Like jamming Democratic phone banks in the 2002 NH election?
Which led to:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6256857/
That’s pretty straight-up subverting the political process if you ask me.
Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times today discusses many Republican attempts to block the vote in various states. Here are some of them:
Dick Tuck is referred to some as the “father” of dirty campaign tricks. I remember learning about him at University in the Carter Reagan run up.
Here’s a link: http://www.sniggle.net/tuck.php
I’m not sure I agree that “dirty tricks” means what you say.
The break-in by the Watergate burglars was a “dirty trick”. Nixon’s cover-up efforts go beyond the “dirty trick” pale.
The “For Shame!” Nixon Deed business was a dirty trick. The widspread voter fraud in Cook County in the 1960 election was beyond the “dirty trick” rubric.
In my humble opinion.
Ok, most of the guy’s claims have been debunked (imagine that!). Furthermore, we have cites, while the OP’s associate only has his posterior from wence these claims came.
Here’s a link on the Bush DWI story. It turns out the story was uncovered in July 2000, in Portland, but the story was spiked. The national press (not the Portland Press Herald) broke the story “shortly before the 2000 election.”
I say, ya should have come clean earlier, Mr. Bush. The smoking gun has a record of the DUI, btw.
Now let’s take a look at a classic Republican smear job.
Here’s a sample of what Karl Rove, chief political strategist and domestic policy advisor for President Bush, did when he was working for a judge running for the Alabama Supreme Court.
Rove’s approach is to identify the opponent’s main strength, then attack that. In Alabama, his opponent, “[Mark] Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s he had helped to start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect.”
Given a resume like that, Rove certainly had his work cut out for him. Here’s what he did: he indirectly persuaded the Democrat that it would be best for his family if he never ran for judicial office again:
The preceding dirty trick, and others, is outlined in this month’s Atlantic Magazine. Rove remains extremely popular within Republican Circles, particularly among employers who lack a sense of shame.
First of all, little mentioned is that this story was broken by FOX. The idea that it was a democratic dirty trick seems a little sily in light of that. Also, the problem wasn’t that Bush had a DUI, it was that he LIED about it straight out when asked if he had ever had one.
You mean the ones postdated AFTER the election had already happened?
Other way around: that year the Republicans stripped legitimate non-felons of the right to vote. They tried doing it again this year, until a court order revealed that not only was the felon list again extremely error-ridden with legitimate non-felons, but it also was knowingly skewed to only list African-Americans (who lean Kerry), not Latinos (who lean Bush).
Don’t know about this, but this sounds like the sort of thing that random idiots pull on their own outside of any political party.
This is the sickest of sick shit. It WILL occur and is occuring. I mean the fact that Republicans can sort of wink about this while complaining that it’s such an unfair accusation has truly, utterly shocked me. It’s happening all over, and it’s nto something they even bother denying to anyone but on the record to the newsmedia when they want to complain that they re being unfairly called out.
BrainGlutton, you missed the punchline in the Dakota story. After resigning, the Republicans who are suspected of fraud were almost immediately hired to run the Republican GOTV efforts in Ohio, the most important state in the race. Commit a crime, get a promotion!
I’m going to say this one more time. This year, I’ve been in the thick of things, and from my vantage point, from everything I’ve seen it seems like the Democrats are trying as hard as possible, from what I can see, to play fair. The Republicans control the Justice Department. They control most of the swing state sec state and BOE apparatus. They control everything that matters when it comes to protecting people’s rights or going after suspected fraud. If we screw up even a tiny bit, they’ll have two months to destroy us even if they lose (in fact, especially if they lose).
On the other hand, they’re acting like holding onto power is the only thing that matters. I can’t tell you how utterly sickened and disgusted but what I’ve seen on the ground from Republicans this year, and I’m hopping mad that I can only tell little bits about it. It’s really changed me, probably for the worse. Before, I was merely against some of their policies. But after what I’ve been through, I have a hard time seeing the Republican party as currently constituted as anything other than a terrible cancer on American society, corrupting both itself and everything else. I truly believe that winning this election for John Kerry means saving both the soul of this nation and Republican party from itself. I can still be friends with Republicans, at least the good ones who think they are in the party for some fair-point policy reasons even though the rest embarrasses them, but there is a great sadness in me too, because they are nevertheless, unwittingly or not, helping to kill my dreams, my hopes for this country’s greatness.
And I’m not arguing that Democrats would necessarily be better in a different world where they ruled. But the reality is that not only are the Republicans the party in power, but via happenstance, they are also in a position where voter suppression and fraud can benefit them far far more than anything the Democrats could pull that would be illegal. So it is partly circumstantial. But still… there is a great evil at work in this nation this year. Anyone who feels that Republicans are not playing sickeningly, exceptionally dirty this election is simply lying to themselves.
Here’s more on the felon purge, including evidence that eb Bush himself knew it was extremely flawed when they pushed to go ahead and use it.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041017/ap_on_el_pr/florida_felons_voting&cid=694&ncid=716
And for the record, the Republicans are flat out lying about how they “decided not to use it once it was clear there were problems.” After approving the list despite outcry about potential problems, they first fought in the courts to keep the list a SECRET, and finally lost and had to show people the list. Only THEN did the public get to see that it basically was set up to strip Democrats but not Republicans of their rights to vote, again with the same flaws as before (African American AND have same name as a felon anywhere in the nation? You don’t get to vote! ha ha). Only THEN did they, in the face of media condemnation, decide to not use the list.
It’s been obvious since 2000 to anyone who’s paying attention that the PTB in the Republican Party have completely divested themselves of morality in the way they run their campaigns, ever since Nixon really but most especially since Dubya came to power.
I know there are a lot of decent people who vote Republican, and some decent people who are Republican Party leaders, but I see the Republican Party as a fish – a fish that’s rotting from the head. And the head is really, really rotten. The further you go up the chain of Republican Party leadership, the less your chances of encountering decent people. Those who are decent are gradually corrupted by the rotten ones, if not by participating in voter fraud and dirty tricks, then by having to hold their noses while the corrupt Republicans win elections for them through corrupt means.
I also think a lot of the decent Republicans are wilfully suppressing the knowledge of what their party is up to. Cause otherwise, they’d have to vote Democratic.
Any on this board, do you think? 
Apos, why is this? Why can you not tell us the whole story of what you have seen?
He could tell us, but then he’d have to kill us.
Well, I have to say that we Republicans are split into two camps right now. Half of the Republicans want to treat the Democrats like punks and just “steal” the election, wave it in their faces, and ask them what they’re going to do about it. The Florida Republicans and the US Supreme Court did that in 2000. This group calls themselves the ‘Rove Camp.’ The other half, us “old-schoolers,” want to trick the Democrats. You know, like telephone con artists or Nigerian letter writers asking for bank account numbers. Nader and those crazy punch ballots did that in 2000. This is the ‘Tricky Dick Nixon Camp.’ I’m a member of the ‘Tricky Dick Nixon Camp’ . And yes, the rumors are true, at midnight, on the anniversary of the Watergate breakin, we still place a rose and a Chinese finger trap on Richard Nixon’s grave.
Anyway — The problem we Republicans are having is that BOTH worked in 2000 — and so in 2004 we’re split. The vote is still too close to call and in the end, a third choice might win in a compromise vote. A hybrid ‘Trick-Steal’ similar to 2000 -
It seems the Democrats aren’t exactly pristine this election, either.
What should be readily apparent to anyone who doesn’t have their partisan head shoved up their ass is that American politics have become about nothing but power, the power to control the purse.
Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t really matter.
American jobs will still be outsourced to Third World shitsplat countries. Why? There’s scads of money to be made with cheap labor.
The environment will still take second banana to corporate interests. Why? There’s scads of money to be saved by dumping tons of toxic wastes into our rivers and lakes.
Our infrastructure will still continue to crumble around us. Why? Because “political supporters” will still be awarded big, fat construction contracts that take forever, snarl traffic, and get done just in time for them to do it all over again.
It’s all about the money. Show Me The Money!
The Libertarians might seem like a sane alternative, but I believe their dewy-eyed naivete would be blasted away in about two seconds flat when they got to D.C. and looked at the scads of dollars just waiting to be spent.
[QUOTE=ExTank]
It seems the Democrats aren’t exactly pristine this election, either.
That article is two years old, by the way, so I’m wondering about its relevance to, as you say, this election.
As with the first few posts in this thread regarding Republican activities, it’s a stretch to call most of the items listed in the article “dirty tricks.” Some of them certainly are, but most of them are campaign trail mischaracterizations of fact and baseless posturing. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but that kind of thing is qualitatively different from actual subversion of the electoral system.
Oh, and please spare me the meme that anything that happened at the Wellstone funeral was in the least dishonest, unfair, or in any way a “dirty trick.” Fer Pete’s sake.
C’mon, you can’t mention “dirty tricks” and not mention Lee Atwater. Atwater was the RNC Chairman during the late 80s, worked as an advisor to both Reagan and Bush I, and is credited with the infamous Willy Horton ad that helped Bush I beat Dukakis. He was a mentor to Karl Rove and GWB (he was his “minder” during his daddy’s campaign). In 1991 he came down with inoperable brain cancer, found Jesus, repented and renounced his dirty tricks politics, promising to make amends with those he’d harmed. But he died shortly thereafter.
You may have been able to get away with these claims 4 years ago…But, sorry, they won’t wash this time. After 4 years, there is plenty of evidence now that there is a significant difference between being completely in bed with corporate interests, as Bush et al. are, and being largely in bed with corporate interests, as the Dems are. At least the Dems have countervailing constituencies that they need to appeal to like labor and environmentalists.
I agree with your point that there is an inherent bias in our politics toward the monied interests. But, that still does not mean that some are beholden to those interests more than others…And, this can translate in some pretty dramatic differences in policy.
ascenray:
:smack:
[quick comeback]
Oh yeah?
[/quick comeback]
Well, it is certainly indicative that the Dems. are not above the same dirty tricks that they are accusing the Republicans of!
True enough, but according to the Democratic supporters, when the Republicans make the allegations they’re “baseless posturing?” When they make the allegations it is all evil underhanded 'Puby tricks.
Unfair? Colleagues come to pay repsects and are instead mouse-trapped into a political rally? What are they suposed to do? Sit there and get abused in a forum where they can’t respond? Or get up and leave and look like insensitive pricks?
If you think the Wellstone Funeral was fair and honest politicking, then you are not symptomatic of what’s wrong with this country; you are part of the actual disease that’s killing it.
Not that I’m saying the Republicans are any better; I just think that any Democratic Party partisan who thinks that they are lily-white and pure as the driven snow are beyond hypocrisy and into the realm of delusional.
And if the Republicans do the Dirty Deeds better than the Democrats, maybe it’s an indication that the Democrats aren’t smart enough to counter the Republicans.
