GOP Goes Nuclear

Great Debates
21

These types of shenanigans are not new to the GOP:

  1. Either you are a Republican or you are a communist 1950s helped Ike get into office.

  2. The so-called Silent Majority led Nixon back into the Executive Office, this time as top dog whose power he abused and was kicked out of office

  3. The holding back of the Iranian hostages was a ploy to get Reagan elected which resulted in the largest national debt ever, the biggest shift in wealth from the middle class to the wealthy, the dismantling of the New Deal, the savings and loan disaster which you and I are stilling paying back,
    the poor get poorer and the rich get richer

  4. The Gulf War which never ended. Saddam is still in power as are the sanctions and the sporadic bombings as the infant and child mortality rates raise back to rates some twenty years ago.

  5. The Newt’s contract with America [where they got just about everything passed except, wonders of wonders, term limits for congressmen], the neverending independent counsel investigations of the Clinton administration [alto Reagan and Nixon admins still hold the record for convicted officials], the impeachment attempt to get Clinton out

Sending in the GOP politicos to hassle the Miami Dade county board of electors is in keeping with their political behavior. The same politicos are now in Broward county.

I know that the Democratic Party has had its moments, however I was thinking about the scary GOP political history last night. Not a pretty picture. While I am quite pissed off at Nader, I am beginning to think that the line in the sand had been drawn a long time ago.

As for the Florida mess: let’s just recount the whole damn state with complete and comprehensive guidelines that apply to each and every vote. Let’s move the Dec 12th drop dead date back so that this recount can take place calmly and collectively without barbarians banging on the gates [there are party observers for each counting table so the issue of vote counting being obscured doesn’t fly]. I did not want to have the FL legislature decide my vote…

22

RTFirefly, you went a little too far on that one. Suggesting that a few protestors outside the counting area were ‘brown shirts’ (an offensive comparison to Nazis), and affiliated with the Bush campaign is a bit much. Forgetting the nasty slur, do you have any evidence at all that the Bush campaign instigated those demonstrations?

I think it’s also pretty far-fetched to suggest that a few protestors intimidated an election commission into ‘giving up’. Rather, I think that they were being absolutely truthful - there was no way in hell that they were going to finish on time.

Unless you’ve forgotten, these are the guys that tried to speed up the process by sifting the ballots electronically because they felt they’d never finish in time otherwise. This was BEFORE the demonstrations.

This is also the county that only did the first partial count under threat from Gore Lawyers, then announced that they saw no need to continue with a full count. They changed their mind on that under more threats from Gore lawyers. They clearly did not want to undertake this, and were probably looking for any excuse possible to get out of it.

Look at Palm Beach County. Do you think they will finish on time? With about 24 hours to go, they still have something like 286,000 ballots to go through. If THEY are finding it hard to finish on time, how could you expect Miami-Dade to manage it, with many more ballots?

Your bias is really starting to show through now. When the Democrats protest (and they’ve been protesting ever since the election, quite loudly, and around the same areas), they are simply ‘seeking justice’. When the Republicans do it, they are brown-shirts and thugs out to intimidate the poor elections officials.

23

Of course, you’re a model of objectivity, intellectual integrity, and nonpartisanship yourself, right?

You’re entitled to your opinion about our elections down here, but I tend to take views from people whose country this is more seriously than from those whose understanding of it comes from television. RTFirefly is entitled to his bias, if that’s what you want to call it, about his country, and you’re entitled to yours about your country. Fair enough?

I would expect a wannabe-Republican from western Canada to be a staunch supporter of the Alliance; is that right? Does your man Day have a chance? Is this a portent of the breakup of Canada, and the western provinces realizing their dream of joining the US?

24

For more detail on the GOP raid on the Miami-Dade recount facilities, try this link.

Then say how that could possibly be in the interests of the nation or the principles of democracy it stands for.

25

I see. So now we’re down to ad hominem attacks? Keep your opinions to yourself, because you’re a Canadian?

I haven’t been partisan in this debate at all. I hope you remember that a few days ago I was trashing Bush and claiming that Al Gore was on the high road. Subsequent events made me change my mind again.

As for getting my information from TV… Just where are you getting YOUR information? Is there some secret cabal that exists for American citizens where you get special briefings on such events? Or are you watching CNN like I am?

As for our election, quite frankly it’s a choice between a number of extremely poor candidates. You guys think you have a problem with the quality of your candidates, you should come up here and look at ours.

Cretien is a lifetime party hack who has already claimed that he’ll step down if the Liberals get a majority. That means voting Liberal is a vote for a mystery prime minister. If the Liberals gain power they could put a crack addict in if they wanted to. Cretien started this process by calling an election a year and a half early, for no other reason than that the opposition party just elected a leader and was disorganized. Just a few weeks ago it was revealed that he pressured a bank official into giving a personal friend of his a loan to buy a property in which Cretian had an interest. His defense? “We do this all the time. It’s business as usual.”

Stockwell Day is a glib, smooth-talking fundamentalist Christian who’s pre-political history including dropping out of school, and spending years doing menial labour while partying at night. His wife turned him into a Christian, and to prove his changed ways he ran for political office and won. He’s been moving up the ranks ever since.

You guys get to argue whether Bush or Gore did better at Harvard, whereas we get to argue whether or not our guy was doing too much dope while working as a ditch-digger. He believes that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and that dinosaurs and man co-existed.

Next we have the Progressive Conservatives (a contradiction in terms), a party so thoroughly discredited that it can’t manage more than 10% in the polls after holding power for over a decade.

Then we have the NDP, our socialist party (nuff said).

Who will I vote for? I’ll probably hold my nose and vote Alliance, simply because the Alliance candidate for our riding has done a pretty good job, and theoretically that’s who we’re supposed to vote for. So I’ll vote for her. But frankly, all our choices stink. You guys are actually pretty lucky with the quality of candidates you get, Bush and Gore included.

26

So did you mean slimmest, or slimiest? :smiley:

I was hoping this was about a literal nuclear meltdown at the Republican H.Q. in Florida. An 80 ft. tall Kathleen Harris rampaging in downtown Miami, breathing fire on everything. Jeb Bush with two heads. Etc. That would have been so cool.

Yes, the GOP and the Dems have both “had their moments.” However what the GOP or Dems did in the 1950’s has about as much to do with the election in Florida as does whether the Doritos I’m currently eating are Cool Ranch or Nacho Cheese. Your feelings about this just being the latest in a long line of GOP transgressions are irrelevant to the situation at hand. Both parties are doing whatever they can to get their side to win, bending (and likely breaking) the rules as much as they can.

Yes, it’s a shame, but it couldn’t have happened any other way. It’d be nice if the parties could be objective, but they can’t, so they courts will have to sort it out as best they can. Of course, the courts aren’t apolitical either. Darn. Let’s hope we can live with whatever the hell shakes out of this bag a few weeks from now.

I think it’s 4 and out for whoever ultimately wins this one anyway…

27

I know I mentioned that both the Republicans and Dems are both bending and probably breaking the law. That doesn’t mean I condone it, however. The information in the above article disgusts me. Anyone who incites a riot like this should definitely be thrown in the clink.

Just because it’s not happening now doesn’t mean the Democrats are above something like this either. The moral high ground here is a mile underwater.

28

Not partisan? Guess I must have missed that one, while reading things like your last post.

As for your “opinions”, you’ve taken to making attacks on others, like RTFirefly, who ARE Americans and DO have a direct stake in this election. You may be frustrated about it, but this isn’t your fight, it’s ours. You have your own, and it means far more to your country’s future than ours does to ours.

I wish you Canadians cared enough about your own country to at least keep it in one piece, but maybe you don’t. One thing you DO have to do is respect our right to run our own democratic republic, and acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we have a better feeling about what it takes to run ours successfully. We’ve been doing it for some time now.

It’s really too bad that you see nothing positive in any of your candidates and parties, but I’m sure they’re there if you really care to look. You never know who is capable of growing into a job, and there is nobody who can be a total failure in it. Please care, and care about your own home first. When you’ve cleaned up your own home, you can bring up ours.

See how pissed you are that an American would have the effrontery to comment on your own politics? Don’t you think you might be doing the same thing?

No, there is no “secret cabal” by which we get information, except by our own conversations, and this: We have a shared background and political heritage that is much different in the fundamentals, never mind the surface similarities, that provide the structure for our views of this situation. Your conceptual framework for your views of it is different, and inherently less applicable. That’s human nature. You’d do well to realize that before you go on to make more pronouncements about what we should be doing.

As for TV, I guarantee you won’t get a true picture of how we think, how we act, and what we hold important by watching the talking heads on the political shows, any more than you will from the sitcoms. The talking heads are superficial and partisan on purpose - the shows need ratings, and that’s entertainment value. Few of us take them seriously, and we don’t take it seriously when someone just repeats a view they heard on one of the shows.

29

There are lots of stories on the Republican politico van; check out cnn or msnbc websites for example.

Not much has been said about what has happened in Duval County - where I live. There was an insightful article in the Jacksonville Times Union newspaper printed on the Saturday after the election about how 22,000 people in Duval county unknowningly voted for more than one candidate. That is a jump from the average of 6-7,000 votes in 1992 and 1996. Yes, more folks voted in this election - 30,000 and yet 22,000 votes where thrown out from four county precincts which just happened to be in African American neighborhoods that overwhelmingly supported Gore by 80%.

I wasn’t able to find the article in the Times Union archives, however the Folio Weekly [also Jacksonville] has several articles in their online issue: http://www.folioweekly.com
Let’s play some fuzzy, nonstatistical math:

1992/96: average rate for thrown out votes in Duval = 3%
Adj 2000 vote: double for new voters and 2p ballot = 6%
2000 vote: total # of voters 291,626 in Duval x .06 = 17,498
2000 vote: All Thrown out Duval votes, doubles,dimples 26,909 etc minues 6% mixup = 9411
2000 vote: 80% of adj thrown out votes = 7,529 votes
Let’s cut that by 50% = 3,775 potential Gore votes.

Total number of presidential overvotes: 21,900
total number of senate overvotes: 1,961
total number of clerk of court overvotes: 159

Bush’s current lead in overall state vote is 900 something w/o taking into consideration the recent recounts in Palm Beach or Broward. 3,775 plus potential votes verses a lead of 900 something… makes one wonder.

I bet you anything that

  1. The Gore campaign will contest Duval county certified results.

  2. Duval county will be included in the civil rights petition to be filed with the Justice Dept.

  3. Political scientists et al will be looking, analyzing and debating the Duval county 2000 election results for years to come and long after Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties revert back to travel brochures.

30

Fuzzy math from a fuzzy sleepyhead.
Let’s change that sentence to:

Gore at 3775 compared to Bush 2782 [900 plus 1882] instead of just 3775 compared to 900.

I’m going to bed. I hope those Broward and Palm Beach officials are more awake than I am.

Slightly off topic: what did you think about the telecasts showing the election boards counting those dimpled ballots as shown on MSNBC?

31

Update: the unofficial margin has Bush ahead by about 500 votes. With this margin certain to get lower by 5pm, watch the lawsuits fly.

32

I am fairly liberal. But I am disheartened by the Democratic stance in Florida. In my above post, I mentioned precision. IMHO, seeking precision is the moral high ground. In science, we are taught that every measurement has its limits of precision, and we must operate within the
precision. Data implied from beyond the limits of precision
are worthless.

The machines are certified something like 99.99% accurate. I’ll find a cite. We are operating far beyond this limit of precision.

Some rough math :

Average margin for Bush right now for machine recounts (not including overseas ballots) – (1700 + 300) / 2 = 1000

Add to that +600 overseas ballots = 1600. I’ll assume that this number is precise.

So 100% - 1600 margin/6,000,000 votes cast = 99.99973333%

The machines would have to be able to distinguish a 0.00026% difference in the vote. Just from the machine recounts, it is obvious that we are no where near that precision, and I have heard the 99.99% precise number from a variety of sources.

Granted, this is n=2.

Using 2 machine counts, this is a statistical tie. The margin is not significant, and cannot be distinguished using equipment in use.

State law in Florida states that a manual recount is the method for resolving disputed elections. So, the Democrats are right IMHO for seeking manual recounts. The Republicans just ignore the precision factor. I think this is pervasive in society – the numbers “1700” and “300” and “930” are tangible, real numbers. But, scientifically they mean nothing.

But, the flaw in the Democratic policy is not seeking a manual recount of ALL of Florida. Picking and choosing areas with disputed counts does nothing except make some of the counts more precise. The overall count is still limited by the areas with the lowest precision – the non-recounted counties. Ick, language.

Think about a scale. Let’s say we weigh an semi on a truck scale. We get a weight of 10,000 kilograms

Then we weigh a flea on a microscale. We get a weight of 0.1 mg.

We can’t say that the total weight is 10,000,000.001 grams. I’m exaggerating, but the semi are counties with the machine count, and the flea is the manual recount.

Does this make any sense? What are the Republican arguments against this?

33

kiffasaid:

I can certainly see why the Democrats haven’t been publicizing this- their own workers shot them in the foot in this case. I cited a NY Times story about the situation in this thread
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=46135&pagenumber=2
(in my post near the bottom of the page). According to the Times the Democratic get-out-the-vote workers told their clientel to “make sure you vote in every race and on every page”, overlooking the fact that this year in Duval County the presidental section of the ballot took up two pages. Is it the Republicans’ fault that the sheep followed those instructions?

It is sad that our election may hinge on a result like that, but if people are going to surrender to others their own responsibility to choose wisely, and those others turn out to be incompetent what remedy can fix it now?

34

RT,
I too am disturbed by the actions of those GOP activists in Miami-Dade, but Sam Stone is right- IMHO I think that Brownshirt comment is uncalled for. I didn’t see any pics of bloodied victims being led away, or corpses lying in the street. Given that the topic of your OP was a complaint against overreaction and misleading rhetoric it is a bit ironic to see the Brownshirt comparison.

As to what actually happened in M-D, there are different reports of how bad it was, but the link ElvisL1ves did not seem overly objective to me. And for whatever it is worth, CNN quotes the chairman of the M-D board as saying the protestors/rioters(?) did not play any part in their decision to stop the recount. See
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/25/buckley.debrief/

Finally, I for one, am glad to read the perspectives of non-Americans on these issues.

35

I’v be very interested to see such, since every estimate of these machines’ precision I’ve heard or seen says they have between 2 and 5 percent error rate. The very lowest I’ve heard is 1%, which is .99 % higher than you are stating here. Pretty significant when dealing with numbers this large (total) and small (the point spread between candidates).

stoid
no mathematician, true

36

nebuli with the insults(mostly from one person) on this thread what do you expect? I guess its just too much to expect to think that the SDMD people can be rational over this and not resort to insults. Though this does show that it was never about the 2 presidents, the political arguements in this forum almost totally remind me of. YOUR CLAN SUKS WE WOULD WHOOP YOU ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. Type threads in various clan forums.

edwino ill argue for the republicans:)

basically their arguement is “our guy won and we don’t trust that we would win in a legal battle vs Gore” Which they woulden’t. So politically they are taking the correct choice. (if they had simply let Gore do what he wanted and not try to stop him Gore would have won by now)

I think that if scientifically you brought evidence against either party they would say “down with science!” and try to burn you at the stake.

37

Then show the flaws in his arguments. But you can’t seriously be suggesting that only Americans are permitted to have and offer an opinion on this issue. Foreign perspectives have been some of the most enlightenting ones in the various threads on election topics, both pro-Bush and pro-Gore ones.

And can all of us–myself included–try to refrain from immediately reacting to any opinion principally by describing it as “partisan,” as if any opinion that may favor a particular party cannot because of that fact be valid. Statements along the lines of “Oh yeah? You wouldn’t feel that way if the situation were reversed” do nothing to show the actual flaw in a given argument (which may exist).

38

This is in followup to your post last night re Duval County voting anomalies.

I find it hard to swallow that all these voters blindly followed the instructions of the get-out-the-vote politicos of the Democratic Party. I also find it insulting that folks would accept this idea of dumb-nut voters because the voters were from predominately African American neighborhoods.

I also find it a bit disgusting that people should accept a tripling/quadrupling of the double vote rate from the previous two elections without question. The official stance is that voters must take responsibility when they vote and read the instructions. Yes, I have no problem there. And I have no problem with the idea that some ballots were inaccurately punched because of inaccurate ballot instructions [two page presidential ballot, vote for one group rather than one candidate instructions, instruction NOT printed in a different color than the candidate’s name etc]. No problem, my problem is the proportion of votes that were doubled voted ballots; 3 to 4 times higher rate in very specific geographic areas which normally are not hell-raiser neighborhoods.

My neighborhood and precinct had the average rate of 3%. This is a neighborhood where folks make a fuss when the jogging/sidewalk paths are not mowed and trimmed. The folks would have gone absolutely ballistic had the election board thrown out one of every four ballots cast.

This is an issue that needs to be looked at indepth.

39

kiffa, you said

I was merely reporting what was in the New York times, which is not generally considered a pro-Bush paper. According to them some of the local Democrats were in fact blaming themselves- so if you disagree with the assessment, you may be right, but your argument is either with the Times reporting or the local Dems’ belief.

I think it is awful that our election is being decided by shit like this, but unless you have some evidence beyond it being hard to swallow, why should I or other observers not accept the Times’ assessment?

And where does it say that is why folks are accepting this?

But if the Times report is accurate, do you see why the Democrats may not be very anxious to bring the situation to the fore?

40

Asmodean :

I really, really hope this is sarcastic. :slight_smile:

Legal battles are where we settle things when the law is murky. And in this case, the law is anything but crystal clear.

I would hope that as soon as a party says “Down with science” that a large proportion of Americans would turn on that party. I know if Gore were to come out pro-creationism or in favor of a national religion, I’d never vote for him in a million years. Again, I may be far from average in terms of the issues, but I’d hope there would be an outcry.

The vote is unclear on so many levels – legally, morally, and scientifically. I think that the legal courts (and not the courts of public opinion) are the only place that we have a hope of solving this thing fairly…