I'm a Kerrycrat who supports Edwards, and Elizabeth was right.

[PresidentObama]

There I said it. I was very proud of John Kerry for running the race he did, but I wish he wouldn't of conceded. I think Elizabeth is right that we'll never know the real outcome of that election. I do understand that Kerry continued to fight with his lawyers beyond the election, but I also wish we would have had a more aggressive fight for the truth. I know why Senator Kerry did what he did, he didn't want another 2000 mess. But I truly think Kerry won, and deserved to serve his nation as President of the United States.

I hope I'm not flamed by any fellow Kerrycrats, and I hope we can have a good discussion on this subject. But I think Elizabeth Edwards is right.

[rodeodance]

1. thanks. no flame from me.

[LittleClarkie]

2. Fair enough. No flames from me.

And I agree for the most part. I just don't like seeing that truth served up with a slice of Kerry bashing is all. I don't agree with absolutely everything Kerry does. But I still support him.

[PresidentObama]

4. I support him too, but I wish he would have done differently.

I know it's hard to put yourself in his shoes, but he deserved the Presidency.

[sandnsea]

3. Names and Precincts

Give me the precincts where thousands of votes were switched, and who was responsible for the conspiracy.

Shouldn't be hard after all this time. That's a pretty blatant theft.

[driver8]

5. I agree. There were so many obvious "problems".

I still get sick to my stomach thinking about the 2004 election. Especially the fact that this clusterfuck is what passed for "democracy."

Instead of a President who could lead this country, we ended up with a dipshit who couldn't lead his way out of a wet dream.

Very sad...

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. it's our own little betrayal myth

Of course it's not hard to come up with a scenario where thousands of votes were switched and no one would be able to answer your question. However, for folks who have actually looked at the 2004 returns, it's pretty hard to make the scenario fly there.

And then there's all the stuff that happened (or, in some cases, may have happened) to people before they had a chance to vote. Very unlikely that Kerry could have done anything about that by refusing to concede.

[janx]

10. Thank you for reason.

It's been hard to come by of late.

[pnwmom]

21. In two-thirds of the precints, the original paper ballots

have been ILLEGALLY destroyed.

Even though Democrats are in charge now, they can't order a a fair recount because there are no ballots to count.

[sandnsea]

22. The Green Party was in

Name the precincts that had thousands of ballots in question. Not 10 here, 20 there. Thousands stolen. Name the precincts, name the conspirators.

[pnwmom]

27. They can't be named because a legal recount was never done,

and now can't be done, because the ballots have been illegally destroyed.

There were recount procedures required by law that weren't followed. Then the ballots themselves were destroyed, which was also against the law. So all we have to go on are some very damning statistics involving thousands of questionable votes -- for example, votes in heavily Democratic precincts where Bush was chosen for President, and a strongly pro-choice candidate for judge. Or Democratic votes that were complete except for no choice for President at the top. Or heavily Republican precints with more votes than voters.

But we'll never be able to provide proof since the ballots were destroyed.

[sandnsea]

30. There are books and books and books written

Tons of evidence. That's what I've been told. Now you want to say there's nothing because the ballots were destroyed.

Which is it.

Precints with thousands of votes switched or stolen, names involved in the conspiracy.

:shrug:

[pnwmom]

35. You're implying a contradiction where there is none.

All the books that have been written have relied on STATISTICAL EVIDENCE -- statistical improbabilities that make the results of many precincts extremely suspect. But without the actual ballots to be examined, there is no hard, CONCRETE EVIDENCE proving that massive election fraud occurred.

Unfortunately, statistical evidence, no matter how extremely suggestive, does not constitute legal proof in the case of election fraud.

[sandnsea]

38. See below, that's not true at all n/t

[pnwmom]

43. What isn't true? n/t

[yodermon]

23. "Shouldn't be hard after all this time." huh?

the more time that passes, the harder it is to investigate, and the easier it is to cover things up, destroy or "lose" evidence, etc.

[sandnsea]

25. People have been investigating

Lawyers, election officials, activists, journalists, bloggers - and there's no more evidence today than there was 3 years ago. It's possible that somebody drove from county to county and stole machines too, but without evidence it's just another conspiracy theory. If there was a conspiracy, there ought to be some suspects and evidence linking them to a crime by now.

[pnwmom]

28. There's no physical proof because the ballots have been destroyed.

The Rethugs successfully prevented any legal recount from occurring. That doesn't mean that there isn't a great deal of statistical evidence that points strongly to massive election fraud.

[sandnsea]

29. a few months ago

What evidence was collected between Nov 2004 and July 2007. Evidence to overturn an election. Precincts and suspects.

:shrug:

[pnwmom]

33. Why do you keep asking that? The ballots were destroyed.

Without them, nothing can be done.

[sandnsea]

34. If there's no data on any precincts

then why is anybody screaming stolen election? That doesn't even make any sense. Most certainly there's more to the ranting than exit polls.

[pnwmom]

36. Because of the statistical data -- improbabilities and even

impossibilities within the statistical data. But statistical data is not enough to legally prove election fraud. For that, ballots actually have to be examined.

[sandnsea]

37. Ballots were examined

There are all kinds of claims about the ballots, and the irregularities of machines. Do you really believe this is only about exit polls?

[pnwmom]

41. A tiny fraction of ballots were examined, and the audits did not

follow legal standards.

For example, the legal standards required that ballots to be examined had to be chosen randomly, and that this process had to be observed. Instead, preselected ballots were handed over to the auditors, who had no opportunity to see how they were chosen.

Also, the standards required that when a certain percentage of errors were discovered, then an audit of 100% of the ballots in the precinct needed to be done. This also didn't occur. Instead, all that happened was that the vote count was adjusted to correct those particular errors -- without looking to see how many more there were.

All this was allowed to happen under Ken Blackwell's charge. But by the time the voters in Ohio threw him out of office, it was too late to conduct a proper audit and undo the damage -- because the large majority of ballots had been destroyed.

[sandnsea]

54. What errors

what precincts. Just start with what you know. Which precincts had the thousands of votes that were switched or stolen. What were the suspicions. There have to be specific claims in order to call for a recount.

[OnTheOtherHand]

42. it's one of those things

There are lots of lines of evidence that are supposed to more-or-less prove that Kerry won. One has to be pretty masochistic to wade through every damn one to see why it doesn't prove the point -- and then really masochistic to try to explain why. :banghead:


I think I may actually be paraphrasing you on this, but if people let go of their insistence that the evidence proves Kerry won, we could probably do more with it. Although that might be naive. Maybe people just need to believe what they need to believe.

[pnwmom]

45. We can prove that the ballots were illegally destroyed,

which in itself is highly suggestive, because a law was very publically enacted to prevent that very occurance. But there is so much more. Here is one carefully researched article by Robert Kennedy, Jr.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

SNIP

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.(11)

Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America's voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. ''We didn't have one election for president in 2004,'' says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. ''We didn't have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.''

But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn’t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)

SNIP

[OnTheOtherHand]

48. to the first, yes

It isn't strong evidence (much less proof) that Kerry won Ohio, but it sure makes one wonder what happened.

RFK's numbers don't stand up. There are countless political scientists who would leap at the chance to publish the journal article that proves that he was right, but as far as I can tell, it can't be done.

[pnwmom]

49. How can you make a blanket statement like that?

Which numbers don't stand up, and why?

And social scientists HAVE published articles on the election irregularities, but people are ignoring them.

[OnTheOtherHand]

51. well, which number do you construe as proving your point?`

I helped Mark Blumenthal write a blow-by-blow deconstruction of just one portion of RFK Jr.'s article -- it took four long blog posts. Unfortunately, the time I spend posting here is stolen from my work and my family.

However, I'll say that I think Farhad Manjoo got more right than wrong in his critique here.

And social scientists HAVE published articles on the election irregularities, but people are ignoring them.

If you can direct me to a journal article that argues that Kerry won, I will be glad to see it. My colleagues mostly look puzzled and/or pitying when I explain that I study this issue. (ETA: I forgot to underscore: it's not that I'm misreading you, it's that I understood the claim here to be that Kerry won. I'm not denying that there were irregularities.)

[sandnsea]

53. There's two possibilities

Let go of stolen election, and get people to look at all the glitches and just fix them already. OR

Let go of every stupid nit-picking error, and focus on the truly big anomalies that may lead to something.

I went through many precincts and got frustrated with finding 6 ballots with stray marks, 12 damp ballots, etc. There are some strange precincts, but until people are willing to toss out the honest errors, you can't make a case with the rest.

I suspect Kerry knew he was facing an impossible task, it's still impossible without a whistleblower and I think if there were nationwide conspiracies to steal the election, somebody would have talked by now.

[OnTheOtherHand]

58. I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive, really

I'm not totally sure what you mean, but I think we pretty much agree. In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't urging people to give up on trying to prove that Kerry won. Actually, I wish a lot of them would try harder. Even if they're wrong, they might find important stuff. Checking truly big anomalies is exactly the thing to do. When people talk about the (verifiably) small stuff as if it's big stuff, that is Not So Helpful.

[sandnsea]

59. We generally do agree

You dig in, precinct by precinct. You be brutally honest and apply objective standards. You don't have a fit over them creating ballots in Ohio, when we already learned that's the common procedure from Florida. You stick to the real facts. Then you start making comparisons based on voting systems and demographics across the country.

I live in Oregon. We kept all our Nader and Kerry voters, despite having gay marriage on the ballot. Why didn't Bush gain any at all here, but he did in Ohio and Florida. We have a smaller minority population, we should have lost a huge number of white people to the terrorist threat. I don't think we lost our Hispanic vote either, why did Florida?

I'd like answers too. Nobody is asking the right questions.

[OnTheOtherHand]

62. interesting questions

We got off on the wrong foot about this subject last time (the "Further Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide" thread). I don't especially think of Oregon as a bellwether, but it's reasonable to wonder about things like this.

I don't know why Bush did so well in Florida, and I'm in no position to vouch for the counts in individual counties -- although the folks I trust who have scoured the returns haven't found good reason to suspect massive miscount overall. (Nor have I, but I don't claim to know much about Florida politics. Ohio I feel I understand better because I lived in a burb of Columbus for about ten years and was active in local politics, although that was going on 25 years ago now.)

Anyway, I have a methodological point and a political point, neither of which really answers your questions. Methodologically: you've got different people voting in 2000 and 2004, you have people switching votes every which way, so it's not necessarily helpful to think of (e.g.) keeping all the Nader voters based on the total percentages. Surely not every Nader 2000 voter in Oregon voted for Kerry -- at best it's sort of a metaphor.

Politically, apart from the general observation that they're all different states, Oregon is extra different because Vote By Mail has transformed "Get Out The Vote" efforts. (Of course absentee voting is increasing rapidly in Florida -- not so much in Ohio.) Paul Gronke has written some interesting stuff about how campaigns in Oregon have to operate. I have no idea how this affected the 2004 results, but it will make it even harder to compare Oregon with anyplace else.

Oh, and I betcha the "Hispanic" vote in Oregon is not just like the "Hispanic" vote in Florida! Again, doesn't answer your question, just hints at how many different answers there might be.

I'd like to spend some more time thinking about what did happen in Florida (I've spent some time looking at what probably didn't happen).

[beachmom]

6. No flames. Agree to disagree. n/t

[rox63]

7. There wasn't any proof that would stand up in court

Then there was Carville's pillow talk with Matalin that resulted in over 100,000 ballots that suddenly disappeared. And the DNC would not support a challenge. What chance would they have had without the support of the party? The head of the DNC in 2004 was Terry McAuliffe, who is now HRC's campaign manager. Coincidence? I think not...

Kerry wanted to challenge the election in Ohio. But a number of parties made it impossible to put together a plausible case that would hold up in court.

[saracat]

13. Hooray rox63. Your quote says it all!

"The head of the DNC in 2004 was Terry McAuliffe, who is now HRC's campaign manager. Coincidence? I think not..."

And that is another reason I have trouble supporting Miss Hillary.

[karynnj]

19. small correction

we don't know that 100,000 disappeared becauseof Carville - in the confusion of election night, the number obtained by the Kerry people could have been wrong, because of double counting, miscommunication or some other factor. I assume that when the number was corrected in the morning quests were asked. There were some pretty smart people there.

It does make sense that 100,000 more would have put it in the range of barely possible. 150,000 yielded 60,000 votes. At that rate it wouldn't be enough.

[sosmart]

8. John Kerry is a misunderstood hero and would have been the best president of this century

just another reason to hate chimpy mcflightsuit for stealing another election and robbing us of a great man who should be our leader now

[PresidentObama]

11. Yes he would have been. It's a shame.

Eight years with Kerry, followed by eight with Edwards. We could have gotten this country on the right course again, and put it in the right direction.

[beachmom]

16. Great post, sosmart. And welcome to DU! n/t

[MH1]

18. Welcome to DU, sosmart!

:hi:

And you are 100% correct in your post.

[karynnj]

20. Welcome to DU

If you want another reason to regret that this brilliant diplomat with all the morality and integrity that Bush lacks, watch his opening statement on Burma at this link - http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/10/sfrc_hearing_on_burmas_saffron.html

Imagine how proud we could be of a President taking the lead on this as Kerry suggests. He really meant everything he said about international diplomacy.

[Catchawave]

31. Tombstoned? I only check newbie profiles

because I've welcomed too many of them who have been members for years :silly:

Oh well....

[beachmom]

40. Oh, a sockpuppet? Wow, thanks for the heads up. I had no idea. n/t

[Cha]

47. Wonder why it was tombstoned?

Was it another post..cause that one didn't have any red flags?

[wisteria]

56. Nice comment about Senator kerry. n/t

[pioneer111]

12. I agree with you

I supported Kerry and really didn't know Edwards since I was in the NW and he didn't come our way.
However I really think things went wrong in Ohio and the Democrats didn't seem to be prepared to handle it

It is why I support Edwards now. I think he knows the game and will work to ensure the election cannot be stolen.
What I like about Elizabeth is what I liked about Teresa. I like women who have opinions and tell the truth.
She just is saying what she feels. For some reasons the two campaigns did not mesh that well and so
there seemed to be less of a team approach. I think that may have been Kerry's team's problem.

We can't change that result now, but we can learn and Edwards has learned.

[Mass]

14. This is not what bothers me in what she said. May be it will bother others, but she is entitled

to her own feelings and opinions.

What bothers me is that she is implying that her husband wanted to fight and that Kerry went against his opinion. They never made this claim until she published her book last year. Obviously, nobody should blame them for not protesting. I would imagine that, with her being sick, they have a lot on their mind. That day was probably not a very happy day for them and I totally sympathize. But why come and say that Edwards made more than a vague protest?

[chimpymustgo]

44. Mass, I heard this immediately from someone in the room that night. Edwards DID NOT WANT TO CONCEDE

He wanted to wait till morning and see what the lay of the land was. He argued that night to NOT throw in the towel just yet. But Kerry - inexplicably to many - didn't see any point in fighting.

[Mass]

46. And Kerry DID NOTconcede that night. He waited until the next day.

[ProSense]

15. She is right that we may never know the real outcome!

She is wrong to give the impression that conceding later would have made any difference. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. She should know that if evidence had turned up, and it was pursued, that the concession was not legally binding. Also, what would the scenario be now had Kerry publically held out for a period similar to Gore, ultimately conceding shortly before the certification?

It would have been over for good!

[Der Blaue Engel]

17. I'm a Kerrycrat who supports Edwards too, but I disagree

I don't think there was anything else Kerry could have done. Rove and his cohorts played their nasty, treasonous hand very well, right down to the illegal recount in Ohio.

As for Elizabeth's opinion or even Edwards possible re-remembering of history to further his campaign, it may not make me happy, but it doesn't make me think Edwards is any less valuable a candidate in this race. He's the one I'm leaning toward most right now, and I would love to see him in the White House.

And I think you should know your fellow Kerrycrats well enough by now to know you won't be getting any flames from true Kerry supporters. :hug:

[hibiscus]

24. Sometimes it is not enough to be right, but also to be appropriate

I am a Kerrycrat too. I was very disappointed and cried when Kerry conceded. Did I wish he had fought more for the vote recount? Yes, because I still wish he could have become my President. Even now, I am disappointed that he is not in the 2008 race.

But do I agree with what Elizabeth just did? No. She is entitled to her own opinion and she might be right in her thinking. I do not think that it is a gracious thing for her, as a candidate's wife, to say. Call me old-fashioned or whatever, I was trained to believe that when you fight as a team, you lose as a team. I used to like her a lot during the election campaign in 2004. Her behavior in badmouthing the Kerrys after 2004 is what I cannot accept. I do like to have a classy first lady. And I do not think she has been classy in how she treats the Kerrys, who were her former team-mates. Remember the golden rule?... it is not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it, that makes a whole world of difference. Peace.

[DURHAM D]

26. I completely agree with you.

She may be right but she should stop climbing to her moral high ground to bash others.

Edward's supporters see her as a champion. But other, more casual observers, see her as petty.

[MH1]

39. Well said.

You put it much better than I did.

It doesn't affect how I feel about other DUer's - folks are entitled to their opinions about this - but it definitely lowered EE in my estimation.

[illinoisprogressive]

32. I think it's nice you like Kerry and Edwards. And you think elizabeth is right

All three are really good people.

[YvonneCa]

50. No flames here...

...I'm still a Kerry/Edwards family member. :)

I think I understand why he conceded...and contrary to some here...it has usually been the tradition to concede graciously once the outcome was clear (I'm not all that young.) :) For me, the difference now is technology. Election technology and process have undergone radical changes...and process/rules have not kept up. I think that IF the Ohio recount could have been done, Kerry would have overwhelmingly been shown to be the winner. He is my President. But there was not an up-to-date process to insure a fair outcome happens ALWAYS in a recount.

So it was swept under the rug...especially by the media. I truly think he won, too. And he deserved to serve his nation as President. I am forever grateful that he is still serving his country and trying to turn things around.

[JNelson6563]

52. Thank you.

An honest/objective Kerry fan. A rare creature indeed.

Julie

[wisteria]

55. You are entitled to your opinion, but he had no other choice but to concede.

There was nothing immediately available to fight with that would of brought in addition numbers for Kerry. Senator kerry would of looked foolish not conceding at that time and the media would have played it all out like entertainment and mocked the entire effort. You can't challenge anything without enough evidence to do so. Sorry, but Mrs. Edward's is out for cheap political points. there may have been no need for a concession speech if her husband has assumed the role of the VP attack dog and gone out and defended kerry. Then there is that little matter of him not even bringing in his home state. I to was sorry to see Senator Kerry concede, but I alway felt he made the right decision as painful as it was.

[laureloak]

57. I think Kerry may have stopped because Elizabeth was sick.

Just a hunch.

[madrchsod]

60. of course kerry won

yes he did`t want a repeat of 2000 and i understand this, yet i`m still pissed that he did`t fight.

[zulchzulu]

61. I have no idea what a "Kerrycrat" is and I'm a diehard supporter of John Kerry

Elizabeth Edwards has shown signs of being less than charming and frankly, from being extremely close to the Kerry inner circle at one particular time, it was obviously pointed out that she wanted to be in the White House more than her husband.

Some of her greatest hits in the current campaign have included spilt Mint Julep surprises like her husband is more viable because he's white and that her husband's haircut are this or that on the campaign trail... she bores me as does her husband. She appears two jumps ahead of a fit.

As for John Kerry "not fighting in 2004", that's just one more pathetic dribble coming from her. Why it's even brought up as an issue in this race is classless, cheap and sardonic.

I wish the Edwards campaign the best and hope Elizabeth gets some vacation time soon. She obviously needs it.

As Mark Twain said, the man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. She apparently seems to forget what the mainstream media was wanting us to read about the election results at the time.

[_dynamicdems]

63. I like and respect Elizabeth Edwards but I do not agree that she is right to criticize.

She is entitled to her opinion, as are we all. It is not her belief that I disagree with, because I can understand that. The use of the concession during this new political bid by Edwards is what I find objectionable.

Here's why: Kerry asked John Edwards to run on the ticket with him. Edwards was on the ticket running for Vice President, which means that his campaign was auxiliary to Kerry's Presidential bid. Edwards accepted those terms. It is disingenuous that Kerry's decision is now being used as political fodder for the new Edwards campaign.

As for Kerry's concession, should he have waited before conceding? Who knows? Maybe it would have made some people happier, myself included, but the happiness would have been short-lived.

I agree that Kerry won the election. The problem is proving it. Look at the illegal phone-jamming that took place in NH. That happened in 2002 and they still haven't proved the White House was involved. The result of the phone-jamming was that Jeanne Shaheen lost the race to John Sununu. There was nothing that she could do about 2002, but she's running again in 2008. She didn't quit or give up in 2002. She accepted that a cheater had won, but that she had no recourse then. Time, however, is the great vindicator.

A lot of us wanted Kerry to put up a stink. It would have eased the pain to some degree, but the results would have still been the same. John Kerry is pretty tough. That concession wasn't easy. Don't think that for a moment. It had to hurt like bloody Hell. My guess is that Kerry's the sort who takes his pain straight up without a chaser. Me, I cry in my beer. But John Kerry didn't waste time on regret. He assessed what could be done, decided he couldn't affect the outcome, and made a choice to continue his fight in a different arena. He got to work immediately, fighting for the same issues and the same people he championed during the campaign.

People will say what they will and they will do so for a variety of reasons, some pure and some political. However, Kerry is someone who is true to what he believes and I'm not going to be one to second guess him.

Life isn't always fair. Sometimes cheaters do win. Can we stop every cheater every time? Not a chance. But time is always on the side of truth.

[Major Hogwash]

64. So, Elizabeth is in charge of the circular firing squad now, huh?

Does she want to take any cheap shots at Howard Dean while she is at it?

And then tell the rest of us what good any of it will do?

[Vidar]

65. Couldn't agree more. I arrived here from the defunct Kerry board

some time in November 2004. I floundered about looking for some ray of hope, first latching on to the Green / Libertarian campaign for a recount & or lawsuit--for which I am still profoundly grateful. Jesse Jackson soon joined in, followed by John Conyers and company. These were my sources of hope until 2006, and the reason why I find third party bashing here so reprehensible. The Greens & Libertarians stood up for election reform before the Democrats ever got into it, and unfortunately now that he has the power to do something about the issue, Mr. Conyers has done a fair amount of back pedaling.

Back to the intent of the original poster. I agree on all points. I supported & still admire Kerry, but his "honorable" concession was a horrendous mistake in the face of opponents who care nothing for honor. Edwards is my backup plan to Kucinich--the "mainstream" candidate I find most acceptable.

For me, Elizabeth is the very best part of Edwards' campaign. I admire her courage, and outspoken willingness to "tell it like it is" in sharp contrast to certain other candidates, whose motto seems to be: "I will give no substantial answer to any question until I have a poll in hand telling me what to say".