Next governor of Ohio is 25%+ behind in polls

[Impaler[WrG]]

First off as small correction, earlier chegitz guevara said that Bush beat Kerry byt 10% in 2004, this is off by an order of magnitude (typo perhaps?), he was ahead by about 1% the narrowest edge in the popular vote ever (but slightly better then when he out right lost the Popular Vote in 200), without the massive fruad Bush would probably have lost the popular vote as the exit polling predicted.

Election rigging can only bend the results of an election so far before it becomes blatantly obvious to the general public even one as gulable as our own. In Races with less then a 5% spread between the candidates the average man on the street wont FEEL disenfranchized especialy when most pople prefer to dismiss the possibility out of hand. If the media desides not to investigate the story nothing will happen.

When your talking about margins in the 20% range it becomes vastly harder to actualy perform all the stuffing or vote rigging to steal an election and its that much harder for the general public to accept the result without a atleast scratching their heads and thinking "boy their might be something to those conspiracy theorist rumors". An inteligent politician wont inflate their margin beyond the point of belivabilityWhen this builds up to critical mass the damn will burst and the scandal would result in the ruling party lossing power.

Based on the fact that republicans are greedy and stupid, this guy will infact probably rig the election and "win" with 51%, the jaw droping impossibility of such a thing will finaly result in the s*** hitting the fan, massive investigations etc etc. Ofcorse I might be underestimating the apathy of the average american and or the Democratic party and he might get away with it. But the greedy/stupid principle guarantees that Republicans will just keep pushing untill they have pushed to far. The longer this thing goes on the bigger the bang will be, any Repulicans actualy concerned with the long term health of their party would want to see the system cleaned up, even if the Democrates take power as a result, its better then suffering the damage that could come from a complete meltdown of public trust.

[realpolitic]

Dems add dead people Rrepubs subtract, beccause the Dems are the party of inclusion!

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My prediction

SCOTUS will rule infavor of Strickland 5-4,

Justice Kennedy with the 4 that voted for Gore's recount in 2000.

[realpolitic]

I've been looking through some smaller Ohio epapers, and find plenty of mentions of local races, some of the Senate race, but almost nothing of the race for governor. Have they just about thrown in the towel? Could their demise in this critical race be the end of the Republicans?

[Sava]

Originally posted by rah
And the democrats never do anything shady in elections.

I'm not saying one justifies the other.

"Democracy" in America is about who can better cheat the system. Both parties do it because that's what you need to do to win elections. Republicans have their strongholds, Democrats have their own. The balance shifts over the years as public opinion shifts beyond the point where such tactics can decide the outcome of elections.

[realpolitic]

When someone is behind by 30% and they steal the election, it's not democracy, it's fascism.

http://www.ellensplace.net/fascism.html

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism

5. Rampant sexism

6. A controlled mass media

7. Obsession with national security

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together

9. Power of corporations protected

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

14. Fraudulent elections

Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

[Sava]

Originally posted by realpolitic
it's fascism.

it's yourfaceism

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by realpolitic
When someone is behind by 30% and they steal the election, it's not democracy, it's fascism.

Hardly. In both Germany and Italy, the fascists came to power legally.

In any event, you are confusing symptoms with the disease. Many systems have fraudulent elections, not merely fascism.

[realpolitic]

I guess you'd know, being from Florida, but, I do have a question, if the Supreme Court says it's the law, is it the law?

I did list all 14 points to show how many we have. However, we do have fairly free speech, although I didn't enjoy being flipped off at anti-war rallies.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by Ming
I've lived in Chicago so long, I thought it was OK for dead people to vote... since the Dems vote from the grave all the time here, and nobody seems to care

Another example of Draconian Republican policy, now they want to disenfranchise our grandparents and greatgrandparents.

[chequita guevara]

SCOTUS didn't rule on whether what they did was legal, since the legality of the election wasn't challenged. The NAACP later sued Florida and reached a settlement with Florida admitting no wrong-doing but that they won't do it again.

As to whether a society is fascist or not, if you have to ask the question, you aren't in a fascist society. Hell, if you can ask the question, you're not there yet.

[realpolitic]

No there was definately one fascist country where you'd agree that it was OK to call it fascism, Muscilini called Italy, fascist, if anything you'd get in troble with their fascists if you'd called it a democracy.

[realpolitic]

When I started this thread, I believed Blackwell was almost certain to certify himself governor, now a few hours before the polls close, I'll revise that to 3-1 in favor of him doing that. The absence of talk about him in the Ohio press is the strongest indicator that he might not.

[Jaguar]

Really? Your nutcase conspiracy theorist predictions didn't come to fruition?

Unbelievable!

[realpolitic]

My nutcase conspiracy theory is largely based on the evidence that the 2000, 2004 elections were ririgged, the hanging chads, the drunk driving checkpoints, the staged protests, that included the Chief Justice, purging people as felons whose name sounded black, and the -16022 votes that Gore started in Valousa County Florida. With all that fraud, Gore still only came up a few hundred short. In 2004, the official results differed by exit polls projection by 10.4 million votes, the differences all occurring where computer voting was used, and could be easily changed fraudulently. Is that what you mean by nutcase Mr. Troll?

[Jaguar]

I'd rather be a troll than a nutcase conspiracy theorist.