Category: Elections 2004

If you want to go out and register folks in just one party, that’s fine and legal (and the way the electoral game is played).

If you pretend to register folks from both parties, then throw away the registration forms of all but one party — that’s fraud. It’s also something that should get you bitchslapped and tossed in the clink. And if it’s actually being paid for by the political party in question (the Republicans, in these stories) I hope they get fined until their eyes bleed, and the folks responsible face felony charges.

More details here, here, and here.

In the meantime, if you still need to register, don’t rely on some unknown person or persons sitting in front of a supermarket to take care of the paperwork for you. Do it right.

Do you think you’re registered to vote in Colorado come 2 November? Find out (official state data as of 14 Sep.).

Remarkably enough, there are sixty “Hill, David”s on the list, but only one “Kleerup, Marjorie.”

The site is focused on making sure people who are eligible to vote can, though there are a number of concerns the other direction as well. The word I hear of “Colorado being the next Florida” do not fill me with glee.

Nice article here about how the GOP campaign has seized on certain words and phrases by Kerry, out of context, to distort his message (or to reinforce their own) in an unfair fashion.

Among these are the “sensitive” War on Terror (in context, the sensitivity was not to the terrorists, but to other nations and our own values), the “global test” (in context, a reference to a universal test of being able to justify governmental actions to the American citizenry), and the latest, the “nuisance” of terrorism (in context, the desire to essentially “win” the war on terror, such that it is not the sum total of our foreign policy).

Now while these don’t necessarily show that Kerry is some girly-man wimp sucking up to the French, they are in some cases unfortunately turns of phrase (if only one person were killed by terror next year, it would hardly be a “nuisance” to that person’s surviving family and friends). It’s ironic that Kerry, who clearly thinks of himself as a careful, intelligent, and articulate speaker, keeps saying things that can be so easily twisted by the GOP into these sorts of attacks. (Throw in the “I voted for it before I voted against it” gaffe and it almost makes Kerry sound self-destructive.)

But while you can shake your head and waggle your finger at the guy who flashes around a bunch of money in a bad neighborhood, you can’t let the robber off the hook as the guilty party, and the GOP talking heads and pols who are willing to run with these distortions deserve to be condemned for doing so. They’re not the only ones playing politics in that way, but that doesn’t excuse them, either.

(via DOF)

Obviously folks design things to convey a message, political bumper stickers not least of all. So this analysis of the standard Bush v. Kerry stickers is sort of interesting.

Is it relevant, though? Does the public really pay attention to some of these typographic and design niceties? Obviously there’s thought to be some correlation, since otherwise the candidates just throw out basic black Times Roman on a white background, but is there a point where the distinctions between colors and font selection becomes lost on the body politic? Is there a point where the distinction becomes simply unconscious? And how much info actually gets conveyed at that point?

I dunno. But it’s still kind of fun to see how much some folks read into (or out of) these sorts of things.

The Jib-Jab (“This Land”) folk are back with a new music video, “Good to be in DC.”

Not quite as good as the original, but still pretty darned funny.

I’m really getting tired of this presidential election. Really, truly. To the point where any time someone mentions Bush’s latest blunder, or Kerry’s latest flipflop, or Bush’s latest doofusity, or Kerry’s latest pomposity, it’s like someone driving a red-hot icepick through my eyeball and into my brain. It’s a time when I wish I could just turn off my critical reasoning abilities and be a gung-ho supporter of someone. Or a rabid opponent of someone. Because being an ever-amazed reluctant supporter of one somewhat more important policy aspect of one candidate vs. an irritated disdainer of the other candidate even though on paper more of an ideological match to him, is getting even older to me than it doubtless is to you.

To wit, I am not a fan of George Bush. I happen to think he was right in his foreign policy (if not execution) in Afghanistan and Iraq, more so than that of John Kerry (to the extent that it can be coherently stated), and that in turn weighs marginally more than my disdain for much else of Bush’s (domestic) policy, which is in turn marginally greater (disdain-wise) than my not-insignificant disdain for Kerry’s domestic posturing policy, which in turn is greater than my desire to see Bush voted out of office so that the incessant clamor of his opponents could be stilled, or at least muted.

And don’t get me started on Ralph Nader.

Maybe I’ll just try to focus on local/state election news from here on out. Sh’yeah. That’ll lower my blood pressure. Right.

We managed to watch about ten minutes of the debates before Margie insisted she had to leave the room (her Cheney threshold is a lot lower than mine). Since I’d seen all I really wanted to see myself, I just changed the channel. Doubtless that means I missed the Really Key Moment that Proved That Guy’s A Lying Buffoon If Only I’d Seen It (fill in the That Guy of your choice).

Major observation:

• Cheney acts (duh) like a CEO at a business meeting. Unpretentious but arrogant. You can imagine him cutting off someone at the knees as easily as defining a strategy.
• Edwards acts (duh) like a lawyer addressing the jury. More genial, more glib, more polished in presentation, more sound-bitey.

I’d certainly much rather hear John Edwards giving speeches for the next four years. I’m less sure I’d rather have him representing the US at a negotiating table.

I find Cheney’s “we” and “our” (Administration) references only slightly less irritating than Edwards’ “John Kerry and John Edwards” third person references. Neither of them used the first person singular enough.

I didn’t find either of them significantly less fact-challenged than the other. Both repeated the same charges as their campaign ads have been making, with the same errors and misrepresentations. Both were willing to paint things as jet black or gleaming white depending on what their own interests wanted it to be.

Feh.

Quick review of the blogroll:

Kerry supporters/Bush opponents think Kerry kicked ass and took names. They think Bush sounded like a blithering idiot.

Bush supporters/Kerry opponents thought Bush did okay-to-excellent, and Kerry didn’t do as badly as they’d thought (though still droningly arrogant), net thinking it was a Bush win.

Quel surprise. It will be interesting to see if there’s any poll movement in the aftermath, or if it was all preaching to the choirs.

Me? I was hanging out, doing some computer backups, and, eventually, watching Alias s.2 with Margie and the Testerfolk. I think that was the right decision.

Occasionally newspapers will prematurely run obituaries. Embarrassing, even though everyone knows they’re largely written ahead of time.

Then you get stories like this, from the AP, posted on ABC’s news site:

After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.
The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.

Yes, if you think that reads a little oddly, it’s because the debate hasn’t happened yet. Even though the story is all written in the past tense.

Now, obviously what’s happened is that someone at AP prepped the background framework for the story beforehand, and instead of the story that goes with the headline (“Bush, Kerry Prepare for Debate in Fla.”), they published the draft, which would ordinarily, when the debate happens, be published with the actual details of the confrontation included. Then someone at ABC got the story and just posted it blindly (heck, it may be automated).

And it’s not like the AP story is particularly prescient. Analysts and campaign spokesfolk have been pretty clear on the tack both candidates are liable to take.

Not a scandal, nor an indication of media bias (in any direction), just someone (or two) sloppily picking the wrong file to post. (Assuming ABC fixes the page, I do have a nice PDF of it saved. 🙂 ) Still, I hope a few heads will, if not roll, at least get clouted soundly.

(via Stan)

I’m not going to be watching, but if I were, I’d certainly want something like this to entertain/numb me:

1. Every time Bush mangles a word that he, as President of the United States, should know. (“Nyuklear” excepted.) [1 shot]
2. Every time Kerry utters a sentence that, transcribed, would require more than ten commas, two semi-colons, and/or a paragraph break. [1 shot]
3. Every time Bush gets a folksy grin on his face. [1 shot]
4. Every time Kerry sounds like he’s trying to channel FDR or (the original) JFK. [1 shot]
5. Every time Kerry mentions Viet Nam. [1 shot]
6. Every time Bush mentions the National Guard. [2 shots]
7. Every time Kerry mentions “our allies.” [1 shot]
8. Every time Bush mentions “The War on Terror.” [1 shot]
9. Every time Kerry mentions the United Nations. [1 shot]
10. Every time Bush mentions “The Axis of Evil.” [1 shot]
11. Every time either of them mentions a letter they got from an American citizen. [1 shot]
12. Every time either of them mentions a previous president. [1 shot]
13. Every time either of them mentions a previous president of the other party. [2 shots]
14. Every time either of them mentions a previous president who would have crossed the street to avoid being associated with them. [3 shots]

Like I said, at the very least you’ll be laughing uproariously by the time it’s done. Or, alternately, looking for a bridge to jump from.

UPDATE: Well, here’s another set of rules.

As one analyst put it regarding the rules that both sides insisted upon in the upcoming presidential debates:

“[The debates will be] speeches coordinated so that they take place at the same time, planned by handlers in such a way the candidates will be influenced as little as possible by the other one’s presence”

Including such things as what the camera can show, what the candidates can use as props, how they can be cut off by the moderators, where they can move, who they can address, etc. I’ve seen less planned church liturgies. In some ways, it would be more effective (or at least less a waste of time) for each candidate to simply submit from their campaign offices prepared answers and mug shots to questions selected and agreed upon by each side.

From Defective Yeti, how to make the presidential debates more interesting. Or, at least, more entertaining.

Here’s a fun map that (a) charts current electoral votes to Kerry or Bush based on the most recent polls in each state, and (b) represents each state in size based on the number of electoral votes it carries.

I’m more interested in it based on presentation than on the actual content it currently carries — it’s still way too early, IMO, to pay much attention to polls (esp. polls of different natures). Here’s a geographically accurate map of the same info.

(via J-Walk)