data presented in the Mitofsky report, they found exactly the opposite: Precincts with the highest percentage of Bush voters had the highest, not the lowest response rate. This must certainly strongly count against the reluctant Bush voter hypothesis. Yet that hypothesis was put forward in the Mitofsky report and thus in the national news media as the primary explanation for the difference between the exit poll results and the official vote count (i.e. the red shift).

But don’t yet give up hope on the reluctant Bush voter hypothesis. It can be (and was) revised to say that, although Bush voters in general were more reluctant to participate in the polls than Kerry voters, this did not apply to precincts where there were a very high percentage of Bush voters, because in those precincts the Bush voters would perhaps feel more comfortable participating in a poll.

This revised hypothesis can also be tested. If the hypothesis applied only to precincts without a heavy preponderance of Bush voters, then one would expect that those precincts would be where the highest WPE would be found. But in fact, by Mitofsky’s own data, precisely the opposite is the case: The average WPE is highest, not lowest, in precincts where there were a very high percent of Bush voters (80% or more). This too must count as further strong evidence against the reluctant Bush voter hypothesis.

So where did Mitofsky come up with the idea of the reluctant Bush voter? This is it:

It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons that, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters…. We can identify some factors that appear to have contributed, even in a small way, to the discrepancy. These include:

 Distance restrictions imposed upon our interviewers by election officials …
 Weather conditions which lowered completion rates at certain polling locations
 Multiple precincts voting in the same location as the precinct in our sample
 Interviewer characteristics such as age
 Polling locations with a large number of total voters where a smaller proportion of voters were asked to fill out questionnaires (i.e. participate in the poll)

So how do all these factors that contributed to a high discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results (i.e. red shift) support the contention that Bush voters were less likely to participate in the exit polls than Kerry voters? Mitofsky doesn’t explain this in his report. As I noted above, the only analyses that looked directly at the reluctant Bush voter hypothesis provided strong evidence against it. Nor does the Mitofsky report contain any quantitative assessment of the extent to which he believes that the above factors caused exit poll bias.

3. The potential role of election fraud
What about the role of election fraud. Mitofsky barely discusses that possibility except to say that their data doesn’t support that possibility, and to offer as evidence for that statement the fact that he found “no systematic differences for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment”. The fact that there was a great difference between precincts using paper ballots and those using machines to count their vote is not mentioned in their report at all, except that it appears in the table that I reproduced above.

Direct evidence of various kinds of election fraud will be discussed in subsequent chapters. In this chapter I will simply mention a couple lines of evidence that were immediately apparent from looking at available data.

If the 2004 Presidential election was fraudulent, one would expect more fraud to have occurred in those states where there was a reasonable chance of switching their electoral votes from Kerry to Bush (i.e., the swing – or battleground – states). Of the 11 main swing states (OH, FL, PA, WI, MN, NM, IA, NV, NH, MI, CO), according to Mitofsky, in five of them there was a discrepancy between the exit polls and the official election results that were outside of the margin of error (I’m defining outside of the margin of error as less than a 5% probability of occurring by chance). These five swing states included Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. Of the remaining 39 states, only 8 were outside of the margin of error (In all 13 states that were outside of the margin of error, the exit polls favored Kerry, compared to the official election results). I believe that this finding supports the suggestion of election fraud.

Secondly, Mitofsky acknowledges in his executive summary that the “exit poll error” was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which he has data (going back to 1988). It seems to me that concurrence in time of the record-breaking discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote (red shift) with a greater ability than ever to use secret software codes to fix elections is not a coincidence. Rather, that concurrence suggests election fraud as a primary explanation for the discrepancy.

4. Summary of immediately apparent reasons for the great red shift of 2004
In summary, based on information and data that was readily available following the 2004 election, the following can be said about the reasons for the red shift (exit polls that suggested that Kerry won the presidency, in the face of an official victory for Bush).

Random error (chance) is easily ruled out through routine statistical tests as an explanation for the red shift.

Exit poll bias cannot be completely ruled out. However, the following can be said against the likelihood that exit poll bias accounts for the discrepancies between the official election results and the exit polls:

An analysis of potential bias from the choosing of precincts to participate in the exit polls shows no red shift at all. In fact, it shows a slight blue shift.

Although the Mitofsky report proposes that Bush voters were less likely than Kerry voters to participate in the exit polling, it provides no direct evidence for that. Other groups, which have tested that hypothesis directly, have found that the data provides evidence against that hypothesis rather than in favor of it.

The following can be said in favor of election fraud as an explanation for the red shift.

According to Mitofsky’s own report, the red shift was outside of the margin of error in 5 of the 11 crucial swing states (OH, FL, PA, NH, MN) and in only 8 of the other 39 states. That is consistent with the likelihood that if election fraud were committed in the 2004 presidential election it would be most likely to be committed in states where it really mattered – the swing states.

The concurrence of by far the largest exit poll discrepancy (2004) demonstrated in any year since Edison-Mitofsky began conducting exit polls with the greatest use of machine voting suggests that voting machines played a role in producing the red shift (i.e. that the official election results did not fully measure the intent of the voters.)

The fact that precincts that used paper ballots (rather than methods in which the votes were counted by machines) demonstrated by far the smallest red shifts lends further support to the idea that voting machines played a role in producing the red shift.

There is much more evidence than this, but much of that will be covered in later chapters.


The next post in this series will consider the widespread silence of our corporate owned news media on this issue, and asks why, since the United States government officially condones the use of exit polls to identify election fraud in other countries, was there such deafening silence in this country when the winner of the official vote was predicted by the exit polls to be the loser.

[rosesaylavee]

1. I thought there was a court case in Ohio

that pretty much concurred that vote tampering was prevalent in key counties and votes were not counted or thrown our or people were just turned away and not allowed to vote. I don't have a link or a name but the secretary of state was heavily involved with all that.

And there were long lines of people in St. Louis who were not allowed to vote either tho I think Missouri went Blue that year.

[No Elephants]

3. I have a friend who lives in St. Louis who was an eyewitness to that vote caging.

He told me about it right after the election. "Sickening" was his word.

It was the first Presidential election in which he was old enough to vote, too. Welcome to participatory democracy in America.

He voted Green, though.

[Time for change]

6. Are you talking about the case concerning the Cleveland recount?

There was tons of fraud in the 2004 Ohio election (and elsewhere), but the only one in Ohio that resulted in prosecution as far as I know was the case associated with the Cleveland recount. At Three election workers faced criminal charges for that, and at least two of them were convicted:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2379
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2362

I intend to discuss this and other cases of fraud in Ohio in later posts.

Yes, Secretary Blackwell was heavily involved in all this. As far as I'm concerned he should be facing the rest of his life in prison for what he did.

The purging of voters from the voter lists, hundreds of thousands, was probably the main reason that Ohio went for Bush.

Missouri went for Bush in 2004 by a much larger margin than Ohio.

[rosesaylavee]

2. The Brad Blog

would be a source to review. He was pretty much on top of this for the past 12 years.

http://www.bradblog.com/

[No Elephants]

5. Palast, too, but I'm guessing someone as thorough and detailed as Time for Change

is very familiar with both of them.

Never hurts to mention a good lead, though, just in case.

[Time for change]

7. Yes, I use his material frequently in the book

Several years ago I communicated with him about the purging of hundreds of thousands of voters in Ohio in 04. He was working on obtaining definitive proof of a collaboration between Kenneth Blackwell and Diebold (the company that electronically managed the voter rolls in several Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga, in 2004). But I never found out what happened with that. I've tried to reach him to discuss, but I haven't been able to get hold of him so far.

[No Elephants]

4. A former DUer used to insist that every election since voting machines came into use

has been rigged.

I don't know about that, but I think primaries have been rigged as well, whether at the ballot box or in other ways.

I have noticed a language shift, from Democrats and Republicans to conservatives and liberals. And that makes some sense because conservatives are in both parties, though the Republicans pretty much pulverized lliberal Republicans.

Point is, the letter in parentheses after the name is certainly not all that matters anymore. Hence, a donation from Koch, founder of the Tea Party, to the early DLC.

Anyhoo, I believe primaries have been rigged against the less conservative members of both Parties.

You can see the cringing from liberals by both Parties in one of Sanders' last elections as Mayor. He just kept winning, so the Republicans and Democrats got together and both Parties together sponsored a single candidate to defeat Sanders. Sanders won anyway.

So much for the blab that voters just won't elect a liberal. More like the Parties just can't stand for a liberal to get elected.

P.S. To Time for Change: how about a lovely human interest story about the 2004 election: James Carville calling his wife as she sat in Cheney's office with Woodward to warn, er, inform her that kerry was going to contest.

They joined hands for lieberman, too.

After Joe lost the primary, the Democrats stopped campaigning against Lamont, but they did not back him, either. And the Republicans acted as though their own nominee did not exist. And, reportedly, Lamont was not even that liberal.

[Time for change]

8. Good points

I don't doubt that you are right that a lot of primaries have been rigged, but I haven't studied that issue much, so there's not much I can say on the topic.

Yes, the Democratic Party is moving consistently to the right. I guess that attributable to the increasing influence of money in politics and the associated control of our communications media by wealthy right wing moguls. Democrats are afraid to exhibit leftist tendencies because they know that will make them targets.

The only solution is to get money out of politics and win back control of our communications media (The Internet has ameliorated that effect quite a bit I think). Anyhow, maybe I'll re-register as an independent - as a show of protest.

[No Elephants]

10. I think Democrats may well believe in a lot of what they'e been doing these days.

DLC and its various offshots and siblings, like Progressive Policy Institution, Third Way, No Labels, etc. have been pushing the center right message for decades.

I don't know of a liberal think tank, do you?

[Time for change]

11. Perhaps a liberal think tank is an oxymoron

Liberals are open minded -- by definition. When they study and report on an issue they don't generally pre-plan their conclusions. So maybe liberal think tanks just call themselves think tanks.

I receive a few conservative electronic news updates (because I'm interested in knowing what they're up to). They unashamedly call what they produce "conservative news", which means news heavily slanted to fit their ideology for pre-planned uses. They're proud of it. I don't ever recall receiving something called "liberal news".

[No Elephants]

12. I don't know if I agree that "liberal think tank" is an oxymoron.

IMO, conservative think tank is more of an oxymoron.

Liberals seem to me to be more than well-qualified, both to think and to formulate policies.

Just for fun:

A think tank (or policy institute) is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology issues and in the creative and cultural field. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax exempt status. Other think tanks are funded by governments, advocacy groups, or businesses, or derive revenue from consulting or research work related to their projects.<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank

The wiki article says that F.A.I.R. is a liberal organization. i don't know if I agree with that premise. It goes on to say that an F.A.I.R. report identified 47% of think tanks as centrist, 16% as liberal and the rest as conservative.

I could not find that alleged report by F.A.I.R. However, I did find a F.A.I.R. report on the most QUOTED think tanks, which is an entirely different thing. And, in that report, F.A.I.R. identified Center for American Progress as liberal, when a glance at CAP site tells me it is centrist, with a capital CENTRIST.

[No Elephants]

13. For years, the paradigm was Democrat vs. Republican. And, for years, that worked for many ordinary

Joes and Josies.

Then, circa 1980-81, at least two things happened. (1) Ronald Reagan captured the electoral vote, paving the way for the long lurking conservative wing of the Democratic party--or at least those who wanted the electoral votes of conservative states--finally to take over the party; and (2) the DNC asked Democrats in D.C. to see if they could find a way to get some of the lobbyist money the Republicans always got, starting a chain of events that caused exponential growth of D.C. and state house lobbyists.

So, initially, the paradigm shifted to liberal vs. conservative and then to what has been my sig line here since about 2008. (My sig line originally said 90% and still does because I did not want my guesstimate to be wild. If Boston Occupy, which coined the 99% slogan had come before my sig line, my sig line might say 99%. And that is something on which neither major Party, nor the rich that donate to both, wants Americans to focus. Evidence of that is the original advice given by this administration's Homeland Security on that 18 mayor (most or all Democratic) conference call, which manifested in head banging.

In any event, the old Democratic v. Republican paradigm no longer works for the people. Perhaps liberal v. centrist v. conservative works somewhat better. But, ultimately, it is really about the 99% v the 1%.

I think speaking only of Republicans stealing elections from Democrats is part of the oldest of the three paradigms. Without any mention of at least the possibility that more shenanigans than that go on, I think there's a problem. Republicans and Democrats do join hands to defeat people in a general election, sometimes people of their own party and sometimes third parties

And Repubicans and Democrats also join hands to make things hard for third parties in other ways, such as making it hard to get on the ballot and to get on the stage for debates.

And, each party does pretty much pre-pick candidates. The presence of Rahm (of fucking liberal retard infamy) on the 2006 Congressional committee pretty much excluded the possibiity that any new person would run who was not a DLC type. I am sure there are many such measures.

And, btw, these same forces advocate for a unitary Executive, either openly or by excusing every presidential power grab. it's easier to control one person with a huge megaphone, executive order power and veto power than it is to control every member of a federal or state legislature.

Maybe you cannot say anything specific about any of that, but maybe you can mention them as some of the topics that are related to possible theft of past elections and potential for theft of future elections that may also merit research and study?



BTW: There are some aspects of a Harry Reid/Obama story that AFAIK, I was the only one to question or at least maybe the first one. Remember that story in which Reid seemed to be trying awkwardly to "sell" Obama to a bunch of Democrats by noting Obama was things like clean, articulate, light skinned, and had no Negro dialect, etc.? (Well, not unless Obama thinks affecting a dialect might be useful, but that is another issue entirely.)

At the time, almost everyone focused on whether Reid's comments were racist and, if racist, was it okay anyway (as Obama said, in the ground that Reid was only trying to help him. I guess trying to help Obama makes racism okay?)

Anyway, I tried fairly hard to find out when Reid was making those comments and to what bunch of Democrats he was making them and exactly how Reid was trying to help Obama . It certainly was not after the primary--when super delegates get to have the final say--because, as far as anyone knew, Obama was the clear nominee of both Democratic voters and super delegates by then, even though Hillary seemed to have the super delegates almost locked up from the jump and was light years ahead of Obama at the outset.

So, when and why did Reid sell Obama to Reid's fellow Democratic heavy hitters? Was it before the primary started? When Hillary was way ahead of Obama? When Hillary and Obama were neck and neck?

I think that would be interesting to know, perhaps more interesting than whether Reid's remarks were racist or not, for clearly, they were racist and/or aimed at persuading racists. However, I could not find those kinds of details in any news story about those remarks. Every one in and out of the media seemed focused solely on the shiniest object in the story.

[Time for change]

14. Those are some very good points that you make here

I certainly agree with you that the paradigm of Democrat vs. Republican is outdated (though you'd never know it listening to the corporate news media), and that the 99% vs. the 1% is a more accurate one. Also, that there are many Democrats who are more on the side of the 1%, and few who are clearly on our side.

Do you think that my book comes across as implying that only Republicans rig elections? I do think it's fair to say that the 1% was very heavily on the side of the Republican presidential nominee in 2000 and 2004, but I didn't mean to imply that only Republicans rig elections.

Obama is kind of a mystery. I very recently came across a reference to a book by Wayne Madsen, titled something like "The Grooming of Obama for the presidency by the CIA". I don't have any trouble believing that, and Wayne Madsen is a reputable reporter.

[No Elephants]

15. I am not sure I can answer your question as I have not read the whole book (though i have been

loving the installments).

I think if the only elections you are going to refer to as having been stolen are the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections and you do not say anything at all about a stolen election (or primary), then yhr nook msy indeed come across as being about two Presidential elections that Republicans probably stole.

The paradigm of Democrats has been that only the Republican party is corrupt. Sure, you may have an odd Democratic here or there who is corrupt. After all, nothing is perfect, even Democrats.. But, as a party, insitituionally, only the Republican party is corrupt. (And the Repubican Supreme Court they rode in on.)

And I still believe that to an extent.

Also, if those are the only elections you discuss, you risk having it seem as though those are the only stolen elections. As Bradblog has chroniced, there have been many instances of things like finding a trunkful of ballots in some election official's car and the like.

Here is the thing: I believe/suspect that Kerry wanted to be President since JFK. Clearly, his wife wanted him to be President. Between him and his wife, he may be the richest person in Congress. Exactly why did he not fight?

I don't know the answer, but I don't buy that it was fear of turning off voters. IMO, Nothing turns off voters more than the idea that elections might be crooked.

[No Elephants]

16. P.S. You'd never know the original paradigm is almost irrelevant listening, not only

to media, but to most Americans and most professional politicians.

[rosesaylavee]

9. Well, let us know when you get it published.

I would certainly be interested in reading that one.