<p>Then you are defining politics as the ability to win elections? Personally I would like to have a political leader who can win an election and lead the country. </p>
<p>I also wouldn’t attribute Bush’s escape from impeachment to his own personal power as a politician - I would attribute that to the organization of the Republican party and a convergence of world events, especially 9/11.</p>
<p>Hrmm…let me clarify.</p>
<p>I mean to say that Bush is an expert of electoral politics. He’s quite talented in it, in fact. And it’s something that many Dems seem to overlook, unfortunately.</p>
<p>After all, a politician is just a dude on a soapbox if he’s not elected.</p>
<p>And I think you underestimate his ability to really take advantage of situations. I mean, heck… Bush One managed to lose office after much more positive circumstances in his first term.</p>
<p>Ari is right. Bush is very talented as a politican. Did he not beat McCain, Kerry and Gore? It was no accident.</p>
<p>I’ll be a bit contrarian here: it really doesn’t take too much of a talented politician to beat the likes of Gore and Kerry.</p>
<p>I’m of the belief, for better or for worse, that after Bush lost his first election in Texas, he quickly realized how important it was as an American politician to not come of as technocratic and “upper-tier.” Clinton, with his McDonald’s habit and comforting drawl, also worked that line. </p>
<p>I think, at least in part, that Bush One lost office the second time around because he was, in part, too technocratic for most Americans. It’s a miracle in my mind that Carter was ever elected, considering his willingness to engage in rather wordy speeches.</p>
<p>Carter would never had been elected were it not for Watergate and the pardon. Even then, he required the help of a third party candidate to siphon votes away from Ford.</p>
<p>I still think you all are giving too much weight to the individual talent of GW and ignoring the elephant in the room.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103202.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103202.html</a>
From the Republican Party:</p>
<p>"It’s making sure that people who have earned the right to vote are voting. We’ve had people die in wars to protect those rights.</p>
<p>“Undoubtedly, the challenge process will be awkward and may cause consternation on the part of the challenged voter as well as the judges.” It advises, “If there is cause to make a challenge, you should not hesitate to do so merely because it upsets the challenged voter or the election judges.”</p>
<p>It adds, “If the election judge should try to ignore your challenge, point out that they would be committing a criminal offense punishable by not less than 30 days in jail.”</p>
<p>so how many of you hear EARNED the right to vote? hmmmmmm? anyone? how do you earn that right? well according to republicans you have to earn that right!!! wow!!!</p>
<p>I was BORN with that right, and I can lose it by being a convicted felon, but how did you all EARN that right to vote?</p>
<p>electoral-vote.com/#news</p>
<p>This is a top poll-meister who is American but now lives in Holland. He has a methodology (explained on the site) for keeping track of the polls in all Senate races and many House races, updated daily. I am hooked on this site - checked it every day before 2004 elections and it is very interesting at this point for 2006. Lots of information in one handy location.</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom, thank you for posting that link. My understanding is that you are only supposed to challenge a voter if you have serious reason to believe there is fraud involved. For instance, you know personally that the individual doesn’t live where they say they do, isn’t a citizen, etc.</p>
<p>It’s very troubling to me that the Republicans are planning to challenge anyone who can’t smoothly recite personal details when asked, and anyone who is assisted by the election judge. Basically, if the Republican poll watchers follow these guidelines, it means that anyone with certain speech impediments is going to be challenged, anyone who has trouble speaking with a lot of people staring at them, and anyone with a physical disability who requires assistance to vote. </p>
<p>I had a brilliant professor in college who could deliver a prepared hour-long lecture with no problem. But put him in a small group and ask him something simple like how’s the weather, and he would stammer over at least a word per sentence. He was an extremely shy person, so maybe that’s why, but I could see him having a very difficult time fluidly answering these sorts of questions at the polls, especially with an antagonistic stranger hanging on his every word. (In previous voter challenge efforts, Republicans have even used armed guards.) </p>
<p>There is nothing about having any of these conditions that means a person hasn’t “earned” the right to vote, however it is one earns it. To challenge someone’s vote based on the fluidity of their speech is frivolous at best. To challenge someone’s vote based on their having a mobility impairment that requires assistance is sickening.</p>
<p>Election fraud is a valid concern. By the way, some people (my parents, for example) DO have to earn the right to vote, by passing exams for citizenship. Every legitimate vote should count, but fraudulent votes clearly threaten our democracy. John Fund wrote a book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy” which addresses these concerns. <a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fund200409130633.asp[/url]”>http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fund200409130633.asp</a>
<br>
I think that everyone should be required to register ahead of time and show valid ID in order to vote. Voting is a right, but it is a right that comes with some responsibility on the part of each citizen.</p>
<p>All you have to do is look at the work done by the liberal group ACORN to find the root cause for the need to be very vigilant in challenging voters. They have been involved with tremendous voter registration fraud - particularly in the razor-close state of Missouri. A couple of ACORN employees have been indicted for voter registration fraud. Investigations have shown that in some cases the same person was registered more than 10 times.</p>
<p>Ensuring voting rights is a non-partisan issue.</p>
<p>Use ID cards, paper ballots, or machines that leave a paper trail, have enough precincts that everyone who wants to vote, can.</p>
<p>It just isn’t that hard to do the right way.</p>
<p>Voting fraud is a legitmate concern. Of which there are no more than a few dozen documented cases each election.</p>
<p>But it pales by several orders of magnitude compared to those improperly dropped from voter rolls for reasons as trivial as names not matching because a voting roll had a middle initial and a property tax record didn’t, or someone had the same name as a felon but wasn’t the felon, etc. Or the Republican candidate here in Orange County sending intimidating letter to Spanish-surnamed voters…all of whom are perfectly legal citizens. Or furnishing heavily-minority (and hence Democratic-leaning) precincts with broken and/or inadequate numbers of voting machines, causing long lines to discourage voting. Or requires alternate forms of I.D. that can be obtained only with difficulty and expense for those poor and/or without access to transportation. Where is the Republican outrage over any of this? There isn’t…and any many cases theyr’e the architects of the stituation. So please spare me the hypocrisy and the sanctimony. </p>
<p>I look forward to tearing down the whole rotten, corrupt edifice of Republican rule.</p>
<p>Don’t hold your breath in that happening in this election, TD. Somehow, the Republicans will hold on, despite all the polls indicating otherwise.</p>
<p>That’s the funny thing about this group of mendicants.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone here is going to be able to show evidence that people with disabilities are so much more likely to commit vote fraud that it’s reasonable to challenge the registration of each and every person who requires physical assistance to vote.</p>
<p>It’s grotesque, I doubt it’s legal, and I think it’s totally morally indefensible. </p>
<p>And in that vein, yet another Republican in Congress has been exposed for using his taxpayer funded staff and office to campaign: <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc</a>. Tim Murphy, R-PA.</p>
<p>
I agree, but why is it that the Dems continuosly fight the use of ID cards?</p>
<p>
Perhaps it’s a funny thing about the polls.</p>
<p>Nah, go read up on exit polls. They have never been wrong before, in history.</p>
<p>Well, before 2000 that is.</p>
<p>I don’t see ID cards as a deal breaker, myself; last time I voted EVERYONE was being asked to show picture ID, and it didn’t bother me. </p>
<p>But as a matter of public policy, it bothers a lot of people because of how ID cards have been used in the past. Long before it was the law in my state that election workers were supposed to ask for ID, I witnessed election workers selectively asking people with disabilities and minority voters for ID. I never saw a white, non-disabled person asked until finally it became the practice to ask everyone. In some states, where no state or federal law requires voters to show ID, Native Americans have specifically been prevented from voting unless they could show an ID–even though there was no legal requirement whatsoever. A secondary issue is that some states decided not accept the tribal government issued ID card, even though many Native Americans carry no other picture ID. </p>
<p>Others raise more pragamatic concerns: getting an ID presents extra hardships for people with limited funds and transportation. From a philosophical standpoint, why should you have to pay the government money in order to vote? It’s the same reason we don’t put a sales tax on newspapers in this country (or at least, in any state I’ve bought a paper in). Once you open the door to the government requiring a fee for the exercise of a right, it’s very easy for the government to raise the fee so high that lower and middle income people are shut out. </p>
<p>For one reason or another, about 6-10% of the population that is eligible to vote doesn’t have picture ID. And some people just don’t like seeing our country turn into the kind of state where people are constantly being asked to show “their papers.”</p>
<p>Quite frankly, there is no evidence to support any significant vote fraud being conducted by individual voters voting more than once or without being eligible (it’s about the most risky and least efficient means of stealing an election imaginable), so there’s no real fact-based justification for putting more barriers to voting. Though fake registrations and joke registrations do occur, there’s no evidence that these folks are showing up at the polls. </p>
<p>You do have people like Ann Coulter (who used her real estate agent’s address instead of her own to register to vote) slip through the cracks and vote without a legal registration, but as TheDad points out, there is far more evidence of people being turned away inappropriately and though use of means that are outside, even against, the law. </p>
<p>Here’s a more informed analysis of the situation, from an expert in election law who’s somewhat in favor of an ID system of some sort.</p>
<p><a href=“http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/2005/050412.php[/url]”>http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/2005/050412.php</a></p>