Karl Rove

[fedupinBushcountry]

I just watched the discussion of Karl Rove on the Hardball. You can watch it here:

http://www.canofun.com/blog/videos/hardballinemanmoorewolffoct1005.wmv

Now pay close attention to the end especially Karl Rove the fix it man. So what am I getting to, well I was thinking of the PBS special "The Architect". In the first segment they talk about election day, and how they knew they were losing, and funny how things changed between 9 and 11, and how they had their own special network into PRECINCTS to get their numbers.

Watch this closely:
Chapter One : Election Day 2004

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/view/

I don't know about anyone else here, but to me I feel that this is when the fix came in, like the locking down of certain places in Ohio by supposedly HS bullcrap, and the hours in which everything changed. It just fits into why I know John Kerry won.

I am not a conspiracy type person, but in my mind common sense tells me that Mr. Fix It, did exactly that on election night. I cannot shake this off , am I nuts to be thinking this way ?

[ginnyinWI]

1. no, you're not nuts

It does look very suspicious. Because of who was doing it. Since when has he done anything the straight and honest way? His whole career of managing politicians has been chock full of lies, smears, deceptions, and dirty tricks. It would be a wonder if he did run an honest campaign this time.

The only problem is proving it. Sigh.

[TayTay]

2. The problem is proving the negatives, which is damn near

impossible. We all know that certain voters were 'caged.' We all know that long, long lines in Democratic precincts caused a lot of potential KErry voters to go home and not vote. How do you measure the vote that didn't show up? It's impossible. You can detail it with pictures and say that Blackwell shouldn't have had the voting machines in a trucking circling the Dem precincts, but he claims they were either not needed or broken.

If it was fixed, it was fixed 'real good.' The next vote has to be overwhelming so that this stuff can't happen. (Oh and more states need to pass Reform Initiatives like Ohio is trying to do.)

I wouldn't put anything past Rove. He is scum. Nothing but getting and keeping power means anything to him. I really hope he goes down hard in these indictments.

BTW, what was Tom Oliphant saying on Hardball about the process of getting these indictments. It sounds like he finds the prosecution of the case to be wrong. He said he found that it politicizes decision and policy making in the White House and was surprised that more Libs didn't oppose this. Did anyone else hear this and did I get it wrong? I like Oliphant, but I think he's off base on this one.

[emulatorloo]

12. Oliphant claimed that the prosecutor was "criminalizing politics"

That it was all just politics, that this prosecutor is overzealous, etc.

I get the feeling that because of his illness he hasn't kept up w this case.

Unfortunately he has provided the right wing w a new talking point. . .appartently Buchanan was using this phrase today to try to discredit Fitz.

[whometense]

3. I've always believed,

from even before election day, that if Kerry didn't win by a sizable margin that the fix would be in, and Karl Rove's hands would be all over it.

Election night was a horrible night - like watching your worst nightmare enacted right before your eyes. I had imagined it, but I so hoped I would be wrong.

"Rove had a system to get realtime results..." I feel no doubt whatsoever that he manipulated the results. My own pet theory is that he did everything he could do to steal the election the time-honored way - voter suppression tactics, not enough machines in democratic precincts, etc, etc. But that he had a failsafe plan in reserve. And I believe he resorted to that failsafe plan election night.

I remember so many details from that night. I remember how downcast Bush was, and how the networks reported that Bush was being informed he had lost. And then I remember Karl Rove told him he was going to win. Karl Rove knew he would win because he'd seen to it himself. I have no proof whatsoever, but in my heart I believe that's what happened.

[fedupinBushcountry]

4. It just makes me sick

And it makes me even sicker when certain Kerry bashers say he didn't fight for the vote. My God I would like to see their Monday morning quarterbacking asses up against these criminals.

I am very worried about the 2006 elections, and I wish more here (on DU )would focus on them instead of worrying about 2008 and pushing their candidate. If we don't win back at least the House or the Senate, I don't know what we will be looking at in 2008, for if the Republicans stay in full charge I don't expect anything significant to come of the voting system.

[TayTay]

5. There is hope for 2006.

The polls for the last election were 'too close to call.' That gave the media the excuse to not get all excited at the results. (Well, it could have gone either way.) Without an honest media that does it's job and investigates the government, we were dead in the water. (I fail to see why otherwise intelligent lefties fail to grasp this. It was not simply a matter of Kerry throwing a hissy fit and filing a lawsuit everywhere he could. It was a matter of credibility and convincing the American public that the 'fix was in.' He had no big media partners in this, just small lefty press.)

The polls for 2006 are down for the Repubs. This is nationally reported. The margin of error is low and the divide is in favor of the Dems by 8-12% points. This is a significant margin. It is being reported, not over the course of a month or two, but over the course of months and months. This is significant. The Rethugs have to have a sense of 'plausible deniability' in order to make election fraud work. Consistent reporting of bad Rethug numbers makes fraud much, much harder to pull off. (Someone is watching. The numbers have been XXXXX for so long. How could they suddenly reverse?)

We need a free and curious media doing it's job to get rid of election fraud. Pols can't do it by themselves.

[blm]

9. I'm in 100% agreement with you.

.

[wisteria]

6. I didn't start out believing the fix was in being the skeptic that I am,

but I have since decided otherwise. The exit polls, the fraud, the disenfranchisement, it all adds up to a questionable conclusion. You add Rove into the mix- the man without a soul or conscious-on a mission to keep repubs in power for 30 years and I just can't shake off the feeling that Rove would do whatever it took to achieve the what he considered the necessary results. I wonder how much of this thirty year power play Kerry was aware. I know Clinton was aware of it because he wrote about it in his latest book and suggested that they considered his presidency an anomaly. I want to see justice done and I want to see this administration get what it has coming. In the meantime, the only thing we can do is work to improve the system and support our Dems in 2006. Decisive wins for Dems in 2006 will begin to bring to an end their thirty year plan for power.

[paulk]

7. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist

but we know they stole the election in 2000

we know they had the technology to steal this last one

we know that the whole lot of them are nothing but crooks and liars

............................

[beachmom]

8. The best thing for this country is for Karl Rove to be indicted

AND convicted. There's plenty we know about him, for sure, that is completely 100% unethical. The Atlantic interviewed a Democrat who actually won against a Republican whose campaign manager was Karl Rove (it was a small office). It was very impressive to have won against Karl Rove, so they interviewed the Democrat, and it ended up that after he won that election, he did not seek re-election, the experience was so horrible. The Dem had been active helping sick children, and there were lots of pictures of him helping them. Rove planted a whisper campaign that this Dem was a child molester (showing that Kerry lucked out only being called a traitor and a fraud for getting medals he didn't deserve). It was, of course, a complete lie, and the Dem went on to win the election, but the election had in fact ruined his life. He was almost inferring that it is equally as bad to win against Karl Rove as to lose, because Rove is such a dirty campaigner. Once something has been said about you, it never goes away.

My point is, is that Rove is VERY bad for democracy, with what we know for sure. If he rigged the system in a blatant, illegal way, God help us all. I am, by nature, a skeptic, and perhaps in the minority, have not seen enough real evidence to convince me that '04 was stolen (although I think Gore won in '00, had all of Florida been manually counted). There is also the problem with the popular vote -- 3.5 million votes. Yes, Ohio looks problematic, but if Kerry didn't win the popular vote, then I don't know if he has a moral case to feel robbed (I know, I know, electoral college, but it was the POPULAR VOTE that made us feel robbed in '00 more than anything else). However, I will keep reading what you all have to say, and am open to change my mind on this.

[karynnj]

10. The fact that election rigging is a possibility at all is the problem

What I think is damning is that it was exposed between 2000 and 2004, that the system COULD be subverted easilly due to the technology used. This needs to be fixed because it, by its very existance, calls into question the integrity of the election process.

The combination of this as a real possibility plus the fact that several states had shown far more Kerry strength in the exit polls than the votes showed does lead to suspicion. The problem is that it is really impossible to know which of the following is true:

1) The exit polls were signalling the correct result - Kerry was winning easily and there was pre-programmed shifts made in the real tabulations.
2) There were design flaws in the sample design that the research company has not owned up to or Bush voters are shy (or at least don't want to talk.

Part of the problem is that there is no willingness on the part of the "winners" to even consider the possibility that the system could be manipulated and the loser is ridiculed if he/she even brings the issue up.

[whometense]

11. Not that I have any proof,

mind you, but I believe firmly that the 3.5 million vote margin was manipulated.

If you look at all the research people have done you'll see that the margin of victory in blue states was lower than the exit polls predicted. A few hundred thousand here, a few hundred thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking 3.5 million (although I believe the margin at last count was lower than that, but I could be wrong).

I am normally a conspiracy skeptic. This is just something I firmly believe in my gut. Can't explain it, I just do not believe Bush won.

[emulatorloo]

13. agreed - I think they padded the vote in CA and TX to get popular vote up

and like OP, when I first saw the PBS special. . .something about the first half-hour of the show convinced me that they stole it. . .

[whometense]

14. There is even some question

about the vote margin in Massachusetts, which, when you think of it that way, would be a breathtakingly spit-in-your-face maneuver. If the manipulation was done through a central tabulator, they could have taken the votes from anywhere - or everywhere. Nevada and New Mexico are also highly suspect, I believe.

[TayTay]

15. Yup. I heard this too!

It's maddening. I heard that the machines in Western MA were 'fiddled around with' and that vote vounts were depressed. I wouldn't be surprised.

[Vektor]

16. I knew they were fixing it before the polls even flipped.

I had that sick feeling all day, and I knew it. I knew it the second Wally O'Dell announced "I promise the state of Ohio's electoral votes to George W. Bush."

Fucking cheating bastards.