Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Pure
unadulterated
hogwash


You don't say...

Maybe I'm not following you here, but what exactly are you calling hogwash?

The links you provided (several stories from conservative websites saying that conservatives were accusing Wisconsin Democrats of voter fraud) seem to match up exactly with the last statement that you quoted:

The developments in Waukesha were greeted with immense skepticism by Kloppenburg backers, and rightly so. Had the situation been reversed, with a big stack of Kloppenburg votes suddenly turning up in a traditionally Democratic county such as Dane or Milwaukee, there would have been loud and sustained objections.

This is a consistent issue throughout every one of Wisconsin's most hard-lined counties. There's a certain kind of "but that side did this four years ago, so they're scum!" mentality that mixes with a bunch of "us vs. them" whininess that essentially forms the border between the dickwad conservative Waukesha county and the whiny liberal Milwaukee. Every single thing about the Milwaukee metro area is so ****ing partisan and segregated that it makes me sick sometimes.

Thank God for the Packers, Brewers and beer, because I'm pretty sure we'd have riots without them.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Maybe I'm not following you here, but what exactly are you calling hogwash?

The links you provided (several stories from conservative websites saying that conservatives were accusing Wisconsin Democrats of voter fraud) seem to match up exactly with the last statement that you quoted:



This is a consistent issue throughout every one of Wisconsin's most hard-lined counties. There's a certain kind of "but that side did this four years ago, so they're scum!" mentality that mixes with a bunch of "us vs. them" whininess that essentially forms the border between the dickwad conservative Waukesha county and the whiny liberal Milwaukee. Every single thing about the Milwaukee metro area is so ****ing partisan and segregated that it makes me sick sometimes.

Thank God for the Packers, Brewers and beer, because I'm pretty sure we'd have riots without them.

Everytime I read these stories about election fraud (some of which are undoubtedly true) I'm reminded of the meeting between JFK and Nixon after their election. Amazingly, they were pretty good friends, having come into the Congress the same year. Kennedy asked Nixon "what're we going to do?" Nixon replied that what they were going to do was go back to Washington and Kennedy was going to take the oath. No recount. No tying up the nation in a bitter partisan fight for weeks or months. No diminution of the presidency.

Those trying to find parallels between the Wisconsin Supreme Court vote and what happened in Washington state and Minnesota are simply wrong. In Washington, after the ballots had been couinted and the results certified, a box of uncounted ballots was "found" in King county which gave Christine Gregoire her margin of victory. In Minnesota, it turns out an election official carried around some uncounted ballots in the trunk of her car for days. What plausible explantation can there be for that? In Winsonsin, it was not a matter of ballots being "found." They had been counted at the precincts and the results forwarded to the county clerk who failed to enter the totals for Brookfield on the feed sent to the AP. Like somebody said today, if misleading AP was a crime, most of our politicians would be doing life. And a simple canvass would reveal both the discrepancy and the actual vote totals for the candidates (which is, in fact, what happened). As a "plot" to "steal an election," this is pretty weak stuff because it would have been discovered eventually under any circumstances. The partisan reaction, however, is entirely predictable. Especially since Ms. Kloppenburg arrogantly proclaimed herself the winner with only a 204 margin out of 1.5 million cast. I'd be just the tiniest bit equivocal under those circumstances, wouldn't you?

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Maybe I'm not following you here, but what exactly are you calling hogwash?

Maybe the sarcasm doesn't translate well online...

The idea that if the shoe were on the other foot, Republicans would just accept defeat and go quietly into that good night. There were cries of "voter fraud" before the votes were even counted. Talking heads even suggested Democrats might "find" Kloppenburg votes. Isn't that exactly what happened, except the votes they "found" were for Prosser? And just enough to avoid a recount? And "found" by a clerk who used to work for Prosser, who has admitted to actual election fraud in the past, who broke several election laws (like keeping the election results on her personal PC in her house). If it were a Democratic county we'd never hear the end of the allegations. But we've already heard a whole screed from WWM that anyone who has the audacity to question these results is a Michael Moore loony.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) _ Municipal clerks are expecting to work late for this general election because of the huge turnout for early voting.

Absentee ballots are taken to the polls in the district where the voter lives and can be counted as soon as the polls open.

But, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus says she doesn't expect much of a lull at the polls, so the early votes will have to be counted after the election booths close at 8 p.m.

Nickolaus says people in Waukesha County take their voting rights very seriously, with 96 percent turnout for the last presidential election.

Link

96% turnout? Wow, that's really good voter participation! But this is even better:

WAUKESHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN
NOVEMBER 7, 2006
PRECINCTS COUNTED (OF 211). . . . . 210 99.53
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL . . . . . 0
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL. . . . . . . 156,804

GOVERNOR/LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
DOYLE/LAWTON (DEM) . . . . . . . 61,401 34.86
GREEN/HUNDERTMARK (REP). . . . . 112,242 63.73
EISMAN/TODD (WGR). . . . . . . . 2,320 1.32
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 149 .08

ATTORNEY GENERAL
KATHLEEN FALK (DEM) . . . . . . . 55,608 31.95
J.B. VAN HOLLEN (REP) . . . . . . 118,342 67.99
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 97 .06

SECRETARY OF STATE
DOUG LA FOLLETTE (DEM) . . . . . . 68,302 40.07
SANDY SULLIVAN (REP). . . . . . . 96,199 56.44
MICHAEL LAFOREST (WGR) . . . . . . 5,886 3.45
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 53 .03

link

Neat trick that the vote totals add up to over 170,000 when total votes cast was 156,000. But I'm sure that's typical for a midterm election.

Computer monitors at the county clerk's office late Tuesday briefly showed Lufter winning her race, as county officials scrambled to correct flawed returns from the City of Waukesha.
Final results later showed Lufter losing to fellow Republican Bill Kramer by a significant margin.
County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said some returns from the City of Waukesha inexplicably had data recorded in the wrong column, which momentarily skewed results.
Nickolaus and her staff resorted to correcting the city's results manually a process that continued until 1 a.m., with staffers poring over a blizzard of numbers on computerized printouts.
"The best thing to do is go back to paper," Nickolaus said of the tedious process. "And that's exactly what we did."

Link

Might I humbly suggest that it might be time for Waukesha County to get a new clerk.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Just when I was thinking the Donald had a decent shot at the presidency, he shot himself in the foot. He's saying that if he doesn't get the nomination for the GOP he may run as an independent. Not savvy. Also, 100% chance he would derail the GOPs shot at the white house.

 

[bronconick]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

No county in America gets 96% turnout. Not possible. Maybe if there were 25 people in the county.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

No county in America gets 96% turnout. Not possible. Maybe if there were 25 people in the county.

Isn't there a township in New Hampshire that gets 100% turnout every Presidential election since they vote at midnight and all 30 or so people just show up at the town hall to do so?

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Isn't there a township in New Hampshire that gets 100% turnout every Presidential election since they vote at midnight and all 30 or so people just show up at the town hall to do so?

Dixville Notch.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Just when I was thinking the Donald had a decent shot at the presidency, he shot himself in the foot. He's saying that if he doesn't get the nomination for the GOP he may run as an independent. Not savvy. Also, 100% chance he would derail the GOPs shot at the white house.

The only votes he could possibly get would be from zombie-Rs (say, 28% of the electorate). The moment he lost the R he would drop to under 1% of the vote. He'd do worse than the Libertarian Party.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

The late Dennis Wolfberg used to do a routine praising Alabama's "statewide IQ reduction program."

Everybody around here says "that's country stupid" when someone does something that's both 100% brainless and also a little endearing. Turn over your open beer while looking at your watch? That's country stupid.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

The only votes he could possibly get would be from zombie-Rs (say, 28% of the electorate). The moment he lost the R he would drop to under 1% of the vote. He'd do worse than the Libertarian Party.

He's appealing to the Jesse Ventura crowd.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

The only votes he could possibly get would be from zombie-Rs (say, 28% of the electorate). The moment he lost the R he would drop to under 1% of the vote. He'd do worse than the Libertarian Party.

Not so sure about that. The guy obviously has a populist appeal (maybe the kind of guy you don't want playing for the opponent). Frankly Trump is probably a better known person than most famous people...plus he's obviously knowledgeable about business and a decisionmaker. He's probably as well known in the US as Obama. And in terms of technical leadership, he should be up there with the best of the GOP...Romney, Gingrich and better by far than the second tier Palin, Bachmann, Paul. Not my guy, but I say if he gets momentum in the primaries...watch out.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Not so sure about that. The guy obviously has a populist appeal (maybe the kind of guy you don't want playing for the opponent). Frankly Trump is probably a better known person than most famous people...plus he's obviously knowledgeable about business and a decisionmaker. He's probably as well known in the US as Obama. And in terms of technical leadership, he should be up there with the best of the GOP...Romney, Gingrich and better by far than the second tier Palin, Bachmann, Paul. Not my guy, but I say if he gets momentum in the primaries...watch out.

I'd generally agree. In a field with no obvious choice, someone like Trump, who has a lot of name recognition, could get some early momentum and run with the thing. I think it's relatively unlikely, but the guy has a bit of charisma if you don't look too closely, which much of the American populace doesn't. He's an interesting alternative to the rest of the career politicians in the field and can talk some business. That could be a mix that gets some traction. I'm not a big fan of his, as he's a bit of a loudmouth and rather obnoxious, but I agree that it would be foolish to write him off at this point. Look last election, where Obama wasn't even well known nationally, and not that long later was the Dem candidate. It would certainly make for some interesting debates, between Obama and Trump, if Trump were to get the nomination.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Not so sure about that. The guy obviously has a populist appeal (maybe the kind of guy you don't want playing for the opponent). Frankly Trump is probably a better known person than most famous people...plus he's obviously knowledgeable about business and a decisionmaker. He's probably as well known in the US as Obama. And in terms of technical leadership, he should be up there with the best of the GOP...Romney, Gingrich and better by far than the second tier Palin, Bachmann, Paul. Not my guy, but I say if he gets momentum in the primaries...watch out.

What he has in the "he's a business guy" department he'll trade back the moment he says something stupid, which will likely be about 5 minutes from now.

I'm inclined to believe Trump has no serious political ambitions and is simply riffing off the populist brand in order to launch his next financial venture. He's Mountain Dew marketing to teenagers, where the teenagers are the GOP base. That actually makes his exploding neon stupidity remarks (birtherism, etc) more explicable -- "there is no such thing as bad publicity."

 

[MattS]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

While I don't think Trump is a serious candidate at this point, the people who completely write off Trump quickly remind me of the same people who wrote off the Tea Baggers before last year election and we all know how that worked out. With the current political climate and economic climate almost anyone with enough money can get elected.

 

[geezer]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

I wouldn't write off Trump. General stupidity and unelectability didn't prevent Perot from handing the White House to Clinton. I think Trump would have a similar effect as an independent of guaranteeing Obama's win. Half the Tea Party people would rather vote for I than R.

 

[Tiggsy]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

I wouldn't write off Trump. General stupidity and unelectability didn't prevent Perot from handing the White House to Clinton. I think Trump would have a similar effect as an independent of guaranteeing Obama's win. Half the Tea Party people would rather vote for I than R.

It depends on who wins the nomination. If some "establishment" candidate wins, then absolutely it could happen. But there is still a chance some unknown could take it. Or what would be the effect if the unusal happens and T-Paw or even Bachmann pulls out a win. Then all bets are off.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

I can imagine T-Paw winning the nomination. I can even imagine Huck winning, as much of a hoot that'd be. I can't imagine the GOP allowing Bachmann, Palin, or Trump to win -- the party powers can easily survive a close loss but a lot of "serious" people go down when you have a 40-state landslide loss.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

I wouldn't write off Trump. General stupidity and unelectability didn't prevent Perot from handing the White House to Clinton. I think Trump would have a similar effect as an independent of guaranteeing Obama's win. Half the Tea Party people would rather vote for I than R.

Yeah, I immediately thought of Perot, too. I just don't know if Trump would throw that much of his own money into the election like Perot did.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XX: Maybe We'll Even Talk About Obama

Half the Tea Party people would rather vote for I than R.

If this is true the Republicans really screwed up.

But I don't think the TPers will ever be faced with that choice. Man, wouldn't it be funny if this made the GOP back IRV?