Democracy Has Prevailed.

November 9, 2008

Jack Kelly Sunday

There's not much for me to disagree with in this week's column. Jack Kelly even calls the results a "landslide in the Electoral College" and as we all know, when Jack says something, it's gotta be true.

Right?

So Electoral College landslide it is. Thanks, Jack!

At one point, Jack writes:
I give the McCain campaign a C- at best. It often seemed a pudding without a theme. On the paramount issue, Mr. McCain didn't have a message that resonated until Joe the Plumber found one for him. And the way the McCain campaign mishandled its prize asset -- Gov. Sarah Palin -- was appalling.
All this may be true, but Governor Palin's own performance was no less appalling. National Review columnist Kathleen Parker way back in late September called for Palin to withdraw from the ticket. Parker wrote:
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
Then Jack writes this:
There apparently was more fraud in this election than in any other in the recent past. But because Mr. Obama's margins in key states were large, the votes of the ineligible and the dead didn't affect the outcome. Republicans weren't robbed. They were beaten, fair and square.
Of course Jack doesn't say where there was "apparently was more fraud in this election than in any other in the recent past" so we're left to fill in the blanks.

Ohio? Smooth.
Pennsylvania? Also smooth.
Florida? "Almost eerily quiet."

So where was this "more" fraud? Any reports of widespread voter fraud in any of the non-partisan organizations set up to watch for it? I couldn't find any.

But I wholeheartedly agree that the GOP was beaten (in Jack's own words) "fair and square." But then Jack immediately contradicts himself with the next paragraph:
Because Republicans cannot reasonably blame defeat on tactical mistakes by the McCain campaign...
Didn't he just give the McCain campaign a C- on its "pudding without a theme" (whatever that means)? So it's now unreasonable to blame the (Electoral College landslide) defeat on the campaign's mistakes? I don't get it.

Jack follows a few paragraphs later with that desperate last-ditch meme of the rightwing noise machine. Here's how Jack puts it:
Despite Mr. Obama's victory, I think America remains a center-right country. But the right cannot prevail if it alienates the center.
Uh, no. Tell me how, when more than 52% of the electorate votes for the guy the GOP branded as "a socialist" we live in a "center-right" nation. Mediamatters.org reports that Democracy Corp released poll numbers showing strong support for the policies outlined by now-President-Elect Obama. How then can we be in a "center-right" country? Michael Grunwald of Time, writing the night of the election, puts it this way:
The pundits are already warning that Obama could overreach, that Democratic congressional leaders are still unpopular, that this is still a center-right country. But it wasn't tonight. Obama will have the luxury of taking office at a time when the GOP is the AIG of electoral politics, when his predecessor has set the lowest bar since James Buchanan, when a supposedly conservative Administration just started nationalizing the banking system, when the public is desperate for change. What is it about tonight's results that suggests Obama should be afraid of progressive action on the cusp of a depression?
And reminds us of the national nightmare we're leaving:
Remember what eight years of Republican rule has wrought: missing weapons of mass destruction, the promises we'd be greeted as liberators, Jessica Lynch, torture, the disintegration of Afghanistan. Also: Enron, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie and Freddie, GM, Chrysler, Social Security privatization, the $700 billion bailout. Also: Brownie, John Ashcroft covering up that bare-breasted statue at the Justice Department, Alberto Gonzales politicizing the Justice Department, Harriet Miers, the oil lobbyist who edited those global warming reports. Also: Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Ted Stevens. Also: the Vice President shot a guy, and the President almost choked to death on a pretzel.
The election was a mandate for change, an electoral college landslide and a clear repudiation of both conservative policies in general and the last eight disastrous years specifically.

17 comments:

John K. said...

John K: So I guess all those Rove Deibold voting machines counted the votes properly? There was no complaint of hacking in 2006 and now in 2008 no complaint. Looks like the left is looking like hypocrites again. LOL LOL

John K. said...

John K: Do you left wingers remember in 2000 and 2004 when you lost you demanded reform of the electoral college. Sen. Kerry and Sen. Clinton was big on this. All the cable talk show pundits, especially Matthews were really hot on this issue. I guess that idea is dead also. Looks like the electoral college works fine now. LOL LOL LMAO Can I spot a hypocrite or what?

Anonymous said...

johnk,

You're a great ventriloquist.

All you ever do here is talk out your ass.

Anonymous said...

For once, I'll give Kelly the benefit of the doubt. He may not be contradicting himself on this:

McCain did run an awful campaign.

But, even if he'd run a perfect campaign, in this economy, and with GW's approval ratings, McCain was likely to lose.

My Name is Carlos said...

Remember (from two weeks ago) when wingnuts from sea to shining sea were ranting about the coming voter fraud?

Didn't happen.

Looks like the right is looking like hypocrites again.

My Name is Carlos said...

John K;

In case you missed it, that last comment was intended TO MAKE FUN OF YOU.

Once I published it I realized I didn't think you're smart enough to get the joke.

So that's why I'm pointing it out to you now.

THE JOKE'S ON YOU.

Clyde Wynant said...

JohnK -

With all the overheated rhetoric about ACORN, I guess you were right about one thing; Mickey Mouse DID show up to vote. You did vote, didn't you?

Clyde

Laurie Mann said...

If Palin was McCain's "prize asset," Kelly is much more of a wingnut than I'd realized. The only thing Palin could do was "energize the base" which she did. Problem was, the Republican base has shrunk over the last few years due to the Republican mismanagement of the country. Most young/new voters registered as Democrats or Independents and voted Democratic.

Clyde Wynant said...

Palin, almost as much as the financial credit crisis, tanked the election for McCain. She was the living embodiment of his total sellout to the "consultant class" who took control of a onetime honorable man's campaign, and drove it into the ground. Of course, he was obviously a more than willing participant, which is why he is isn't the President-elect today.

Palin was so clearly clueless that even the clueless among us "got it."

I just hope I live long enough to get the real story on why in the world anyone thought she was "the answer."

Clyde

John K. said...

John K: No Jive Turkey and Mickey Mouse did commit voter fraud. In Philadelphia for instance. Republicans are too civilized to make an issue of it. But no voter fraud with the Diebold machines eh? LOL And that electoral college works just fine this time around. Quinn is right. Democracy only works when the left wins. LOL LMAO

John K. said...

John K: To the fool who made the joke and then had to explain it. Look in the mirror Homer. If you have to explain a joke to your audience, get off the stage. LMAO

My Name is Carlos said...

To JohnK;

Two things:

1) YOU are the audience for that joke and
2) It doesn't sound like you got it.

LMAO

EdHeath said...

One of the problems with being a Maverick is that you tend not to have an ideology (because that implies there is a state of affairs where you would be setting your own course). So when all the Republicans complain that John McCain wasn't being himself, at least not until his concession speech, I think they are misconstruing the concept. It would be just like a Maverick (or team of Mavericks, as Sarah Palin called them) to be all over the map.

But that’s neither here nor there. As you say, Jack Kelly, Rush Limbaugh and John K. accuse the Democrats of widespread voter fraud without any proof, as usual. And they claim that Democratic concerns about Republican voter suppression were laughable. Te difference this time is that there was a Democratic Governor in Ohio, so the voting machines worked, and people were watching in Florida, so the Republicans could sweep tens of thousands of voters off the rolls, as they have in the past. Sorry to all the Republicans who wanted to get that permanent Republican majority you like to talk about.

John K. said...

John K: Nope, ample evidence of voter fraud in Philadelphia for one. So Ed Heath you have any evidence of Republican voter fraud? I thought not. Those evil diebold machines worked this time eh? LMAO And that electoral college is not such a bad thing after all? LMAO Democrats only hate democracy when they lose.

John K. said...

John K: Did you have to explain that joke to yourself or this left wing audience?

EdHeath said...

"Nope, ample evidence of voter fraud in Philadelphia for one."
Any links (to newspapers) John K.?

EdHeath said...

While googling for instances of voter fraud in Philadelphia (i'd like to know the truth, not just what Rush Limbaugh says), I came upon this opinon piece, with lots of citations (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aSftN8jhfqTo&refer=home). The writer mentions but largely dismisses the impact of ACORN. She also mentions Nathan Sproul, who worked for the Republicans in '04 and McCain and the RNC this time too. In '04 Sproul was investigated for allegations his employees tore up democratic registration forms. That's voter suppression. Of course, the Bush Justice Department declined to prosecute. There was also a link to a report that said (approximately) Draft, don't link to this without author's permission. So I won't link to it, but I suggest you take a look (Author is somebody Freeman, I think, at the bottom of the column). I only skimmed the beginning, maybe more at lunch.