Archive for October 5th, 2002
Was Clinton Right?
This’ll raise a few hackles. If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic.
And yes, I realize that the saying origintated with Harry Truman. Clinton is just the last person I remember to quote it.
Hraka Scoops Kausfiles!
Mickey Kaus, writing in his blog at Slate at 5:31, Friday 10/04/02;
Uh, no. The worse that can happen for New Jersey Republicans is that a pro-GOP intervention into the Torricelli ballot dispute by the U.S. Supreme Court triggers a voter backlash nationwide and energizes Democrats with memories of Bush v. Gore, costing the GOP control of both the House and the Senate. (It’s risky interevening before the election’s been held!) … I tend to think the MinuteMan Plan is the course of wisdom for the national GOP, and even for New Jersey GOP candidate Forrester.
Moi, two days prior.
The New Jersey decision looks loony, so the Supreme Supremes will overrule the Garden State Supremes, say 20 days before the election. And then the shit will hit the fan.
Anyone else remember the nationwide bitterness the last time the Supreme Court overruled a state supreme court on the matter of a local election law? That wound may have a scab on it, but it’s nowhere near healed. You can tell people to get over it till the cows come home, but just because they stop yelling doesn’t mean everything is all hunky-dory now.
Two things will happen when the Supremes overrule. One, the Democratic base is going to get really energized really quickly. Most elections, and especially off-year elections, are decided by turnout, and this will turn out the party faithful in droves.
What’s interesting, to my point of view, is that Kausfiles links to this Minute Man post on the Torricelli court action, which is a page scroll or two above Minute Man’s link to my post above. Do I think Kaus ripped me off? No, though that would have been cool. I don’t think he even knows of Hraka’s existence, though I suppose anything is possible. It’s just nice to see my meme only have to travel through two degrees of separation before hitting the mainstream media.
Soon every election will be decided in court
Five DeKalb County voters asked a federal court Friday to throw out the results of an Aug. 20 primary in which Rep. Cynthia McKinney was defeated, arguing she was the victim of a “malicious crossover” vote by Republicans that violated the Voting Rights Act.
…
“The issue is that Black Democratic voters in the 4th District had their voting rights interfered with and violated,” said Atlanta lawyer J.M. Raffauf, who represents the Black plaintiffs. Raffauf said he recently talked with McKinney and that she supports the litigation.
What none of the stories have pointed out yet is that J.M. Raffauf is McKinney’s lawyer, so he’s not exactly a disinterested party.
The five plaintiffs are identified in this story.
Rev. E. Randel T. Osburne, an official of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I cannot confirm this, as the SCLC website so slow as to be unusable.
Linda Dubose.
Brenda Lowe Clemons.
Dorothy Perry.
Wendell Muhammad, a McKinney campaign official, and spokesman for the nation of Islam.
I haven’t been able to find out anything other than the above about them, though a search through google filtered by the zip code search for congress members at opensecrets.org gave me phone numbers for the three ladies, none of which answered my calls.