What's the Matter With 'What's the Matter With Kansas?'

[reprehensor]

What's the Matter With 'What's the Matter With Kansas?' by Katrina vanden Heuvel

Conclusions:

* Has the white working class abandoned the Democratic Party? No. White voters in the bottom third of the income distribution have actually become more reliably Democratic in presidential elections over the past half-century, while middle and upper-income white voters have trended Republican. Low-income whites have become less Democratic in their partisan identifications, but at a slower rate than more affluent whites--and that trend is entirely confined to the South, where Democratic identification was artificially inflated by the one-party system of the Jim Crow era--itself a holdover from the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

* Has the white working class become more conservative? No. The typical views of low-income whites have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years. (A pro-choice shift on abortion in the 1970s and '80s has been partially reversed since the early 1990s.) Their positions relative to more affluent white voters--generally less liberal on social issues and less conservative on economic issues--have also remained virtually unchanged.

* Do working class "moral values" trump economics in determining voting patterns? No. Social issues (including abortion) are less strongly related to party identification and presidential votes than economic issues, and that is even more true for whites in the bottom third of the income distribution than for more affluent whites. Moreover, while social issue preferences have become more strongly related to presidential votes among middle- and high-income whites, there is no evidence of a corresponding trend among low-income whites.

* Are religious voters distracted from economic issues? No. For church-goers as for non-church-goers, partisanship and voting behavior are primarily shaped by economic issues, not cultural issues.

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Powerful Government Accounting Office Report Confirms Key 2004 Stolen Election Findings

According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.

Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

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None Dare Call it Stolen by Mark Crispin Miller

Ohio Democrats also were heavily thwarted through dirty tricks recalling Richard Nixon’s reign and the systematic bullying of Dixie. There were “literally thousands upon thousands” of such incidents, the Conyers report notes, cataloguing only the grossest cases. Voters were told, falsely, that their polling place had changed; the news was conveyed by phone calls, “door-hangers,” and even party workers going door to door. There were phone calls and fake “voter bulletins” instructing Democrats that they were not to cast their votes until Wednesday, November 3, the day after Election Day. Unknown “volunteers” in Cleveland showed up at the homes of Democrats, kindly offering to “deliver” completed absentee ballots to the election office. And at several polling places, election personnel or hired goons bused in to do the job “challenged” voters—black voters in particular—to produce documents confirming their eligibility to vote. The report notes one especially striking incident:

In Franklin County, a worker at a Holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the “Texas Strike Force” using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The “Texas Strike Force” paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters is across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing.

* * *

The electoral fraud continued past Election Day, but by means far more complex and less apparent than the bullying that marked the day itself. Here the aim was to protect the spoils, which required the prevention of countywide hand recounts by any means necessary. The procedure for recounts is quite clear. In fact, it was created by Blackwell. A recount having been approved, each of the state’s eighty-eight counties must select a number of precincts randomly, so that the total of their ballots comes to 3 percent (at least) of the county’s total vote. Those ballots must then be simultaneously hand counted and machine counted. If the hand count and the new machine count match, the remaining 97 percent of the selected ballots may be counted by machine. If, however, the totals vary by as little as a single vote, all the other votes must be hand counted, and the results, once reconfirmed, must be accepted as the new official total.

The Ohio recount officially started on December 13—five days after Conyers’s hearings opened—and was scheduled to go on until December 28. Because the recount (such as it was) coincided with the inquiry, Conyers was able to discover, and reveal in his report, several instances of what seemed to be electoral fraud.

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MONKEY BUSINESS: A look at vote-counting mischief and the potential for more

Informed that Jim March, a nationally known election-reform activist from the group Black Box Voting, was arrested and charged with a felony for trying to watch the tabulator count votes at the Registrar’s office, Aguirre replied, “You’re kidding.”

snip

“I believe Ohio was stolen in 2004, and I’m saying that as a Bush voter who detests John Kerry,” March told CityBeat. “The words stick in my mouth, but I believe the race was stolen by a combination of machine fraud and voter-disenfranchisement fraud.”

snip

In http://votersunite.org">Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections, VotersUnite! compiled evidence that electronic voting machines have added or deleted votes, awarded votes to the wrong candidate, broken down during elections and even reversed election outcomes. In the 2004 presidential election, optical scanners in Lancaster County, Neb., double-counted ballots. Bernalilo County, N.M., recorded 8,656 more votes than registered voters. Optical scanners counted straight-party Democratic votes as Libertarian in Franklin County, Ind., while in Guildford County, N.C., voting machines changed the outcome of two races.

In the Ukraine, a presidential election with an outcome different from exit polls sparked the public to march in the streets and demand a new election—resulting in a new leader.

[Larkspur]

1. Yet, she doesn't explain why the Repukes controlled Congress and

the White House. Voter suppression is one source but not the whole story. I know that in my northeast Connecticut town, a town of white working class folks, many Dems switch to unaffiliated and will split their vote, so it's not just Kansas that has this situation.

Most people support the Democratic position, especially on domestic issues, but they have not been attracted to Dem leaders, who have believed that going to the Right is the best way to win. It hasn't. It's made those Dem leaders look like leaders without principles.

[AX10]

7. Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson are no moderates...

they are right wing BushBots!

I agree but both will be ousted next year.

[PaulaFarrell]

2. Can't agree with her analysis

Just based on people I know. The ones who vote repub never cite economic issues, it's always abortion, or gay marriage, or whether they 'like' the candidate or something along those lines. They never seem to really state an actual economic policy that they are against.

[Nay]

9. Same here. They never talk economics. Some vote for the

religious/"moral" reasons and others simply say they like the Bushes. god knows why. They're bloodsuckers.

[spooky3]

11. that's been my experience too

[Peace Patriot]

3. Yep. Confirms my reading of the issue polls--which really speak loudly

for themselves, of a great progressive majority in this country that disapproves of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range, and has for some time, but which has been disempowered and DISENFRANCHISED. The brainwashing corporate news monopolies have succeeded in only one respect: convincing these Americans that they are the minority.

[BeFree]

13. Exactly

The VRWC has been all too successful in warping the minds of the people. Their profits have risen, their control grows everday. They are happy a true progressive like Kerry is not in power. They fear progressives, just like they feared FDR, who beat the crap outta them way back when.

It's what's wrong with Kansas, its what's wrong with middle America: they've all been brainwashed into thinking the right-wingers are what's good for the country.

Then ya see how the vote counting machinery wiggled it's way into the seat of power. Without the vote we are doomed.

[Hissyspit]

4. kick

[ChiciB1]

5. Very Good Post!!

Even though very little has been done on Election Reform, I'm glad to see that Some One is still talking about it!!

The statistics state that Diebold & that other company (ES&S???) who own the voting machines control 82% of the market. And 2 brothers own each company!! And they're Repuke!!

Pretty sick!

[submerged99]

6. So if most people are dems-then what's the matter?

So if most people really trend towards liberal positions etc...then as someone asked above-Why does the right control both houses of Congress and the Presidency?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

8. Symbols and Taxes

Most people don't understand issues. They vote with their "gut". This is the tendency Republicans have been able to exploit by being masters of symbolism. They do photo-ops like nobody else, and their messages are simple, bland, patriotic-sounding, and repeated ad-nauseum (to actually get through). They also own large segments of purchased media, which repeat their false messages in the echoing press.

This was the message a PoliSci Professor (David Domke) delivered to Democrats at the Oregon Democratic Summit. It was well received.

His co-presenter, another Professor, delivered news Democrats didn't like to hear: voters prefer spendthrifts. As much as they pretend to hate deficit spending, they want social program supported - and their TAX CUTS - even more. Fiscal responsibility is a four letter word for voters. They LOVE to borrow and spend.

This is the essence of the Reagan party. False patriotism, loot the treasury by giving fat contracts to your friends, issue tons of debt, and give some symbolic tax cut to the middle class - and you win.

And, when the country goes to hell, let the Democrats come in and clean up the mess. They'll quickly grow unpopular. Paying off a credit card debt ain't nearly as fun as running one up.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Zynx]

10. Kansas proved it self to be a dishonest little bitch of a state in 1932-40

In 1932 and 1936, when they needed social programs badly, they voted for FDR. Then, once they were back on their feet, they voted for Wendell Wilke of all people by 14% and Dewey in the middle of WWII by 21%. They basically said, "Thanks for the goods now FUCK YOU!". I say "Fuck Kansas!". Sorry to DUers who live in Kansas.

[omega minimo]

12. KVH picks on brilliant, nuanced Tom Frank for a negative springboard?

No one has done as much as TF to get INSIDE the insanity of the American psyche in recent decades.

She must have missed the point.

[JJackFlash]

14. Interesting to learn that

lower inocome whites have not in fact been becoming more repugnican.
The essays of Joe Bageant make great reading in this area.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar05/Bageant0322.htm

As a newby, I haven't got enough posts to start a thread yet, but it seems to me it's not good practice to post for discussion 4 different articles on 2 or 3 different subjects.

[bluedawg12]

15. Kick, good post. n/t