Category: Elections

He’ll ask for a recount

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The count is now official, and Democrat John Lehman had defeated Van Wanggaard in the race for Wisconsin state senate, flipping the chamber to the Democrats:

Wisconsin Democrats moved a step closer to winning a recall challenge in the state Senate on Tuesday after a vote canvass in Racine County padded their candidate’s lead over state Sen. Van Wanggaard by 55 votes.

If the state elections board certifies the results, Democrats will have salvaged a single win after suffering bruising losses in the other five recall elections last week.

The canvass found that Democrat John Lehman had 36,351 votes, or 50.6 percent, while Wanggaard received 35,517 votes, or 49.4 percent. The margin of victory was 834 votes, surpassing the 779-vote difference that stood before the canvass was conducted.

Lehman’s victory isn’t official until the state Government Accountability Board certifies the results. That’s expected to happen next week.

800 votes might not sound like a not, but it’s more than 1% which means that there is not an automatic recount, but I’m sure that Wanggaard will ask for one.

It’s a long shot, but it also serves to forestall the Dems taking control of the Senate.

Think Norm Coleman/Al Franken writ small.

I’m sure that Wanggaard will be well rewarded for his efforts by the Koch brothers.

It’s On Girl!

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So, now both the ACLU and the Department of Justice are suing Florida over Governor Rick Scott’s voter purge, and Florida is suing DHS for access to their immigration database:

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Florida on Friday to stop its controversial program designed to purge noncitizen voters from the rolls.

The ACLU says the program, which overwhelmingly targets minorities, needs approval from the federal government under the 1965 Voting Rights Act — a claim already made last week by the U.S. Department of Justice when it ordered Florida to cease the purge.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who is named as a defendant, has said Florida already received permission years ago to clean the voter rolls of noncitizens.

But the ACLU argues that the specific processes for the noncitizen-voter program — a new effort by the state — never received federal approval.

What’s more, the program is too much of a burden on, and too much of a threat to, lawful voters, who could risk being removed from the rolls due to government error, the ACLU says.

“The state of Florida is violating federal law by subjecting citizens to this new and unnecessary requirement in order to exercise their right to vote,” Julie Ebenstein, an ACLU Florida staff attorney, said in a written statement. “We are asking the court to protect the right to vote and stop this unlawful, targeted voting purge.”

Detzner’s office couldn’t immediately respond to all aspects of the suit, which was filed late Friday afternoon. But it insisted the program is fair and needed.

The program is needed of course, because, after all, it would chaos if they let sp**s and n*****s vote.

Here’s a paraphrase of Jeff Foxworthy, “If you think that people who will likely vote against you should be prevent from voting, you might not be a real American.”

It would be nice if someone went to jail over this crap.

Florida County Clerks to Rick Scott: Drop Dead

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It looks like they are rejecting his plan for a little Jim Crow:

Florida’s noncitizen voter purge looks like it’s all but over.

The 67 county elections supervisors — who have final say over voter purges —are not moving forward with the purge for now because nearly all of them don’t trust the accuracy of a list of nearly 2,700 potential noncitizens identified by the state’s elections office.The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered the state to stop the purge.

“We’re just not going to do this,” said Leon County’s elections supervisor, Ion Sancho, one of the most outspoken of his peers. “I’ve talked to many of the other supervisors and they agree. The list is bad. And this is illegal.”

It is explicitly illegal.

You are not allowed to scrub voter rolls less than 90 days before an election under federal law, and the non-presidential Florida primaries are in August.

Additionally, for Florida, this has to be pre-cleared by the DoJ.

The party of Lincoln is not the party of Jim Crow.

The Aqua Buddha Running Mate

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I know that my track record sucks, but I am not predicting that Rand Paul will be Mitt Romney’s running mate:

A day after endorsing Mitt Romney, Sen. Rand Paul said it would be an honor to run alongside the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

“A year, year and a half ago, I was a physician in a small town,” Paul, the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, told CNN’s Don Lemon. “And it would be a great honor to be considered as a vice president for the Republican Party. I think that would be something that anybody who said otherwise would not be being truthful.”

Paul, who on Thursday came out in support of Romney, said on CNN he had not discussed with the candidate the prospect of joining the GOP ticket.

Paul, a tea party favorite and son of presidential candidate Ron Paul, said his father “has always been my first choice,” but that the nominating process favored Romney.

Rand Paul has said that he would have run this year had his dad, Ron Paul not run, and he is clearly very receptive to the idea of being Mitt’s running mate.

Additionally, he has serious teabagger cred.

I would not call him a slam dunk, but to my mind, he is the most likely selection right now.

Panglossian Bulls%$#

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Notwithstanding the Senate pickup, Tueaday was a loss, but we see the crap like this suggesting that it wasn’t that bad.

No, it was that bad.

There are some lessons to learn, the first is that you need to fight something with something, and Tom Barrett wasn’t something.

He is, by all accounts, a nice guy but that’s all he was.

We waffled on repealing the union busting bill, etc.

Any wonder that he lost?

In any case, if you don’t acknowledge that you have failed, you cannot learn from your failures.

Mikel Kinzly disseze Ezruh Kleyn Haz It

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Michael Kinsley has made a career of intellectually bankrupt and mindless contrarianism.

Basically, you come up with an indefensible and silly argument, and through rhetorical tricks, you make it sound reasonable. Stupid people read it, and think that you are wise.

Well, Ezra Klein at the Washington Post has signed on to this bit of professional hypocrisy. (No link, he is clearly click whoring, and I won’t reward it)   He is now arguing that the Mitt Romney winning the election might be better for the economy because Republicans won’t try to block everything:

Even if you disagree with every one of Mitt Romney’s policies, there’s a chance he’s still the best candidate to lift the economy in 2013.

That’s not because he has business experience. For all his bluster about the lessons taught by the private sector, his agenda is indistinguishable from that of career politician Paul Ryan. Nor is it because he’s demonstrated some special knowledge of what it takes to create jobs. Job growth in Massachusetts was notably slow under Romney’s tenure. It’s because if Romney is elected, Republicans won’t choose to crash the economy in 2013.

This ignores the recent history, which is that Republicans crashed the economy through their attempts to implement their ideology from 2001-2007.

Note that the above argument ignores the fact that he is essentially advocating giving into terrorists.

This is pathetic.

H/t Unfogged.

Decisions, Decisions

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You see, there are two events happening right now that are both rare and could be described as being of astronomical importance (albeit in two completely different uses of the word “astronomical), the Venus transit, and the Scott Walker recall.

Seeing as how my son is supposed to be downtown at the Maryland Science Center right now, and he’s planning to record and Youtube the event, I’ll just post his video when he finishes with it.

In either case, safety first: Do not stare at the sun, or at Scott Walker without wearing appropriate eye protection.

And the Republican Establishment is Now Resorting to Beatdowns of Paulites

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As a result of good organization and a thorough knowledge of the rules, Ron Paul’s supporters have won significant numbers of delegates.

In Louisiana, they wan an outright majority, and response of the Republican establishment was ignore them and call in the police to administer a beat down on their elected leaders:

“I’m handicapped! I need a doctor!” “Sir, this is the chairman!” The Louisiana State Republican Convention descended into chaos Saturday morning, with several delegates being arrested and the convention chairman being thrown to the ground by police. Sources report that state party officials panicked when it became clear that Ron Paul delegates commanded a decisive majority of the delegates on the floor – at least 111 of 180 (62%).

The convention began peacefully with a prayer and invocation. Roger Villere, Chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, then attempted to recognize the former Chair of the Convention’s Rules Committee who had been ousted from his position last night. When Alex Helwig, the newly elected Rules Committee chair, rose to address the delegation, Mr. Villere ordered him removed from the floor. Video footage shows Shreveport police dragging Mr. Helwig out of the room despite his protests that he was a duly elected delegate.

Here’s hoping that the national convention Tampa will be bat-sh%$ insane as well.

h/t Vonners at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This Smells Like Karl Rove Punking Dan Rather

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We have a story that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker fathered a child out of wedlock, and was rather a cad about it, by noted brain injury specialist Dr. Bernadette Gillick, who said that it was her roommate.

There has since been a denial from the woman in question. (Actually, within hours of the publication of the story)

It smells to me a lot like the punking that Rove gave Dan Rather over George W. Bush’s Texas National Guard service (or lack thereof).

In the case of W, the stories were probably true, and the false story was likely floated in order to defuse the issue.

In the case of Scott Walker, I’m not sure if there is an actually baby that he abandoned, or this is an attempt to distract attention from the John Doe investigation which has already snared his closest political advisers, but it smells like a ‘Phant false flag operation.

In related news, the DoJ will be sending observers to monitor the elections.

I hope they bring cuffs to Waukesha county, because with county clerk Kathy Nickolaus running elections there, despite having been forced to delegate her duties to her deputy, I expect it to be an orgy of irregularities there.

Some Good News From the Texas Primary

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Silvestres Reyes was defeated in the Tuesday primary by El Paso City Councelman Beta O’Rourke.

The district is overhwelmingly Democratic, so it means that O’Rourke is pretty much a shoe in for the general.

Why is this good news? Because Reyes was aggressively pro-drug war and pro drone, to the point of lobbying for drone stikes in Mexico, and O’Rourke supports Marijuana legalization.

It’s a big deal, and it shows that, as the NORML blog notes, the war on drugs is no longer the winning issue that it used to be.

The Big Dog is Coming to Wisconsin

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Bill Clinton is heading to Wisconsin to campaign for Scott Walker’s recall:

Former President Bill Clinton has decided to go to Wisconsin to campaign against Scott Walker in the final days of the battle over whether to recall the Wisconsin Governor, a move that could give a boost to the anti-Walker forces in a campaign that will depend heavily on who turns out to vote, a source familiar with Clinton’s plans confirms to me.

As late as yesterday afternoon, it was still not certain whether Clinton would go to Wisconsin. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in a meeting with Democrats, seemed to suggest that he was trying to determine whether he would go. But neither the DNC nor Clinton’s camp would confirm whether it was going to happen, and Democrats cautioned that Clinton had not made up his mind.

But now he will go to Wisconsin, the source confirms.

Democrats badly want Clinton to campaign in Wisconsin for Tom Barrett, and had lobbied him heavily for weeks. But Clinton remaind undecided until today.

For the past month, the Democratic establishment has pretended that the recall does not matter, and now, suddenly they all showing up to campaign.

Either the internal polling is looking good, or the rank and file have been hammering them, or maybe both.

Either way, this is a positive development.

Why I’m Voting in November

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Because the bigots in Maryland have turned in sufficient signatures to put a repeal of same sex marriage on the ballot:

Activists working to repeal Maryland’s same-sex marriage law have collected more than twice the signatures needed for a referendum — likely ensuring that the measure will be on the ballot for voters to decide in November.

The law’s opponents submitted 122,481 signatures in favor of a referendum; 55,736 are required. If enough are verified as legitimate, as expected, Maryland will be in the center of a national debate on same-sex marriage, with groups on both sides preparing to spend millions.

I’m still debating between writing in Stewart/Colbert or Colbert/Stewart, but I’m voting against the hate amendment.

Finally, the National Dems Do Something in Wisconsin

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After saying that the recalls does not matter, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has finally deigned to spend a few hours in Wisconsin campaigning for a recall:

Racine — Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told 75 Democratic Party supporters Wednesday that the national party was “putting all of our effort into this fight” to help Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett topple Gov. Scott Walker in Tuesday’s recall election.

“Scott Walker has worked hard to make sure that people think that he’s the rock star of the right-wing tea-party extremism that the Republican Party has allowed to take them over,” she said. “And that is not what voters in Wisconsin want to see happen.”

Wasserman Schultz made two appearances in Wisconsin, appearing with Barrett at a fundraiser in Milwaukee and then speaking with campaign volunteers at a Democratic Party headquarters in Racine.

The optimist would hope that the internal polling is showing good numbers.

The pessimist would say that she was getting so much flak from the base that she had to make a pro-forma attempt.

I am a pessimist.

On a related note, if anyone was wondering if Martin O’Malley is looking to run for president, wonder no more:

Gov. Martin O’Malley, continuing to build on his high national profile as head of the Democratic Governors Association, will travel to Wisconsin Thursday to campaign for the challenger in the effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Colm O’Comartun, executive director of the DGA, said O’Malley will make a one-day trip to the Badger State to support Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the hard-fought contest. O’Malley will follow that trip with a three-state swing through New England.

Walker, who was elected in 2010, was forced into a recall election after pushing through legislation stripping public employees in Wisconsin of collective bargaining rights. That action made him a target of organized labor, but also brought him a huge infusion of campaign cash from national business groups and conservative organizations.

O’Comartun said the DGA has already supplied $3.2 million to the Barrett campaign as part of a strategy adopted even before Barrett won the nomination in a primary earlier this month. Despite a wide gap in financing between the challenger and the incumbent, O’Comartun said Barrett is in “good shape” with days to go before the June 5 election. Recent independent polls have shown Walker ahead of Barrett, though a Democratic survey released Wednesday shows the race a dead heat.

Unlike the DNC, the DGA has aggressively supported the recall, and, win or lose, they, and by extension Hizzoner, have come off as stand up guy.

Good for him.

Why Democrats Lose Elections

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Because our so-called leaders are cowardly incompetents:

The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said Friday that if Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) doesn’t prevail over Gov. Scott Walker (R) in next month’s Wisconsin recall election, there won’t be any ramifications for Democrats nationally.

“I think, honestly, there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a broad-ranging interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”

“It’s an election that’s based in Wisconsin. It’s an election that I think is important nationally because Scott Walker is an example of how extreme the tea party has been when it comes to the policies that they have pushed the Republicans to adopt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But I think it’ll be, at the end of the day, a Wisconsin-based election, and like I said, across the rest of the country and including in Wisconsin, President Obama is ahead.”

Timidity to the point of paralysis.

You have a major election, near on a make or break issue, for organized labor, and the DNC is afraid to expend any resources, because it’s not a slam dunk.

It is no wonder that George “If you not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time” McClellan was a Democratic presidential nominee.

Yes, the folks that they are disappointing won’t vote for Mitt, but I think that they won’t canvass or stuff envelopes for you either.

While We Are On the Subject of Mississippi

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The governor of North Carolina has invoked the Magnolia State as a synonym for a backwards society:

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue says Tuesday’s passage of Amendment One makes the state look like Mississippi. Perdue made the remarks in response to a question from WITN’s Brittany Gunter while in Greenville Friday morning.

On Tuesday, 61% of the state’s voters approved the constitutional amendment which bans same sex marriages. State law already prohibits gay marriages.

The governor, a Democrat who said leading up to the vote that she was against the amendment, told WITN that the result is wrong for the state.

“People around the country are watching us, and they’re really confused to have been such a progressive forward thinking economically driven state that invested in education and that stood up for the civil rights people including the civil rights marches back in the 50s and 60s and 70s,” said Perdue. “People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi.”

Yes. Yes you do look like Mississippi, and yes, this is a bad thing.

While We Are On the Subject of Scott Walker

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We now have video of Scott Walker telling a wealthy donor that he will use divide and conquer to make Wisconsin a right-to-work red state:

A filmmaker released a video Thursday that shows Gov. Scott Walker saying he would use “divide and conquer” as a strategy against unions.

Walker made the comments to Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, who has since given $510,000 to the governor’s campaign – making her Walker’s single-largest donor and the largest known donor to a candidate in state history.

The filmmaker has done work on Democratic campaigns and gave $100 in 2010 to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Walker’s challenger in the June 5 recall election.

In the video shot on Jan. 18, 2011 – shortly before Walker’s controversial budget-repair bill was introduced and spawned mass protests – Hendricks asked the governor whether he could make Wisconsin a “completely red state, and work on these unions, and become a right-to-work” state. The Republican donor was referring to right-to-work laws, which prohibit private-sector unions from compelling workers to pay union dues if the workers choose not to belong to the union.

Walker replied that his “first step” would be “to divide and conquer” through his budget-adjustment bill, which curtailed most collective bargaining for most public employee unions.

It’s rather unsurprising therefore, that a number of public safety unions, like the State Troopers Union are withdrawing their endorsements of him in 2010, and endorsing Tom Barrett. (Hereafter referred to as “The other guy”)

While such rough and tumble politics may be the reality in Wisconsin, the people of the Badger State* tend to seem themselves as practicing a more civil form of politics.

*Except for the right-wing Fox River Valley, where they have a f%$#ing monument to f%$#ing Joe f%$#ing McCarthy.

Why Not to Give to the Democratic Establishment

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The biggest political contest in the United States in the next month is the Scott Walker recall, and the Democratic National Committee is refusing to supply resources for the all critical GOTV effort:

Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told

The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to execute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Republican Party is sinking big money into defending Walker, raising fears that the DNC’s reluctance could help tip the race his way.

………

According to the Wisconsin Dem, the party has asked the DNC for $500,000 to help with its massive field operation. While the DNC has made generally supportive noises, the money has not been forthcoming, the official says — with less than a month until the June 5th recall election. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

………

“Scott Walker has made this a national election,” the Wisconsin Dem tells me. “If he wins, he will turn his victory into a national referendum on his ideas about the middle class. It will hurt Democrats nationally. The fact that [national Dems] are sitting on their hands now is so frustrating. The whole ticket stands to lose

******************************************

UPDATE: Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Mike Tate goes on record about the dispute in a statement:

“Having received absolute support from the Democratic Governors Association, we also are in conversation with the Democratic National Committee to help in this battle against Scott Walker, a right-wing diva who has the full backing of the national corporate Tea Party movement.”

UPDATE II: Wisconsin Dems say the problem isn’t with the Democratic Governors Association, which has already committed more to the recall fight than they’ve ever committed to a Wisconsin gubernatorial election in recent history. Still no comment from the DNC.

I’m thinking that the DNC is having a hissy fit because labor is not interested in funding their national convention in a right-to-work state, but stupidity and evil are nearly as valid explanations.

Lamest Political Party in the History

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Professor Pongoo
Pole to poll: Professor Pongoo won more votes than the Liberal Democrats in a council election in Edinburgh. Photograph: Ali Tibbitt/ STV

While there are significantly less viable parties out there, Canada’s Rhineroceros Party, and the Monster Raving Looney Party in the UK, but because they fancy themselves as being in the big leagues in Britain, the Liberal-Democrats win the prize:

If there was a symbol of the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture as their vote plummeted across Scotland and the rest of the UK, it came in the shape of a penguin.

In the Pentland Hills ward for Edinburgh city council, the Lib Dem candidate won fewer votes than Professor Pongoo, or independent candidate Mike Ferrigan, who ran his campaign in a full penguin suit.

Professor Pongoo, who stood to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, took 5.6% of first-preference votes to the Lib Dems’ 4.7%.

On the brighter side ……… Ummmm ……… There is no brighter side. You were outpolled by a bloke in a f%$#ing penguin suit!

About the only thing more embarrassing would be to be out-polled by the  Fabian Socialists.