Well, with that title you probably know where I’m coming from …
[Update below the fold]
I’m not a big fan of political prognostications. I don’t follow all the ins and outs of political campaigns that closely for one thing, and the constant poll watching and hype and ecstasy one day, gloom and doom the next, which make up the genre just doesn’t appeal to me. I’m just not that much of a political junkie, I suppose.
That said, I do have an opinion as to what is likely to happen this Tuesday when the votes are tallied, one which I think is at least as reality based as others. And I confess, I’m not particularly optimistic, despite all the hopeful signs which point to Democratic gains. Frankly, I think we are being set up for another stolen election.
(cont.)
Too often in the last week I’ve seen new polls which claim that Republicans are surging. Not all of them, but you only need a few to help establish the narrative that the Republicans are poised to make a political comeback of Truman v. Dewey proportions.
Then factor in the massive voter suppression efforts the GOP is currently making, and plans to make on election day, the last minute ad blitz by the RNCC and other Republican/conservative organizations, and the numerous stories about the GOP’s “GOTV machine”, and the stage is set for a GOP victory that can be spun as not resulting from fraud, but from the superior (if nefarious) campaign strategy, tactics and organization of the Republicans.
We all know that the electronic voting machines and other machines used to tabulate the vote have serious security flaws, and are all too easy to hack. Furthermore, the companies which own those machines keep their software and source codes secret, refusing to divulge them even to the states and counties which purchase their equipment. And we are all to aware that these e-voting machine companies have contributed mightily to the campaign war chests of individual Republican officials and also the Republican party. It’s safe to assume they’re not completely unbiased regarding the outcome of the elections their machines will be tabulating.
It’s also apparent to anyone who’s paying attention, that not every race has to be fixed in order to maintain GOP majorities in both the Senate and the House. All one has to do is flip the vote in favor of Republican candidates in a few close races (or, to be more precise, races which are perceived by the media and pollsters to be close) and — voila! — Bush, Cheney, Rummy and their myriad of mindless minions are saved from having to contest Congressional subpoenas from the lies of Chairman John Conyers for the next two years. Just ask Karl Rove about the math required to make a Dem victory party turn sour.
So here is my tin foil hat (and I sincerely hope incredibly wrong headed) prediction for the outcome of the 2006 Mid-term Elections:
In the Senate: GOP wins all of the races currently deemed toss-ups. Dems pick up at most 2-3 seats, leaving Republicans with a still solid majority. To add salt to the wounds, Lieberman also wins in Connecticut and then decides to caucus with the Republicans (though he continues to maintain he is independent).
In the House of Representatives: Dems gain 10 -12 seats but not enough to achieve a majority. And Denny Hastert is re-elected as Speaker of the House.
What the Democrats will do when a multitude of “election irregularities” are unearthed: Nothing. No recounts, no lawsuits, no rallying cries for street protests. Also, there’s a good chance Howard Dean will be removed as the head of the DNC, and the DLC Dems will assume complete control of the party apparatus.
So, those are my predictions for the elections. Please tell me why I will be proved wrong, because I really want to believe. I do. But in light of the “high stakes” to the GOP should they lose, and their past history of election theft, my faith in a Democratic victory is ever so faint.
Update [2006-11-6 12:16:5 by Steven D]: Apparently I’m not alone in my concerns. Nancy Pelosi also fears cheating by Republicans:
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi warned that a Republican victory Tuesday would prolong the U.S. involvement in Iraq another 10 years, as she embarked on a final push in a campaign that could make her speaker.
In an interview from her Capitol office, Pelosi characterized Tuesday’s vote as a referendum on the war, shrugged off President Bush’s efforts to make her liberalism a national issue, described the current GOP leadership as a “freak show,” and expressed confidence about her party’s prospects to pick up the 15 seats it needs for a majority.
“I know where the numbers are in these races, and I know that they are there for the 15; today (it’s) 22 to 26,” Pelosi said Friday.
Pelosi cautioned that the number of Democratic House victories could be higher or lower and said her greatest concern is over the integrity of the count — from the reliability of electronic voting machines to her worries that Republicans will try to manipulate the outcome.
“That is the only variable in this,” Pelosi said. “Will we have an honest count?”
I reluctantly agree with a lot of what you have said, but I am perhaps guardedly optimistic. I think Dems will take the house with 25 but not the senate, but the Dems will pick up a couple. I also think there will be lots of voting problems and races that will have to be recounted if even possible to recount at this point.
Personally I am bracing for the worst case scenerio cause I just don’t trust at all what the Reps. have been up to with regards to ads, voter turnout, and on and on.
Cannot forget the vision of Rove in the Whitehouse, madly playing his election opera, ordering his minions to do his bidding and change totals or whatever else is within his purview.
You know, Enron ran a con game on its shareholders for a decade before anyone caught on. You’d think that the SECwhich is one of the better regulatory agencies would have discovered the fraud sooner, or the stock analysts who are paid to ferret out such gross improprieties would have learned of the house of cards which represented Enron’s finances sooner, but no one did. They couldn’t believe such a big company could be engaged in such a massive investment fraud.
That’s my analogy to those who tell me the Republicans couldn’t or wouldn’t steal an election. Of course they can, and of course they will. And federal elections are essentially unregulated compared to a what most major corporations like Enron are subject to. Itls far easier to hide, and ignore election fraud these days, than it is to hide securities fraud.
Item 1.) VotersUnite!
VotersUnite! presents problems reported in the media about elections in
2006. VotersUnite! offers an online database that users can contribute
to. Think of it as a simple Digg like application for media reported
voting problems. The system allows users to enter and view issues by
state and issue type.
http://www.votersunite.org/…
Item 2.) Video the Vote
Video the Vote helps you stop voter suppression, by observing the vote and sharing the results–on Election Day.
http://videothevote.org/
Item 3.) The Polling Place Photo Project from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen
journalism that seeks to empower citizens to capture, post and share
photographs of democracy in action. By documenting their local voting
experience on November 7, voters can contribute to an archive of
photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in
America.
http://www.pollingplacephotoproject.org/
Item 4.) VoteTrustUSA
VoteTrustUSA presents “Five Ways You Can Protect Your Vote This November!”
1. Vote!
2. Find out if you’re registered and where to vote.
3. Verify Your Vote
4. Bring Identification
5. Election Protection Hotline
For Extra Credit Be A Pollworker!
http://www.votetrustusa.org/…
Item 5.) Can I Vote?
This site was created by the nation’s chief state election officials to
help make voting as simple and convenient as possible. Keep reading and
you’ll find a step-by-step guide to voting in 2006. Just follow the
steps and vote!
http://www.canivote.org/
Item 6.) Immediate Response Network
Protect the Election
If you’re willing to spend a few minutes defending our democracy, then
join our Voter Protection Immediate Response Network. You will receive
text message alerts calling you to action.
http://electionfraudblog.com/
Item 7.) Election Day Bloggers’ Legal Guide: Your Questions
Center for Citizen Media
Student Fellows at Stanford University Law School’s Center for Internet
and Society will be answering qestions from bloggers covering the
mid-term elections. Ask a legal question online view answers.
http://citmedia.org/…
Item 8.) Pollworkers for Democracy
Pollworkers for Democracy urges anyone who’s not nailed down to pledge,
right now, to work the polls with us this November. (And get paid.)
http://www.pollworkersfordemocracy.org/
I hope you’re going to put that up as a post on the front page or at the very least a diary. Too useful to just be a comment IMHO.
Absolutely seconded!
First posted yesterday on Carpetbagger Report’s Sunday thread:
House +10
Senate +2
Governors +3
With the obvious cavaet that I think the margins would be 3 times those numbers in a clean election, especially in the House (where I don’t think 40 is unreasonable).
And if this plays out like we think, can’t you already hear the calls for dems to abandon the antiwar message, abandon other progressive goals, and veer to the right even more? It’s the direction the Hillary/Obama/DLC wing wants to take the party anyway, so an election defeat would play into their hands nicely.
which is exactly what is coming, but I think they’ll do it even if they DO win a small majority. I think Pelosi and Dean will come under intensive attack either way. The party is going to go hard right.
Seriously, they won’t learn until you make them lose, and lose again. Walk away.
O’Brien and his guest also speculated that Dean would be gone if Dems don’t win big. They didn’t explain why Dean would be hurt by failure but the main person responsible for the House campaign (Emmanuel) would benefit. It was like bizarro Republican fantasyland masquerading as news punditry. I expect the after-election fallout to be like the Kerry fiasco, talk radio and newsmedia screaming so loudly that faint-hearted Dems don’t feel they have any choice but to fall in line.
I’m afraid you’re right about the potential swing to the right, but I still don’t see any better choice for action than to support Dems for the moment and watch the election for all signs of fraud. Maybe I’ll be more open to radical suggestions after this fails.
the Southern right abandoned the party in ’72, and in increasing numbers every year since. It’s time to return the favor, and to enable the dems to be used by rightists to rubberstamp winger Republicans only puts off the time for a real resistance to build.
It’s a hard reality to face, but it’s where we are.
would not have been passed but, 16 dems voted yea on the roll call.
So, does anyone really think something similar won’t happen again, even w/a democratic majority?
Only passed by three votes.
It doesn’t take much effort to hear it because there was speculation on CNN this morning (I believe by Miles O”Brien) that Emmanuel will somehow be the biggest power player in the House if Democrats win seats but don’t gain a majority. It’s sickening how many pieces of the narrative are already in place if you look closely.
The Republicans will steal whenever they need to, of that you can be certain as Florida and Ohio have shown us.
The saddest thing is that they may not even need to in most cases. After 5 years of non-stop lies and scandal galore, after 5 years of totally failed policies on every front, the average American Republican has not called for reform (let alone the flaccid Democratic Party who haven’t made reform and corruption their mantra). In fact Dems in NY and CA helped re-elect their Repbublican mayor (you know, the one who just endorsed Lieberman and used Republican owned piers to house the jailed protersters during the Republican National Convention and got NO flack for either thing) and are about to re-elect Arnold to the horror of any liberal so with Dems like this who needs enemies?
I hope this is just the cynic in me but as I stopped by Matt Singer’s LeftInTheWest this morning the site is GONE and replaced with a Left In the West Travel Agency. Then when you go over to use the Google Blog Search there’s no Montana left leaning blogs until you reach the 3rd page. LeftInTheWest has been particularly effective in getting Tester close to being Montana’s next Sen. Is this a bloggers be aware moment?????
see- this is my problem. With a media totally controlled by the gov and the ability of the incumbant gopers to steal another election, I now point out that I do have one question:- Had enough?
Unfortunately, Steven, I’m with you 100% on this.
Vigilence is now key, IMO.
As Dean just expressed via MSNBC, this election’s outcome is now most basically up to the voters (rather than the campaigns). Ergo, diligent focus must be maintained on the machinations of the vote; it’s time to tear away assumptions of procedural integrity — because these assumptions lend the cloak of legitimacy to thievery (see: political capital).
‘Course, barriers to vigilence are already programmed in.
With the polls “tightening,” you may be right, but I still think the House will end up something like this:
D – 215
R – 216
Contests filed with the Clerk of the House: 4
And then what happens?
Here’s the relevant law, rules and history.
We won’t have an honest count and we will be extremely lucky if we win the seats needed to take control of the house. I know we will see lots of precincts who will do their final tally very late, behind closed doors and magically the votes will be enough to push the Repub candidate over the top – with a win big enough for no automatic recount.
As for the senate, maybe Santorum will lose but NJ will fall into Repub’s hands. Of course Chafee is so loved he will make a come back. The senate will have the 44 Democrats + Sanders – so that when Collins, Snowe, and others who occasionally vote with the Democrats, the Repub’s will still get their 50 or 51 votes for the needed results.
My prediction – and now I will still go and phone bank for McCaskill and pray that Rove has completely miscalculated too many of the races and blown money and tactics in unpredictable precincts.
Well, I guardedly think the Dems will take the House, because the conventional wisdom has become too strong on this point. But I think it will be close and dirty.
The big thing here is that the Dems have, as far as I can tell, invested zero resources into planing an instutional response to an election theft scenario. This bodes ill should the worst come to pass.
On the plus side, the way is clear for individual voices within the partty to speak out. Because this is not a Presidential cycle, individual leaders will not be constrained by the silence of one prominent voice, a la John Kerry. The two questions that apply are 1) Will someone step forward to lead in speaking out should things go bad? and 2) Who will rally behind them?
For my part, I took Wednesday off should the need arise to march, or to sleep off a victory hangover. But if things do go bad and the Dems don’t fight, nothing we do on the streets or online will matter. That’s why I say this election is about Democracy itself.
Frankly I don’t see the point in all the hand-wringing at this point. We’ll find out tomorrow. I don’t think the Reps can get away with the extreme cheating they’d need to offset the vote imbalance. With the election tomorrow, focusing on the
possibility
certainty of GOP attempts to cheat distracts from what we can do something about: namely, turnout.
Where I do find myself drawn to conspiracy theory is the Saddam verdict, which may blunt some of the agonizing over Iraq — completely irrationally, but potentially an excuse to explain anomalous poll results. I believe the verdict is Rove’s November surprise, timed just right to give the appearance of “progress” in Iraq before the civil war resumes worse than ever and Bush decides to cut and run. I’ll be working the phones for MoveOn today and tomorrow. I hope I’ll be able to bring back a few Iraq waverers I might happen to call.
Anyway, I suggest saving the hand-waving/hand-wringing for Wed. morning. We need our energy for other stuff right now.
I have trouble being optimistic. I wish the Democrats would just show ads on TV showing how bad the government is: Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, tax cuts, minimum wage, health care crisis, and the numerous scandals.
I can’t believe the Democrats are NOT winning by a landslide with all this going on.
I still can’t believe people are voting for Denny Hastert after he knew about the abuse and didn’t report it. He was a wrestling coach. He knows the law. He just choose to ignore it.
Get tough Democrats.
I believe the operative principle is: fear-based loyalty first, integrity a distant second.
Hoping for more, but tempering my cynicism for the moment. I think the D’s will take the House, with a net gain of 20 – 25 seats max. I think, at best we will gain 4 seats in the Senate, including Bernie Sanders and casting Lieberman as a R victory should he be successful, a point I’m unwilling to concede.
Barring election fraud and manipulation these numbers would be much higher. But, at the same time, given the overall national dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, vis-à-vis the R administration it is very unlikely that they will be able to “steal” both Houses without igniting a serious demand for investigations into the voting irregularities. Hence, my prediction is they will do whatever it takes to maintain control in the Senate, and just enough to in the House to prevent an overwhelming defeat.
While this will open the door to investigations by the House, most notably by Conyers, it will still provide impeachment cover for the admin via a solid, and most probably loyal, R controlled Senate. Combined with the stonewalling, secrecy and refusal to cooperate that this administration has exhibited for the past six years, this will, in essence, set the table for the R strategy going into 08, and allow the D’s to be painted as the party of obstructionists for the next two years.
BTW: here’s yet another phone number to report elections problems, courtesy email from Congressman Conyers:
May it be so.
Besides accurate count, I wonder about the effectiveness of the Republican robo-calling in at least 53 competitive House races.
Complaints are in from
Robo-calls aren’t limited to Republican candidates. However, calls perpertrated by the Republican national machine, purporting to come from Democrats and containing lies, fall into the dirty tricks category.
I think you have the basic outline of the national results fairly well in hand. There may be a few more House seats added because down the list (far outside Rahm’s Top Twenty) there are a handful of very good candidates running very good campaigns with little or no help from the DCCC. On the other side of the ledger, I doubt that Rove was fully geared up to defend some of those districts. For example, Dennis Hastert may be in for a very long night. Put Sue Kelly, Nancy Johnson, and maybe Robin Hayes on the red-eye list as well. In a free and fair election Mean Jean Schmidt would face the same trouble, but that one’s at the top of my list for stolen elections.
The Senate I think you’re spot on, with one exception. The Lieberman Party of One will follow his marching orders from Rove and proclaim himself a Democrat.
The best news of the night for Democrats may be in governors’ races and in state legislatures.