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as critically important to effective strategy.
But I think I'd start with how the candidate will be selected (rather than with issues and one's consistency or inconsistency with regard to them). Mostly, primary elections.
Unless we are able to change this by spring 2008, our primary elections will be conducted largely on electronic voting systems, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations.
And they are:
DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and
ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.
These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy. And they have even more control today, despite volumes and volumes of evidence that these voting systems are extremely insecure, unreliable, and insider hackable.
Whatever you may think of the voters' ability to override these Bushite corporations' secret programing of their voting systems (and we seem to have some ability to do that), and no matter even if we are able to get a slightly improved auditing system by '08 (as opposed to virtually zero auditing), the fact remains that these rightwing forces have the CAPABILITY to determine our Democratic candidate for president in '08, without detection.
The only way to prevent this is to chuck the electronic voting machines, and go back to handcounted paper ballots (which Congress will not do--too many $$billions in e-voting contracts involved), or to somehow obtain a 100% audit (handcount the ballots BEFORE any electronics are involved--if we can at least get a paper ballot backup out of Congress), cuz the problem with audits is that the machines choose where the audits are going to occur, and if it's a measly 1% or 2% audit (the best that has been proposed), fraud can still easily occur without detection. Also, recounts are extremely expensive, difficult and rare. So what good is your paper ballot after the fact? Got to count it BEFORE the fact. We might be able to achieve transparent vote counting by '08 through local/state activism, but I think this will be a longer term project (may not be achievable by '08).
So, at best--at best!--we are going to have Bushite corporations counting all the votes under a veil of corporate secrecy, with the "trade secret" code in an escrow account (only available in case of a dispute, and not available to you and me), with a paper ballot backup to the electronics that almost never gets consulted (2% audit, recounts still very hard to get).
At best. So, the truth and reality, and cold shower, are that the election system will still be very riggable by corporations that don't have ordinary peoples' interests at heart, at all.
SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people want the Iraq War ended. EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT (!) of the American people oppose any US participation in a widened Mideast war. What do think are the chances of our nominating a Democratic candidate who reflects these views--I mean, really reflects them; doesn't just lie to us as LBJ (the "peace candidate") did in 1964. (Beware of Democrats bearing "peace.") Somebody with a tried and true record. Someone honest. Someone who is really prepared to defy the war profiteers who have been sucking on us as on a giant tit, since the end of WW II.
Or even somebody who is half-honest and will give it the old college try.
Or, to get off this issue, someone who will fix our sick medical system and achieve universal health care--and get the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical giants off our tit.
It really doesn't matter who we, as individuals support, or even who we, as the American people, might support and rally round (I'm thinking Gore). As Stalin said, the most important thing--the thing that determines power--is who is counting the votes.
We all know this, deep down. We even start censoring ourselves. We say, who is electable? SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people want the Iraq War ended, and we're thinking that only leaders who supported this heinous war are "electable." Why? SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people want the Iraq War ended, and yet many antiwar candidates and Iraq War vets lost in the recent midterms. Why?
It's that the combination of our filthy campaign money/lobbying system, and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, with the coup de grace of Bushite corporate TRADE SECRET vote counting, and other election theft techniques, are thwarting the will of the American people.
And this is likely to continue being the case in the '08 primaries and general election. That's the reality.
This is one of the reasons I want Gore to run--not just because he has given truly great speeches about Bush and the war--but mainly because he has a right to be president, and I think he will inspire a landslide victory because of it. He also has steadiness and maturity, and a tried and true quality about him--very badly needed. And he has been prescient on global warming--the most important issue of the 21st century, a matter that will require visionary solutions. I want someone who has the potential to blow the electronic voting machines out of the water. I think Gore has that magic, and I see it in no other candidate.
In other words, I don't think they can steal it from Gore.
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