Or, you could simply be wrong.
Bush is arguing that he has **reduced ** the threat of terror, not **eliminated ** it. You can argue about whether or not he has actually reduced the threat, but it is certainly possible for us to be both safer, and yet still in danger.
If you take a dozen steps to eliminate fire dangers around your house, do you then cancel your fire insurance? No.
Well, I think a more accurate portrayal is that some of us are so entranced by the jingoism and mendacity of the Bush machine and its attendant press corps that they think that doubting the intent of those in power is paranoid and that personal attacks make for effective debate.
Cluricaun and gobear have succinctly listed, and backed up with cites, enough evidence of lies and abuses of power by the Bush administration to give us the right to express a little doubt as to thier motives.
So go ahead. Hurl personal attacks and accusations of paranoia at us. It only reveals who among us is really deluded.
Oh, yes. He has done such a good job of reducing the threat of terror that we are now facing a disruption of our democratic process for the first time in history.
Tell me, are we safer now than we were before the 2002 midterm elections, when 9/11 was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and the threat of another attack was supposedly higher than ever? If so, then why do we even need to talk about postponing the 2004 elections?
Face it. It’s ludicrous. The Bush Machine is talking out of both of its two faces at once.
The current administration wouldn’t win either way. Here’s why;
I never said he was doing a good job. I just said that is not logically inconsistent for us to be both safer and still in danger.
As for being upset about Bush’s latest proclamation, what do you actually expect him to say? Has any president at any time ever said during his tenure that his policies have made the country less safe? Ain’t gonna happen, pal…
The Johnson Administration Lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The Nixon administration lied about Watergate.
Ford probably lied when he said “there was no deal.”
The Reagan Administration lied about Iran-Contra.
Bush Senior Lied about Iran-Contra.
Clinton, as the pubbies love to point out, lied about Monica, though I don’t think this rates with the other lies, quite frankly.
Bush Junior lied about WMDs.
Since just prior to my birth up to the present, we’ve seen significant and at times extrememly damaging mendacity on the part of at least five out of eight presidents. I have very little reason to think that, if given the opportunity, the current president or one of the next, will not try to use any opportunity available to manipulate an election in their favor. Having a ready mechanism to delay elections nationwide because of unspecified terrorist threats provides a legal and convenient mechanism for a president and/or his administration to try to rig elections. I don’t think, given the presidential track record over the past 40 or so years, that it is at paranoid to have deep misgivings about the current move to delay elections if deemed “necessary”.
Given the sorry state of our internal and international intelligence, the obvious effect political pressure has on the quality of threat assessment, and the historically-proven propensity for mendacity displayed by your average president, I think, quite frankly, that you are deluded for trusting our government to do the right thing with the power to delay elections, and especially deluded to trust the current administration.
I don’t see an equal protection issue; everyone in Florida still gets the same right to vote. Hawaiians routinely don’t bother voting because the election is almost always called before their polls close (Hawaiian polls close at 2am Eastern, IIRC). Nobody seriously claims that this deprives Hawaiians of equal protection. (Admittedly, the fact that Hawaii only has four electoral votes may play into this somewhat.)
Special elections represent a less-than-ideal solution at times, but I think the prospect of special elections in a few districts is much less problematic for the country than that of postponing the entire general election. And I think handing political appointees the power to suspend elections across the entire country is, quite simply, insane. Especially if that power also goes to suspending the state elections that will take place on November 2nd in nearly every state. People are going to be voting for more than just President on November 2nd, and many of those races aren’t federal questions at all. If the federal government postpones its elections but states go through with theirs, who will pay the cost of the special election when the federal government eventually gets around to having one for the federal races? Why should North Dakota have to pay for a special election because someone blew up a polling place in Florida? Should a village in Vermont have to wait an extra month to decide whether to raise taxes to pay to keep the high school running, just because somebody blew up a polling place in New Mexico? Keep in mind that the states bear the cost of holding the elections; the federal government does not.
Finally, a policy of a national postponement for spot terrorist activity merely encourages terrorism. With such a policy, all a terrorist group has to do to throw our national political system into complete turmoil is a terrorist attack on the least significant of targets. Blow up one polling place in Butte, Wyoming and the entire electoral machine grinds to a halt, over a state with only three electoral votes that we’ve all known were going to go to Bush since January of 2001. Why are we making it easier for the terrorists?
No, I think this is mainly just the Administration seeking to “raise the terror level”, as they’ve done many times since 9/11.
Relevant? You decide.
But isn’t it different if the polls in one place **don’t even open ** until after the polls in the majority of the nation are closed? Is there any precident for having an election in that manner?
First, I do agree that this authority should be reserved for Congress and not given to a political appointee of the administration.
And the logistics are daunting, for sure. In the end, it needs to be up to the states. What I wonder is, if any state would want to sign up for a system that would result in that state having to postpone federal elections while the rest of the country carries on as usual. I doubt it.
I don’t think it makes sense to split the elections. And I don’t see that there would be a scenario that would require more than one week’s delay. Our system should be able to absorb that delay w/o any adverse effects.
Butte is in Montana, but I get your point. 
We’d certainly have to have some minimum threshold of damage for it to make sense to delay the election, and it would have to be during or immediately before the election. I’m sure that there are small problems with certain polling locations in EVERY election. But another 9/11 type attack that essentially shut down the city of NY is a whole different ball of wax. And surely one cannot argue that having a contingency plan for terror attacks plays into the hands of terrorists.
Several of which are problematic, and none of which have anything to do with cancelling elections.
The trouble is that there is no indication that the current President is going to do anything of the sort. What we have is a bunch of dark accusations from the Usual Suspects, who are capable of talking themselves and each other into believing anything about Bush. Almost literally anything at all, including paranoid fantasies like a fascist take over of the US. This is the moral equivalent of The Turner Diaries as written by the less rational members of the Left.
Which is a rather whopping misstatement of the subject of the OP. Since the legislation being discussed is not ready, is not based on unspecified threats (but rather a major terrorist incident), is neither legal (so far) nor convenient, and gives no opportunity to rig elections not already available.
By all means continue with the paranoid fantasies, if you like. But quite frankly, this is the sort of thing that shows how far out of touch liberals can get when they reinforce each other’s delusions.
You need conservatives to mock you when you start posting this kind of foolishness. Otherwise the Bush-hating 80% of the SDMB nods its head and agrees sagely with each other about something that is head-snappingly idiotic.
You are letting your anti-Bush obsessions get the better of you.
The elections are not going to be cancelled. The voices are not out to get you. OJ did it. Oswald acted alone. The flying saucers are not coming to pick up the Raelians, and if delusional thoughts made you cut off your balls or your credibility, you are going to wind up looking stupid.
You people need to get a grip here.
Regards,
Shodan
I could accept such a plan only with a strong safeguard (i.e. all incumbents are ineligible to run in a postponed election) against use for any but a genuine emergency.
Don’t be an insulting ass. Take it to the pit, if you like to behave that way. If you read my post carefully, you’d see I don’t limit my suspicions to Bush. Any president from any party is fair game for suspicion of corruption, as far as I’m concerned.
Again, I see nothing paranoid about suspecting that legalizing electoral delay would lead to abuses. I was under the impression that the current push for legislation includes threat contingencies as well as actual attack contigencies, despite what the OP mentions. At any rate, delaying the election after an actual attack is still unwise, especially given the fact that the current administration appears to be afraid of a repeat of what happened in Spain. All I see here is an attempt to distract; the Bush administration seems to be in fear of an attack just prior to an election. The underlying reasoning seems to be that if elections proceed according to schedule, Americans will blame Bush, and vote him out. Look at how partisan support or opposition to the proposed delay is. Dem’s don’t like it, Pub’s do, seemingly across the board. The most significant player in this game appears to be partisan politics, not concerns about preserving the integrity of our democracy or whatever other rhetoric they choose to obfuscate the real issues with. Both parties argue with partisan motivation behind their support or opposition, so I naturally am deeply suspicious of the whole thing.
Partisanship is the very thing I would hope to keep out of the issue. The voters will do what they will do; the Feds. should not try to manipulate that. While I don’t trust the Dems support the approach I prefer for the right reasons, we are in agreement at least on the details: We vote on Nov. 2nd, no matter what. If there are unavoidable local delays (e.g. somebody nukes a ballot box, necessitating a recount), so be it, but on the National scale, the show absolutely must go on.
Quite a few countries hold multi-day elections, and they seem to manage just fine. I don’t think this presents a serious challenge to fairness. Note also that current law allows a state to choose to hold its election, even for national office, on a date other than the federally specified one, within certain limits.
I think it’s pretty clear that Congress already has the power to reschedule elections without any further lawmaking, since Congress has the power to set the date of elections in the first place. The Administration’s proposal is, I believe, to grant a committtee of federal election commissioners that power.
The Administration is specifically concerned with the fact that under current law, a postponement would be limited to at most three or four weeks. Apparently, they want to be able to postpone for a longer time.
What I really think is going on here is the Administration wants to be able to abort the election if a terrorist attack does occur just beforehand, in order to avoid being swept from power (which is what would likely happen; see also Spain). They’re also trying to raise the terror level so people are more scared. Current polling indicates that the more scared the electorate is, the more likely they are to vote for Republicans. So I consider this to be an entirely political move. Note especially how knowledge of the “discussion” between Homeland Security and Justice was leaked, and that Justice initially denied that it had taken place.
While I’m not disagreeing per se Kelly, I think that specifically, the Bush folks are trying to gradually introduce us to the concept of a “delayed election” and, more specifically, germinating support among the loyal and faithful. So, when October and November roll around, and they get a chance, any chance, to panic the nation and push for a delay of the elections, they will have their army of supporters all on the same page.
I was wondering when they were going to trot this idea out. My only suprise was that it was so soon.
But then again, Rove and his machiavellian posse have been bungling things pretty good as of late. Perhaps they’ve become so insulated from reality that their political algorithms are starting to go divergent.
Dumb custom. We’d get higher voter turnout if we voted over the weekend. Or simply made a election day a national holiday, which it is, in some countries.
Got a cite for that? I was under the impression that, under current laws, national elections cannot be suspended or postponed short of martial law. Where did you read something to the contrary, or that the administration is seeking a longer delay?
How do you know we’d get better turnout on the weekend? I don’t see it.
Between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, you’d have issues with Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. It wouldn’t be worth the hassle.
Voting is so easy, I see no need to pander to anyone who is simply too lazy to go to the polls, or who otherwise cannot be bothered to vote by mail.
Reason for allowing a postponment, very simple:
Terrorist org ‘A’ would like to see the US elect canidate ‘B’.
Terrorist Group ‘A’ on election day destroy polling places where the voters will most likely vote for canidate ‘A’, the results of the votes is these places are lost and not counted.
Due to the actions of Terrorist org ‘A’, canidate ‘B’ wins. This will just be a sign to the terrorists all over the world (‘A’-‘Z’) that terrorsim works, and there goes the world as we know it.
Allowing areas that polling places were destroyed to rebuild and revote will elimate this possibility.
Nonsense. Due to the actions of voters, candidate A or B will win. Voters aren’t children, how dare anyone treat them that way.
You’re one of those Big Goverment Liberals, aren’t you? 