Dean says CA electoral initiative is "just another Republican attempt to rig an election."

[madfloridian]

Howard Dean and Barbara Boxer on a conference call today were pretty strong about this issue.

Winner-take-all? Not necessarily

"This is not reform," Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee, charged in a conference call with California reporters. "It's just another Republican attempt to rig an election. "This is partisan, it's wrong and the Democratic Party will not stand for a repeat of 2000," where Bush was elected president after a partisan battle in Florida that extended more than a month past election day, Dean said. "We will fight this with every tool we have available."

The "Presidential Electors Initiative" is the brainchild of Tom Hiltachk, a Sacramento attorney who helped put together the successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, worked for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and has written a number of Republican-backed initiatives.

...""This is clearly a concerted Republican attack on the ability of California to stay Democratic," Dean said. "If this gets on the ballot, the election in June will determine who our next president is." Dean was joined on the conference call by California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who said she was confident that the state's voters would reject the initiative - and guaranteed that Democrats would spend what was needed to get their message out.

"We need to beat this and will do whatever is necessary," she said. "Sure, it's expensive, but this is our democracy, this is the presidency."

A Republican consultant put it pretty well:

"There's no great Republican interest in (the initiative) except that it drives Democrats crazy," he said. "But Republicans can spend the money to get it on the ballot and then walk away, and the Democrats still will have to spend big money to beat it."

Isn't that an arrogant thing to say?

And while the DNC is fighting stuff like this, Florida Democrats are sending emails saying to withhold money. I posted one in GDP tonight. And as Florida stops donations which are needed....the GOP laughs and gloats.

Demcorats want to win, but we would rather hurt each other than do what we have to do.

[driver8]

1. Jesus H. Kriste...why should democracy "be expensive"??

I know that's just how it is, but that doesn't make it right.

[lonestarnot]

2. The dirty bastards. Here we go again.

[hang a left]

3. Those facist operators piss me off to no end...

Now that the DREs are de-certified they are crapping in their chonies.

Obviously, California is making them nervous, as it should.

They will not be able to split up our delegates, only the legislature in California can do that. At least that is what I would think. There must be something within our state constitution that would disallow this type of manipulation. Even in the face of a ballot initiative.

[Virginian]

4. If one state does it, all states should be required to do it.

One state shouldn't have different rules from all the others in a federal election.
All states should be consistant if each electoral vote is supposed to have equal weight.
Either all of them do it or none of them do it.

[madfloridian]

5. NC was going to do it, but Dean intervened....

told them if they could not fight CA if NC did it. Sounds like they will fight hard on this.

[Lindsey]

6. Thank God! I've been wondering how I could somehow get in touch w/`

Dean and I was already going to call Boxer's office. They MUST do whatever they have to do. It was left up to the state Democratic party when the Davis recall was going on. I called the office in Sacramento when I first started hearing about it. I was told "not to worry. There's NO WAY it would happen." Well, we see how that turned out. The big guys and gals have to get involved in this situation. I'll call Boxer's office anyway tomorrow to reiterate how important it is....

[EFerrari]

7. And as usual, he's right. Kick

[Savannahmann]

8. I think this is already done

In Nebraska, or Maine or some other state. I know there is at least one state where it's possible to break up the electoral votes isn't it?

[mogster]

9. See also earlier DU post, citing Boxer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1600252

Stop the GOP Electoral College power grab in California
Posted August 16, 2007 | 01:35 PM (EST)

Just when you thought it was safe to start thinking about having a Democrat in the White House, along comes a cynical power grab by Republican operatives. And unfortunately, it's happening right here in my own state of California.

If you haven't heard already, Republican strategists recently announced plans to begin raising money for a dangerous initiative that would radically change the way California apportions our electoral votes in presidential elections. Rather than awarding all of California's electoral votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote -- the way it works in every single state except the small states of Maine and Nebraska -- their scheme would divvy up California's electoral votes based on the number of Congressional districts each candidate wins.

What does this mean? Well, if the last few elections are any guide, rather than the Democratic nominee winning all 55 of California's electoral votes in 2008, this new partisan scheme could hand 20 of California's electoral votes to the Republican candidate and only 35 to the Democrat.

Don't get me wrong: After the 2000 and 2004 election debacles, I'm a strong advocate for election reform. But it's absolutely wrong for California to go it alone. It's just patently unfair for a large "blue" state like California to change our system for awarding electoral votes while other large states which trend "red" like Texas and Florida don't change their system at the same time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-barbara-boxer/stop-the-gop-electoral-co_b_60728.html

[madfloridian]

12. Thanks, I missed that post.

:hi:

[mogster]

13. Boxer and Dean

Give me back the faith in politicians and politics :hi:

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. And people wonder why this country has become so fragmented.

[Hubert Flottz]

11. The GOP can't win in an unrigged game!

They know they're losers!

[Nikki Stone1]

14. This is a response to losing the voting machine battle

This is how we know how much deep shit the Republicans are in right now. They can only win if the game is rigged somehow.