I’ve been out of line. So have you. You’re probably more of a centrist than I think you are; I’m probably more of a centrist than you think I am. You want what’s best for the country. So do I. Likewise John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and maybe even Sarah Palin.
As far as I can recall, I have never questioned the patriotism of a Republican. I have certainly been critical of the current administration because of the lies that led us into a poorly planned and poorly executed war in the wrong country. Yet for eight long years, I have been told that I am unpatriotic. While you didn’t say that, the party that you support has. Time after time. I have been told to “Just shut the fuck up!” when I have questioned what the current administration has done.
- In 2000, I told my fellow liberals to get over it despite overwhelming evidence of voter fraud in Florida.
- In 2004, I watched as the secretary of state in my state prostituted himself to rig the election and ensure that George Bush would be re-elected.
- It’s now 2008 and most of my Republican friends have had enough of the gang that claimed the moral high ground while lying, cheating, and stealing. Enough is enough.
It is possible for two reasonable, rational people to examine the same set of facts and arrive at totally different conclusions. Disagreements are inevitable. But I have been disagreeable. So have you.
We have known each other since the years when you had long hair and I had hair. I don’t like what we’ve been saying to each other lately. I don’t like the way Republicans and Democrats talk about each other. It seems to me that it’s been primarily the GOP leadership (Rove, Cheney, et al.) who have consciously and consistently questioned the patriotism of Democrats, just as Joe McCarthy did back in the 1950s. In my view, a patriot must speak up when his country is doing the wrong things: Invading the wrong country and torturing prisoners while saying that we don’t torture prisoners, for example. If the house is on fire, I’m not going to just stand there and watch; I’ll tell somebody. For someone to question my patriotism or my intelligence seems well beyond the pale.
That’s not to say it’s just Republicans who are at fault. I’m not always happy with what MoveOn has to say and I’m not always happy with its tactics. Neither am I happy with the Swift Boaters or Jerome Corsi, who has now written two books that are filled with lies, half truths, and innuendos.
The election system is broken. Public financing was a good idea, but money always finds a way around barriers. MoveOn and the Swift Boaters are two prime examples. Despite my desire to see Obama win, I’m not particularly happy that he has raised an astonishing amount of money.
Al Gore recounts a campaign from early in his career in which political advisors told him that specific ads targeted at a specific audience would produce a specific result by a particular time. The consultants were right and Gore was elected. But he said that he felt there was something wrong with the process.
Were it up to me, no political advertising would be allowed. None. Period. Anyone who wanted to run for office would be required to publish an explanation of what they planned to do and how they planned to do it and those who wanted to understand would have to read it. Televised debates would be required and they would be structured as true debates. When the moderator asked a question, the prospective president (or veep) would be required to answer it, not just repeat talking points that have nothing to do with the question.
This would never work, of course. The 527 groups would find a way around it. But we have to find a better process than we are using now.
Since the days of Nixon, we’ve had an “imperial presidency” and both parties seem to think that’s OK. We are supposed to have a president, not a king. The founding fathers were deeply suspicious of government and of each other, so they created a system with three equal branches. Since the late 1960s, Congress has repeatedly surrendered its powers to the president. The party that’s out of favor at any given time whines about it, but neither party wants to change it.
Consider, for example, the GOP’s “nuclear option” regarding filibusters. Had Doc Frist pulled the trigger and outlawed filibusters in the previous session of Congress, the GOP wouldn’t have been able to stage a record number of filibusters in the current term. Both parties whine when the other party does it, but nobody seems to want to change the way things work.
The GOP seems to be unduly concerned about “voter fraud” despite a lack of evidence that it exists and the Dems seem to be unduly concerned with the specter of widespread machine tampering despite a lack of evidence that it exists. Of the two threats, machine fraud seems to me to be potentially the more serious because a few people in the companies that provide these machines could make some relatively simple modifications that could affect vote counting nationally. Yes, I agree that people who present themselves at polling places need to verify their identity. But don’t you also agree, particularly given your understanding of hardware and software, that the software running on voting machines should be available for public review? Can we agree on that at least?
With regards to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, let me say this: She is far less partisan than her predecessor. The former secretary of state was involved in the Bush re-election campaign. Surely you must see that this is not a good thing. Brunner is a Democrat, but it seems to me that she is generally playing fair. Generally. Yes, there have been some positions from the SOS’s office that seem to be political, but most have been based on a common-sense understanding of the law, the way elections work, and the actual threats to a free and fair election.
You have repeatedly attempted to convince me that voter fraud can and will be perpetrated on a mass scale in Ohio this year. I categorically reject that because of my training by the Franklin County Board of Elections (the director until this year was a Republican; the director is now a Democrat but the former director is now the associate director). Those of us who work at the polls are trained carefully and completely regarding voter validation. The protections that have been put in place are solid.
Jimmy Carter has said that he could not certify elections in the United States and I agree that there are large problems. The problems are not, however, with the poll workers. The problems are with a lack of transparency into what happens in voting machine, at county boards of election, and at the secretary of state’s office. I imagine that you despise Carter, but he is an honorable man who has tried to do the right thing, in office and out.
This has nothing to do with election policy, but I feel compelled to include it at this point: Gerald Ford was also an honorable man. He never wanted the presidency, but he stepped up when needed, served to the best of his ability, and made the right decision in pardoning Richard Nixon.
Also, for what it’s worth, when I lived in Belmont County, I voted for a lot of Republicans—particularly anyone who was running against Wayne L. Hayes, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, because I knew he was a crook and a jerk.
And, you may remember, that I worked for a while in the administration of James A. Rhodes, although I was appointed by John J. Gilligan. So maybe it’s not all black and white. Maybe there really are grays.
Maybe we need a true federal election system. As it is, there are federal election laws (some of which are being broken by Republican-sponsored voter purges [federal law specifies 2 federal election cycles, 4 years, to remove a voter from the rolls]), state laws and rules from secretaries of state, and county/parish board of election rules and policies. For example, the Franklin County Board of Elections sends absentee ballots with postage-paid return envelopes, but Delaware County does not. Some states send electors to the Electoral College based on House districts while other states operate on a winner-take-all basis. It seems to me that a federal election should operate under federal rules.
Would you at least accept that Sarah Palin is no more ready to be president than she is to be an astronaut? Even the Anchorage newspaper says this is the case. Regardless of what you think about John McCain, can you honestly say that Sarah Palin is ready to be president if need be? Can you honestly say this was his best possible choice?
Note: Except when they begin sentences, I have lowercased “conservative” and “liberal”. Should there have been any oversight in that regard, please consider it to be just that: An oversight. “Republican” and “Democrat” are capitalized because they are the formal names of political parties.
