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Wednesday, October 15. 2008
Polls
When politicians are up in the polls, they validate everything the politicians have been saying in the campaigns. When the politicians are down, the polls don’t mean much, if anything. Actually, I’ve always believed, for at least the past 40 years, polls are fairly accurate pictures of the public sentiment, if reputable pollsters conduct the polls.As much as I hated it, in 1984 I knew the polls were right: Ronald Reagan was going to win and have his second term.
Everyone points to the 2000 exit polls being so far off base because those polls overwhelmingly had Al Gore, Jr. winning the election. Well, the numbers of those polls may not have been overwhelming in Gore’s favor and we should remember, Gore won the popular vote. He actually got more votes than George Bush. Not to mention all the voting “irregularities” that took place, not only in Florida, but also around the nation. Can we ever forget the hanging chads and confusing butterfly ballots? So, maybe the exit polls in 2000 weren’t that off the mark.
Every week now the polls show Senator Barack Obama pulling ahead — now way ahead — of Senator John McCain. Gallup shows Obama ahead of McCain 51% to 41%. The Washington Post/ABC News Survey says Obama is favored 53% to McCain’s 43%.Not to mention, these same pollsters, conducting polls in the battleground states, have Obama ahead by double digits in all but one, Colorado being the one state that has Obama ahead by a single digit — which is nine percentage points.
Despite this evidence that John McCain is losing this presidential race, the Republicans want us to believe the outcome, if (and when) McCain loses, will have turned on the voter registration efforts of ACORN.
ACORN is the acronym for the group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN has been around for over 40 years now and, as smart and well read as I am — and humble, let’s not forget humble — this is the first I can remember hearing about the organization. What they have been doing all these years is advocating for low income, mostly inner city people and registering them to vote. So, naturally, the thought is — insinuated by the Republicans — that ACORN is in the tank for Obama and, when they really want to twist the facts, ACORN is an arm of the Obama campaign.Voter fraud gets my attention, regardless of party. So, online I went to find out about ACORN. No, they don’t work for Obama and during the primaries the Obama campaign paid one of the groups under the umbrella organization called ACORN to register voters. That’s the extent of the connection to Obama.
The extent of the “voter fraud” being investigated has to do with registration, not voting so it isn’t really voter fraud. The election agencies of the various states and cities have found some individuals who were hired to register voters would write in any name — or themselves numerous times — to get the $20.00 per registration offered by the registration groups. Yeah, it’s a job. People were paid per registration, regardless of party affiliation.
More accurately, the employees defrauded their employers, the result being that these fraudulent registrations placed a burden on the agencies tasked with putting them into the system.
ACORN claims they found the fraud themselves and brought it to the attention of the authorities in Ohio. That may be, but at the very least ACORN appears to be cooperating with authorities. Except in Nevada, where state investigators raided the office of ACORN in that state’s investigation. Pretty dramatic, the state attorney general looks like Teddy Roosevelt and everyone assumes, erroneously, investigators are on to Senator Barack Obama — except that none of the investigations tie the Obama campaign to ACORN, let alone any fraud.
In the past year I’ve been approached by a number of individuals to register. Now, after moving, there isn’t a one of these registration takers to be found. So, off to the Registrar of voters I went to register before the deadline and low and behold, was told I could vote right then and there! Hot damn! So I did. My ballot was sealed in an envelope signed by me to be saved for the actual election.This saves me the trouble — and pain — of pedaling up and down a couple steep hills here in Scripps Ranch to vote. See, most people think it’s noble of me to rely on a bicycle for transportation. Not really. If I could afford the expense of an automobile, or even thought I could afford a motor vehicle, I’d have a BMW 3-series in a heartbeat and drive every where I need to be because, at heart, I’m a slacker of great self repute!
As I sit here finishing this up on Wednesday Morning (October 15, 2008), the so-called voter fraud story has faded into the background, becoming yet one more failed attempt by the McCain campaign to find a “game-changing” issue to turn around the presidential race. It isn’t happening. The polls show Obama ahead by double digits nationally and in most state polls. The question is, will race play a part once the voters are in the voting booth?
With some, no doubt, but the McCain campaign can’t count on millions of Democrats voting for him simply because Obama’s skin happens to be black. What he might count on is real election fraud and tampering: making it difficult for voters to get to the polls and vote, as happened in Ohio during the 2004 election. There were people still standing in line four hours after the polls closed waiting to cast their ballots.
The McCain campaign can hope that sort of thing happens this year, but the truth is, Obama is so far ahead, not even that will be enough. McCain knows it, which is why his campaign has brought up all the negative attacks in the past few months.
Selecting Sarah Palin for a vice presidential running mate has proven to be an albatross, employing the same election tacticians that did him wrong in 2000 has proven to be a mistake — in fact, since McCain started flip-flopping on all the issues his campaign has been one mistake after another.
Okay, there is one more issue the McCain-Palin campaign can try and use and is using: the latest flap is Congressman John Lewis who compared McCain and Palin to the racists who bombed black churches during the ’60’s. John Lewis was a civil rights leader in the ’60’s who led the Selma to Montgomery (Alabama) marches and was beaten so viciously by Alabama law enforcement, his bloody head became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement.He was also the first Civil Rights leader to question the Kennedy Administration’s commitment to civil rights after Kennedy allowed Alabama authorities to commit such violence against the nonviolent marchers. Lewis has said his comments where mis-interpreted, that his intention wasn’t to compare McCain-Palin to George Wallace, but please, Congressman, your comments did that directly! There was no mis-interpretation! In a political campaign so heavily charged with race, Lewis knew exactly what he was saying before he wrote it.
Obama released a statement that day saying he did not agree with Lewis’s comments, but that isn’t enough for the McCain campaign. What they want from Obama is a denunciation of John Lewis eviscerating the Civil Rights leader and quite frankly that isn’t going to happen. The McCain campaign knows it and sees this as an opportunity to run negative against Obama.
It isn’t working and like the other issues trotted out by the Republicans, this one will be long forgotten before November 4th. Now let’s see what happens in tonight’s final presidential debate.
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