As I mentioned this morning when I beat up on Olbermann a bit, he had a very good report today on his blog about the latest goings on over the weekend in Ohio. He mentions a bit of the potential “news” that Jesse Jackson may or may not have made at a news conference in Columbus on Saturday when he mentioned that “John Kerry supports a full investigation…I talked with John Kerry last night, and he supports the investigation.”
And a further nugget, one of several from the report, was this:
It is not unprecedented for a statewide candidate – especially a popular, well-publicized one – to finish “ahead of the ticket.” But Connally was a retired African-American judge from Cleveland, and Butler County is as about as far away from Cleveland (on the Indiana border, and 40 miles north of Kentucky) as you can get and still be in Ohio. Moreover, The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that the Republican candidates in the three Supreme Court races raised 40% more in official campaign funds than did Connally and the other Democrats. The Toledo Blade showed that the fund-raising, and thus visibility, was far more lopsided than even the party documents would suggest: “Citizens for a Strong Ohio, a nonprofit arm of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, raised $3 million to fund TV and radio ads that gave the winners exposure Democrats couldn’t match,” the newspaper reported on November 4th.
(Note to Mr. Olbermann: It’s a blog you’re now writing. So please be kind enough to link to the stories you cite so they can be easily and independently perused. Thank you.)
The number mentioned by Jackson above also reminded me of a piece of recent email I received from someone in Warren “Lock Down” County. Here’s the relevant passage:
In 2004 we had two headquarters set up by July. We phone banked, and canvassed, starting in July. We had yard signs, bumper stickers t-shirts, house parties, bonfires, barnstorms, ACT and Moveon.org. We had a booth at every festival over the summer and fall. We caravaned to rallies. When we reached 1000 volunteers we opened a third HQ, and we still had to turn people away because there wasn’t enough room. We had our own lawyer and had training sessions for Challenging the Republican Challengers. Our GOTV was from 4 sites and was amazing. Kerry got 28% of the vote after they locked out the press.
Gore got 28% after not even trying and Kerry got 28% after the biggest democratic campaign in Warren County’s history.
To verify the general 28% figure used above, here are the Warren County vote totals for 2000 and 2004 directly from the website of Ohio Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell (who — did I mention? — was also completely coincidentally the Co-Chair of Ohio’s Bush/Cheney Re-Election Committee):
2000 Bush: 48,318 Gore: 19,142
2004 Bush: 66,523 Kerry: 25,399
Yup, nothing to see here…Keep moving, New York Times and all the others…Much Christmas shopping to get done…
Good work, I’m wondering if this blog is following what happened in Oklahoma and the ES&S machines that count backwards.
http://okimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=344
Brad, the increased get-out-the-vote effort by Democrats in Warren County would not be expected to increase the Democratic candidate’s vote-percentage above the 2000 Bush/Gore contest’s 28% level if the Republicans in Warren County increased their get-out-the-vote effort there in the very same proportion as the Democrats did.
The vote-totals you show for 2000 and 2004 in Warren County indicate that the get-out-the-vote efforts by both parties were very effective, and were equally effective, so that each of the two major-party candidates ended up with exactly the same vote-percentage as in 2000, even though each candidate increased greatly his respective number of votes.
This is not evidence of a rigged vote-count in Warren County, regardless of whether or not the vote-count there was or wasn’t rigged–the evidence you are citing here proves nothing at all.
Therefore, you don’t have anything worth reporting on this matter–at least not yet–and it would have been better if you had posted nothing on it unless and until you did possess meaningful information on it.
Eric above is exactly right!
Eric, I might have agreed with you until I saw that our wingnut friend Paul did! In which case that is virtually proof that you must have been completely wrong! 😉
In all seriousness, I did not contend that those numbers were "proof of vote rigging", rather, in this particular Ohio round-up, I thought it useful to point to more reasons why Warren County needs to be looked into.
I, for one, would love to know that everything was perfectly fine in Warren County! And any media outlet who took the growing body evidence suggesting that something was amiss there, gave it a thorough investigation and reported back that all our fears are for naught, would be doing a solid for democracy.
The bottoming-out of confidence in the system is now in play here. It’s my opinion that numbers from an election in which a candidate dropped out essentially (as Gore did in 2002) six weeks before the race, closing headquarters etc. compare almost identically to one of the most expensive, hard-fought and aggressive GOTV’s and campaigns in history is worth looking into. Not necessarily everywhere (for reasons you noted), but in particular in Warren County for reasons previously discussed on this blog (Locked down for reasons which proved to be untrue, last precinct to report, highest Bush % of virtually all OH counties, etc.)
That piece of info, as other info I sometimes point to, is not meant as "proof of fraud", but rather "proof of something notable, and worthy of closer examination".
If I don’t help get it out there, who will? The NY Times?!
I frequently post notable "dots". Others have taken them and been able to later connect them.
If they are simply freaks of nature, or isolated incidents (as so much of the info I come across out there sometimes appears to be) I do not bother to report it here until and unless there is a further reason to be concerned about such info.
I hope that explanation makes sense.
And of course, I appreciate much your input. (Even if you find yourself ignominously supported by our friend, Paul 🙂
rbikes –
No, I haven’t looked deeply into OK yet. But I’ll check out your links. I’ve heard other buzz about it as well.
Though there are so many (see this new piece on an Alaska recount for example).
Will look into OK though today…