Friday, September 7, 2007

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

The GOP is up to their dirty tricks again! The CA Republican Party‘s "Presidential Election Reform Act" is nothing but another right-wing power grab. If you can’t hijack an election by having a Kathryn Harris or a Kenneth Blackwell, then use the techniques perfected by the good ole Tom Delay/Karl Rove School of Election Theft. Their goal, of course, is to hijack the White House on June 3, 2008 — five months before the general election.

This dangerous initiative dictates that California divide up its electoral college votes by congressional district, allowing Republicans to rob 20 electoral college votes — the equivalent of Ohio. If these dirty rotten scoundrels really want reform, they should propose national change — not cherry-pick California's electoral votes to, once again, steal the executive branch. May I suggest we begin with Texas?

Editorials by the New York Times and the L.A. Times called this ballot initiative an "elaborate dirty trick" designed by a "shadowy group" to "do serious damage to our democracy."

Unfortunately, this initiative has cleared the first hurdle, and they will start the signature gathering process to qualify for the June ballot. Sponsors will have until Christmas to gather 434,000 valid signatures. No doubt, their hired guns will be out in full force in front of every Wal-Mart. PLEASE remind your family, friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers not to sign this petition when they see those paid signature gatherers.

The Courage Campaign, headed up by Rick Jacobs, is uniting with the netroots and the grassroots to build a people-powered online infrastructure in California that will defeat this dirty trick. Check out their web site at: http://www.couragecampaign.org/

Personally, I would prefer to derail them in their signature gathering effort. We can start by educating people and publicizing what this initiative is all about. We need to take action now! Having a Rudy McRomney in the White House scares the heck out of me!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree with you more! This is the next trick in the hard right Republican's continual effort to subvert the electoral process. What can we do to stop the signature gathering? They have money on their side. Where are our Dem leaders' voices on this issue? The audacity of this group never ceases to amaze me. BTW, did you see what's going on in Georgia? It looks like the voter ID is going through, even though there was NO proof of voter fraud. The goal there was to disenfranchise the poor and elderly who just happen to be Dem! What happened to our democracy? Oh right, we're so busy spreading the concept in the middle east that we haven't noticed how it's erroding at home.

Anonymous said...

Phoenix, I'm sorry but this initiative is going to get the required signatures and it's going to pass-- you know it is. A big majority of my Democratic friends support it, let alone Republicans and Independents, it just has far too much momentum. And it even has legal backing-- Maine and Nebraska already do something like this.

The truth is, people are sick and tired of the outdated, unfair Electoral College system that favors a tiny fraction of US states to get all the attention during the election campaign, while other states-- including big states with crucial issues, such as California-- are all but ignored. It's unfortunate that steps toward abolishing the Electoral College are starting like this, but this is how it's panning out.

The best thing to do IMHO, rather than futilely wasting our time and money on opposing this initiative, which just has too much support, is to counter the Republicans by launching similar initiatives elsewhere. Granted, we are constrained somewhat by the states that have ballot initiatives (by no means a majority of states), and the pickings aren't great, but we can at least take back a good number of the electoral votes the GOP would snatch from us.

The only two available big Red States with a ballot initiative process like this, are Florida and Ohio. We all remember how we got screwed there before-- those states sometimes dangle a carrot in front of us before inevitably tilting Red, and the Republican machine is still too strong there. We can beat them at their own game by launching similar based-on-district apportionments of electoral votes, which would likely pass in those states and take back dozens of electoral votes for our side.

Crazy Politico said...

What would you educate folks about? The idea that under this proposal, instead of a winner take all, it's possible for your districts electoral vote to go to the guy (or gal) your district voted for? Yeah, that's a horrible thought.

If this were being done in Texas or Florida the DNC would be bankrolling the effort.

Anonymous said...

This is real reform! Finally real Americans here in California can beat back the Crazy Liberal Anti-American factions that are strangle holding this state! I'll be the first one to sign!!

Phoenix said...

True reform should involve changing existing laws and the Constitution to reflect the popular will. Let's abolish the antiquated electoral college system.

The GOP is not interested in the people's will! They want to subvert the system strictly for partisan purposes.

Right now, every state except Nebraska and Maine awards all of its electoral votes to the popular-vote winner in that state. The GOP have shown a total lack of interest in backing the same idea in Red States.

The GOP interested in good government? I don't think so!

Anonymous said...

When this same proposal was put on the ballot in Colorado in 2004 it was funded and promoted by the Democrats who stood to benefit had the referendum passed. Why weren't you codemning these Democrats as as "dirty rotten scoundrels" who were trying to "steal the election?"

The California referendum that Republicans are trying to put on the California ballot was originally written by Democrats in Colorado. It's laughable to call this a nepharious scheme concocted by Karl Rove. The truth is, the Republicans learned this "dirty trick" from the Democrats.