Category: Elections

One Possible Answer to What the Republican October Surprise Will Be

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GMU Professor Jeremy Mayer suggests that it will be an overseas arrest for war crimes of some prominent Bush administration official.

While I think that they are war criminals and should be tried, the reaction of the American public will be bellicose and jingoistic, playing to the base lizard brain of hatred, bigotry, and fear of the other that is at the core of Republican electoral success.

Remember Lt. William Calley. A poor officer and a murderer who shot a little boy in the back, but to the American public, he was a hero.

WTF, 49% of the Vote? By a Dem? In MO-1?

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Well, they just had a special election in Missouri’s 1st congressional district.

No one got an outright majority, but the Democrat, Travis Childers, got 49% of the vote to the Republican Greg Davis’s 46%.

There is still a runoff, but note that in this this district Bush beat Kerry 62.24% to 37.03% in 2004.

The fact that a Democrat was going to the runoff is encouraging. The fact that the Democrat won the plurality of the votes is astonishing, particularly considering the fact that the RNCC outspent the DNCC by more than 2:1.

The cynic in me wonders how Dems will screw this up in the next 4-½ months. It will be difficult, but somehow they will manage.

Begich Makes It Official, He’s Running Against Stevens in Alaska

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Mark Begich will be running against Ted Stevens.

It’s been pretty much a done deal since February, and considering the fact that Stevens has gone from Uncle Pork to criminal in the voters minds, it’s a reasonable chance for a Dem pickup.

It helps that Begich is Mayor of Anchorage, as he will have an organization there, and around 45% of Alaska’s population live in the city, and around 57% of the population lives in the greater Anchorage metro area.

His campaign site is here.

Zimbabwe

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We have a good news-bad news situation.

On the bad news side, we have Mugabe sending the state security apparatus to do violence to and to otherwise intimidate the electorate, reports of a humanitarian crisis, what appears to be a
wafe of refugees fleeing the country, and credible reports of
vote theft in the legislative elections.

On the brighter side, it appears that the Chinese arms shipment to Mugabe won’t be unloaded anytime soon, as you have impound orders from banks against the ship, US pressure to prevent offloading of the cargo, dock workers refusing to offload the cargo, and indications that the even the Chinese are backing down on the shipment.

Sane people know that when you get dumped by the Chinese, it’s game over.

Also, it appears that military leaders, and not Mugabe are increasingly making the day to day decisions in Zimbabwe, though it indicates how bad thing are when a slow motion coup d’etat is considered progress.

It also appears that the ANC is firmly turning against Thabo Mbeki’s policy of favoring Mugabe.

In more mixed news, Tsvangirai is appealing for UN intervention, which, as is often the case in such things probably will not make things any better.

Zimbabwe, Yet Again

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I think that the reason that I cover this is because I really don’t care about it, but I know that I should. It’s kind of funny that way.

Its an important story, and one that should be engaging more of the world than it does, but it does not even engage me.

I’m not sure why, perhaps I’m dismissive of troubles in Africa because so little goes right there, or perhaps, it’s a subtle manifestation of my own bigotry.

In any case, we now have Robert Mugabe accusing Morgan Tsvangirai of treason, and, “of working with Britain to oust the President from power,” which is, of course, absurd, and it is not a welcome development.

However, there has been some good news, as South Africa is finally calling for the vote results to be releases. Government spokesman Themba Maseko has said, “When elections are held and results are not released two weeks after, it is obviously of great concern.”

The question here is whether this is a change in policy from Thabo Mbeki, or a reflection of the rest of the ANC deserting him.

It’s clear that Mbeki has been the second biggest impediment to any sort of resolution on this, after Mugabe himself, for years, so I believe that if he has had a “battlefield conversion”, it is only because he has seen the writing on the walls.

As to the deeper reason’s for Mbeki’s enthusiastic boosterism regarding Mugabe, I tend to favor Tapiwa Kapurura’s thesis, that Thabo Mbeki in some way finds a personal threat to him or to the ANC in developments in Zimbabwe.

What is going on with the elections in Zimbabwe is that ZANU-PF, a party that is still attached to its revolutionary roots, has lost to the MDC, which is largely a more conventional Labor-type party.

It should be noted that analogy could be made between ZANI-PF and MDC and the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a junior party in the ruling coalition in South Africa.

Zimbabwe Update

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Well, the call for a general strike went over like a dead balloon, though I think that the excuse, that too many people are too near starvation to participate, has some validity.

In terms of a runoff, Morgan Tsvangirai says that he will participate if, “a tally verified by both parties and the Southern African Development Community shows no candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote”, as he has no confidence in the electoral commission, which is clearly in Mugabe’s pocket.

In terms of the brighter side of this whole mess, it appears that Thabo Mbeki is also a loser in this affair, as members of the ANC, including ANC leader Jacob Zuma’s proxy Matthews Phosa are openly criticizing him. (also here)

This is a good thing. With his unqualified support of Mugabe, and his quite frankly delusional opposition to the use of anti-virals to fight AIDS, Mbeki is well past any usefulness to either the nation of South Africa, or the southern African region as a whole.

Zimbabwean High Court Refuses to Force Release of Election Results

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The opposition is now calling for a general strike as a result.

Of note, there is also talk of a recount, which appears to be outright vote theft in an attempt to screw with the parliamentary results too.

For what it’s worth, if there is a villian in all of this outside of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF, it’s South African President Thabo Mbeki, who appears to be doing his level best to aid and abet the vote fraud in Zimbabwe.

I think that part of this is the sentiment among Mbeki and the ANC that as a “revolutionary” Mugabe is one of them, and part of this is being driven by electoral concerns: They are concerned that the principle of the democratic defeat of a revolutionary leader might at some later date be applied to the ANC.

Senate Polls

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First, we have Alaska, where Ted Stevens(R) gets 46%, and Mark Begich(D)gets 45%. It’s still early but this is not good news for Stevens, as undecideds typically break 2:1 for the challenger, giving Begich a very good chance of being the first Democratic Senator from Alaska since Mike Gravel.

In New Mexico, we have Tom Udall in a comfortable lead over his potential opponents, 54% to 40% over Steve Pearce and 56% to 36% over Heather Wilson, who has been seriously hurt by her involvement in the US Attorney firings scandal.

New Jersey Dem Establishment Struggles To Squash Upstart Challenge To Lautenberg

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It appears that the Republicans will not be running a serious candidate for New Jersey senate, so the real action will be in the Democratic primary, which will pits Frank Lautenberg against Rob Andrews.

It’s going to be interesting, we are already having members of the NJ delegation condemning Andrews for running against Lautenberg, and Andrews wants to have seven debates.

And then there is the fact that Lautenberg is something like 132 years old (OK, actually 84), which would suggest that his finishing his term is somewhat problematic.

Conversely, the sense I get is that Andrews is part of the South Jersey machine, and he voted for the authorization of forces bill, but I’m in way over my head teasing this one out.

Zimbabwe High Court Rules Poll Results Case “Urgent”, Journalists Released

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The Zimbabwean High Court ruled that the MDC’s case to release voting results is urgent. This is not to say that they have ruled that the poll results must be released quickly, but that they will hear the case quickly.

In related news, Zimbabwe security forces have detained poll officials. I guess that they did not do enough voter intimidation and fraud before and during the election, so they are, as Emeril Lagasse would say, “Taking it up a notch”.

Two foreign journalists have been released from detention, New York Times reporter Barry Bearak and another unidentified (likely British) reporter. Bail was set at $Z 3,000,000. About $US 10,000.00 at the official exchange rate, and about $US 10.00 at the black market rate.

It appears that the upper house of parliament, the elected members of the Senate will be split evenly (actually 30 ZANU-PF, 26 MDC Tsvangirai, and 6 MDC Mutambara), with the appointed seats, “10 provincial Governors appointed by the President; the president and deputy president of the Council of Chiefs; 16 chiefs, being two chiefs from each province other than metropolitan provinces, and five Senators appointed by the President”, going largely ZANU-PF giving them a majority.

O’Malley Pushing Law Change for Special Election

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Now that Wynn has given his resignation, there is a consensus developing in Annapolis that it would be a good thing for Donna Edwards to get in on an early election, if just to give her a seniority jump on the other freshman congressmen.

O’Malley is proposing a change in the election law to allow for a special election based on the current primary results, which would cut the cost of special elections in half, more so if you hold it at the same time as the general election.

Generally it sounds good to me, though I’m inclined to go with the special election and swearing in at the same time as the general, as it is even cheaper.

Zimbabwe, Updates and a Correction

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First, the opposition won an absolute majority, as I said yesterday. It appears that the MDC Tsvangirai has 99 seats, MDC Mutambara (a sort of a splinter faction, but not fully a separate party) has 10, and Zanu-PF has 97, with one independent, out of 210 seats (3 seats had the winners die before the election and are empty).

The entire MDC Tsvangirai/MDC Mutambara has me confuse, but it appears that they are the same party, they just don’t get along, so they have an outright majority.

There is also an upper house, and results have been delayed, but this is rather a more complex system than the Parliament.

Still no results in the presidential election, a runnoff is expected, along with a lot of unrest.

The original calculation of 50.3% for Tsvangirai appears to have been a miscalculation.

Zimbabwe’s Update

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The Zanu PF appears to have lost its parliamentary majority, though it also appears that the MDC Mutambara, while being the plurality party, will be about 2 seats short (out of 200) of an outright majority.

Meanwhile, the MDC Mutambara is now explicitly saying that Mugabe has lost the election for President. From the numbers, I’m not clear if they are insisting that they won outright which still seems a close call, or if they won, but did not get the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff.

Zimbabwe Elections

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The elections results are still delayed, and there is now talk of a presidential runoff. My guess is that the margin was too large for Zanu-PF to make Mugabe the winner, so they are angling for a 2nd round of vote fraud, possibly at a time when foreign attention is elsewhere.

We have reports that the leaders of MDC were in hiding. If the Zimbabwe state security apparatus wants to move, it would have be before the final vote total.

On the brighter side, it appears that thare are negociations between Zanu-PF and the MDC, which implies that there might be a peaceful transition, though I think that Mugabe will be the wild card in all this.