I Remember some were saying Election 2004 was stolen...

Reagan was 69 when he was firest elected, and that was 25 years ago. Maybe 72 is the new 69. :slight_smile:

Edwards is a light weight. Yeah, Bush is/was a light weight, too, but he was kind of the right place at the right time. Besides, it’s going to be Hillary at the head of the ticket.

Put Condi as the VP, and that draws women and Blacks to the GOP. If it only by a small amount, that’s exactly where the GOP is weak electorially. She makes the perfect VP candidate.

You are correct in that we are not here to fight personality disorders.
Too bad there are no rules for a history of disingenuous and non-productive posts in GD. Or willfull ignorance. Or targetting posters who call them on it.
**“Whether you like it or not, Ohio is where it’s at in this election.”

  • Karl Rove, addressing the Ohio delegates at the 2004 RNC convention.**

"Karl Rove had said Ohio would be the “Ground Zero” of the election and, not for the first time, he was right.

All summer long pundits had predicted that the election, so close in so many ways, would come down to Ohio."

Don’t count those chickens till they hatch. Things could get complex (like Obama getting the Dem veep slot, wouldn’t that be interesting?) And I’m far from certain about Condi’s appeal. Racism is not dead by any means in this country. And votes that Condi could possibly gain from blacks might be offset by white flight away from the GOP. Whether she would have a positive or negative impact is still in doubt. I just don’t see people warming up to her. To me, she comes across as prickly and arrogant. Of course, some say that of Hillary as well (by the way, she will NOT win the nomination). Consider this combo: Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Barack Obama of Illinois. Even Reagan would have a hard time beating that.

Very good! Much better.

Now we can tear your cites into itty-bitty pieces.

Here we have a cite that Florida was key.

Herewe have a mention that three states are “key”, none of which is Ohio.

Here we have a mention that six states are key.

Here they cite Colorado as a key state. (Also New Mexico and Wisconsin).

And here we have a mention of “battleground states” that doesn’t even mention Ohio.

So I am afraid your notion of “everyone” knowing beyond question that Ohio was going to be the state where the fix had to be in is a little short of the mark.

Regards,
Shodan

Interesting thought.

Utterly wrong prediction for me, as my reaction - publicly, on these boards, to the Washington governor’s race was… “The GOP lost. They should quit whining and suck it up.”

See that? I’m consistent.

Okay, it appears that semantical nitpicks are relevant here in GD.

IMO, it’s total bullshit being used as a red herring and a distraction, but as long as I am still a subscriber I will play along with your nonsense:

I will retract “everyone”, in order to exclude the apolitical, the willfully ignorant, and anyone irrelevant to the context that prompted my assertion/reply. Karl Rove and the Bush campaign considered Ohio to be key. This was the original basis of xtisme’s theory re the possibility of fraud being perpetrated.

Care to dispute that?

Actually, here is what I said (since you dragged me back into this…I’m mostly just lurking on this board these days):

I stand by that. You’ve shown that some people thought Ohio MIGHT be important, even the key. Shodan has shown that other people had other thoughts on it…some of which didn’t include Ohio at all. It would still take foreknowledge to know that Ohio was going to be THE decisive swing state and put their eggs in that basket to ‘steal’ the election. Reguardless, I’ve still seen no actual proof that even Ohio was ‘stolen’…just a lot of dancing around about whether or not everyone ‘knew’ that Ohio was going to be THE one and only key to victory.

-XT

Where did I say “THE one and only” key to victory? You’re only perpetuating nonsense by supporting Shodan’s posts.

Did you read Shodan’s cites? (I admit I didn’t, only because he has a history of posting disingenuous cites, apparently hoping no one bothers to read them)

But regardless, the only relevant “foreknowledge” would be that of those with the means, motive, and opportunity to perpeptrate fraud, ie, Karl Rove, and the Bush campaign.

I can’t force you to read the evidence presented so far, much less acknowledge it. Why do you feel the need to post in these threads when you consistently refuse to do so?

Then again, re this Watergate timeline:

Maybe you’ll get around to it someday…

Er…I’m not perpetuating anything. You are seriously trying to confuse this issue with all this. Read again what I wrote and what you objected too. You and others were saying that it would only take a few votes in a key state to swing the election. I was pointing out that unless you had foreknowledge of which would be THE key state, you’d have to target all of the states you THOUGHT would (or even might) be key…and that would take altering potentially millions of votes. Hundreds of thousands at the least. Its only if you could look back on things retrospectively that you’d KNOW that Ohio was the key, and target just THAT state just enough to steal the election without setting off real alarm bells.

Reguardless I’ve still seen no proof that even Ohio was stolen.

I skimmed both of your cites. Perhaps you should go and look at his though before simply dismissing them. Reguardless of what anyone predicted, no one KNEW what the outcome would be before hand…not even Carl Rove.

But I’ve READ all the so called evidence anna. I’ve been in myriad of these threads, especially in the early days just after the election. I’ve yet to see anything solid. Why do YOU continue to post in these threads when the evidence is so scanty? On other subjects if presented with such scanty evidence (take the myriad WMD threads) you and most of the other objectors would be hooting with laughter if someone attempted to piece such non-sense together. If you have some new and startling evidence post it and I’ll take a look…so far you’ve posted nothing but some quotes that some folks thought Ohio would (or might) be the key.

I’ve made no comment on Watergate one way or the other, so I’m unsure why you are trying to drag me into this aspect. I don’t really see the parallel myself…they were separate incidents. In addition, since I was alive then, I can say that fairly early one could tell something fishy was up…the only unknown was how high up it would go. The crime was pretty well documented (something that has failed to be done with the stolen election claims) early on. There was an investigation started early on as well, though perhaps it was going on without the majority of US citizens being aware…again, something not happening here. It might have taken a year after the election before the majority of the people were knowledgable of this, but the investigations were on going during that time. Afaik, there are no serious official (or even unofficial) investigations currently underway concerning the election in 2004.

-XT

See, this is nonsense.

I’ve already provided ample cites to show that the Bush campaign considered Ohio key. You’ve provided nothing to refute them.

It wasn’t millions of votes that decided this election. Why would you keep on with that scenario in the face of the facts? It’s dishonest, just as Shodan’s argument about Ohio was and is dishonest. That’s not debating.

So you think NPR and CNN are willfully ignorant?

At any rate, your amended nonsense is also stupid and wrong. Cite..

Oh wait, that’s right - you don’t read cites.

Oh well, maybe you read posts:

So you are now alleging that the margin of victory for Bush was not around three and a half million votes?

My gosh, this is pathetic.

Oh, and by the way -

You’re a liar.

Um, no - I was thinking of someone else.

Not only dishonest, but now sloppy…

I wouldn’t need to read “your” cite, because I cited it earlier:

Let’s see what else “your cite” says:

**"Karl Rove had said Ohio would be the “Ground Zero” of the election** and, not for the first time, he was right."

"Whether you like it or not, Ohio is where it’s at in this election."

  • Karl Rove, addressing the Ohio delegates at the 2004 RNC convention.

EC vote trumps popular vote (as if you didn’t know).

I agree.

Refresh my memory: When’s the last time a Republican won without winning Ohio???

Thanks for the laugh.

I thought you didn’t read cites.

Anyway, now that you did, and it says pretty specifically that Rove did not consider Ohio to be key since “We’ve got New Mexico, Iowa and Wisconsin, where the polls are showing us ahead, and that equals Ohio.”, and that he believed that West Virginia and Ohio were about to move out of contention - you do realize that your nonsense has been disproven twice over?

So, you originally said that “everyone” knew that Ohio was key. That was easily disproven, so you amended to say that everyone who was not willfully ignorant thought so. That was equally easily disproven. Then you claimed that Karl Rove said that Ohio was the key. Also wrong, obviously.

So what do you have left? Bluster? That’s all you started out with.

Not ready for the big boys yet.

Regards,
Shodan

The idea that Karl Rove would simply write off a state with 20 electoral votes – especially one that Bush won by 1% (over Gore and Nader) in 2000 – is laughably naive.

And splitting hairs over what Rove did or didn’t say in public is meaningless; as this Administration has shown repeatedly, what someone will say and what he will do are totally separate things.

It could only be termed “naive” if you believed they didn’t know better.

But I agree that this particular line of debate is meaningless. IMO, it’s just a deliberate distraction from the main issue posited by the OP.

If someone can straight-face deny a basic political and historical fact like “Ohio is, was, and has always been a key state in a US national election - especially for the GOP candidate”, then what are the chances they will address or acknowledge any current evidence of election anomalies?

Apparently, we’ll just have to wait for reality to bite.

Oh, I see the nonsense, no doubt. Its just coming from a different source than you seem to think it is. Try a bit closer to home.

Why should I refute them. You are either blind or you are being willfully ignorant in this thread…or trying to provoke me. I never claimed Ohio wasn’t A key. I said it wasn’t THE one and ONLY key…that there were other states that were thought would be as important before the election. Thats what you just don’t seem to be able to get through your head. I have no idea why…you really aren’t normally this dense.

One last time…no one in this thread is denying that Ohio wasn’t a key state. Whats being refuted is that it was THE key state where the Republicans would put all their eggs before the election. YOU asserted that ‘everyone’ knew Ohio was THE key state…thus you wouldn’t need millions of votes to ‘steal’ the election, only tens of thousands (BTW, you still haven’t backed up your over all assertion that Ohio WAS stolen yet…just a heads up). You have failed to back up even this claim though as Shodans cites show (did you ever read them btw?). No one knew exactly which states would be key…there was a laundry list of states that various ‘experts’ THOUGHT MIGHT be key, and Ohio was only ONE of them. Thus, were a party going to try and ‘steal’ an election it they would target ALL the states they thought were ‘key’.

Ok, lets see more bluster and BS anna. Lets see you wave your hands and construct another strawman position you can knock down. Or…lets see some EVIDENCE that the election WAS stolen. Thats really the core issue here which you have danced around the entire thread. Whether the pope felt that Ohio was going to be THE key, and he heard it from GOD ALMIGHTY is irrelevant if you can’t even prove that Ohio was stolen. So, why don’t you drop this tangent and get cracking on proving your core assertion…that the 2004 election was stolen. After all, that WAS the OP after all…not whether or not Rove (or Mickey Mouse) thought Ohio was the holy grail of the election…

-XT

The issue of whether 100% of all pols and pundits agreed that Ohio was the key state in the election is irrelevant. It WAS 100% certain that a Bush victory with a stolen Ohio was more likely than a Bush victory without one.
I’d like an innocent explanation for the following

Or this from the same cite:

We’re being asked to believe that the shortage of voting machines in Democratic precincts and longer lines is just happenstance. We’re being asked to believe that precincts where undervotes of 2% are typical had 25% of the voters stand in line for hours and hours only to express no opinion on the presidential race. Virtually every irregularity in the 2004 election just happened to favor Bush. Sorry, but I just cannot make myself believe that. And I don’t believe for a minute that the election thieves cared whether it was 100% certain that Ohio was the key.

Why is there no official investigation happening then BobLibDem? Why aren’t the Democrats in the Congress and Senate agitating for one? I’m curious why you think the Dems aren’t doing anything if there are so many indications.

-XT

Because they’re gutless? Because they fear the damage to faith in the electoral system would be worse than keeping quiet? Because they just can’t bring themselves to believe the evidence?

Darn good question. Not being in Congress, I assume these are possible factors:
1- Lack of courage
2- Unwillingness to be perceived as a “sore loser”
3- Fear of possible harm to democratic process if election fraud is proven
4- Loss of pork for district
5- Realization that the Republican majority is about as objective as the OJ Simpson jury and no remedy is forthcoming.

I salute Conyers for bringing it as far as he has. Doubtless he has been advised by Democratic leadership that in the long term, it isn’t in the best interest of the party to pursue it further.