Paul Weyrich GOP strategy: Our election wins increase as # voters decrease

[IndyOp]

Paul Weyrich, Father of the Reagan Revolution, Founding Father of the Social Conservative Movement, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation speaking in a church to Republican activists (and probably not knowing he was being recorded) said this:

How many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome? Good government.

They want everybody to vote!

I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now.

As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as voting populace goes down.


On edit: The GOP has been carrying out Weyrich's strategy in every election since Reagan, Rove has been a leader in the effort as has Tom Delay. The GOP has now passed laws across the country to take control of voter rolls which resulted in the theft of two Presidential elections:

Thousands of African Americans were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000.

Tens of thousands of African and Hispanic Americans were disenfranchised in 2004.

--------------------------------------->

Look how the message he delivers in public differs:

Easy voting brings low participation web posted August 6, 2001

"Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter have come up with a series of recommendations aimed at increasing participation in national elections. Among the proposals the former presidents have put forth are (a) to hold elections on a national holiday, such as Veterans Day; (b) to make convicted felons eligible to vote after they have served time; (c) to permit people who aren't on the voter rolls on Election Day to vote, sorting out their eligibility in the days after the election. There are other recommendations as well.

With all due respect to these former rivals, I don't think any of these ideas has merit. I was glad to see that President George W. Bush gave these ideas only a lukewarm reception. He called the Ford/Carter report "a framework for election reform.

The truth is simply this: The easier we have made it to vote, the lower the voter participation. It stands to reason. The vote used to be regarded as a privilege. A citizen had to be 21 years old to participate. That citizen had to be registered. Often registration rules were fairly strict. They varied from state to state. Some states required that the voter be registered 90 days before the general election. Many states purged voters rolls often, so if a voter claimed to live at a certain address and didn't, he would find himself unable to vote at the next election. Despite all sorts of restrictions, voter participation was generally high."

[muntrv]

1. In other words, Weyrich wants an oligarchy.

Citizens had to be 21 to vote, but could be taxed and sent to die in war at 18. What a fuckhead!!

[IndyOp]

2. Not just any oligarchy - a white, male, founding family

oligarchy.

The GOP has been carrying out Weyrich's strategy in every election since Reagan and now has passed laws across the country to take control of voter rolls.

Thousands of African Americans were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000.

Tens of thousands of African and Hispanic Americans were disenfranchised in 2004.

[EFerrari]

6. And students, and Native Americans and poor people.

And they're fixing to do it more efficiently in 2006. :mad:

[muntrv]

3. There also used to be poll taxes.

There also used to be klansmen wielding shotguns at the polls to prevent people of color from voting, but still, voter participation was high.

In the words of Dick Cheney: GO FUCK YOURSELF, WEYRICH!!!

[Lib Grrrrl]

4. Vote Participation Was High Because

we had an educated, well-informed, socially-concious society.

We have been dumbed down, distracted...etc!

I guarantee you that, if they announced tomorrow that the right to vote would be stripped from the people...the outcry would NOT be as loud as if it were announced tomorrow that the right to vote for AMERICAN IDOL would be stripped from the people!

It is amazing how much we, as a society, care about THINGS THAT DON'T FUCKING MATTER...and how little we seem to care about things that DO!!!

[nicknameless]

5. These rethugs are freakishly corrupt.

R'ed.

[Gman]

7. Democrats pray for sunshine on election day

and Republicans pray for rain. In the days before easy early voting this was the norm.

[formercia]

10. gives a whole new meaning to 'Rainmaker' n/t

[wildeyed]

8. It is also flat-out untrue.

Look at voter participation in states that have same-day voter registration, especially the percentage of younger voters who make it to the polls. Then look at states with the old system. The states with same-day have an average of 10% higher participation.

And he makes the tired old "fraudulent vote" claim. The Motor Voter law, one of the prime reforms passed in recent years, prevents states from purging voter lists of people who have died or moved away. The result is that many fraudulent votes are now being cast in each election. There is not evidence of fraudulent votes being cast as a result of motor voter.

[mod mom]

9. Voter IDs disenfranchising low income, elderly, and college students in OH

will prevent tens if not hundreds of thousands of voters to be disenfranchised and have the added benefit of causing bottlenecks (read: more long lines). Purges of voters in high dem precincts will also reduce the vote.

I just finished Chapter 4 of Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse, and I am not optimistic to say the least. :(

[rman]

11. Fewer voters means less people will notice if an election is rigged

Makes perfect sense.

[IndyOp]

12. Bingo! The fewer voters the easier to steal by hacking computers..

I would say that screwing with voter registration, precinct voting rolls, and misinformation/intimidation are all ways of stealing/rigging an election, too.

:hi:

[struggle4progress]

13. Trying to depress voter turnout is a GOP strategy going back to Nixon

[IndyOp]

14. Do you recall any specific statements or snippets thereof about

the kinds of thing Nixon said about it? It may go back even earlier - it is the perfect strategy for the wealthy in an oligarchy masquerading as a Democracy.

[struggle4progress]

15. Not off the top of my head -- but Rs have often touted this strategy ..

.. since the Nixon era. Though I really hate to link this sort of crap, here, for example, is whackjob Horowitz in Nov 00: ".. The expectations of a comfortable margin that Republicans had going into the election were defeated by higher voter turnout than anyone predicted .. Until now, all Republican strategies -- whether of the left wing of the party or the right -- have depended on expectations of low voter turnout .." http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz111400.asp

In NC, the Helms machine (he was elected first in 72) had a whole basket of dirty tricks to suppress turn-out in D precincts. And, of course, the Rs had a national discussion in advance of Nov 04 ways to stall voting in Ohio.