Nice... Kerry is Playing the Race Card

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

What a fvcking asshole.

apnews.myway.com/article/...4CP00.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040912/D8524CP00.html)

I guess when you're desperate, you're desperate.

[Spurminator]

Further evidence that scare tactics ARE used by both sides.

[Yonivore]

Yeah, I saw that. It'll backfire.

The black vote isn't chained to the Demoncratic Plantation anymore.

[SpursWoman]

I saw something like that last night. WTF?

[Yonivore]

It's called desperation.

[ChumpDumper]

Whatever works.

Sincerely,


Willie Horton

[Yonivore]

If I'm not mistaken, Willie Horton was the ploy of one Demoncrat on another -- No?

That kinda backfired too, huh?

[ChumpDumper]

I doubt the race issue was pressed by Gore.


Oddly enough, the "weekend pass" law was actually signed in Mass. law by a Republican governor.

[Yonivore]

Actually it was Gore, during the primary debates, that blasted Dukakis on his furlough program -- specifically mentioning that two furloughed prisoners had committed serious crimes while out on "vacation."

So, yes, it was Gore that opened the gate on Willie Horton.

[ChumpDumper]

Didn't mention names or race.

Certainly didn't air grainy mugshots.

Not a race card.

And it wasn't his furlough program, if anyone's it was Reepublican Governor Sargent's.

[Yonivore]

So?

[ChumpDumper]

Race card.

I'll give you another chance to figure it out.

[Yonivore]

Can anyone, but Willie Horton, help that he's a black criminal? The ad I saw had to do with a dangerous criminal, released due to a Dukakis furlough program, who went out and committed a heinous crime.

Because he was black should have dictated how it was constructed? Why?

[ChumpDumper]

Again, the program was signed in by a Republican, and the race and name and image were not used until the TV ads.

Even you could connect the dots.

[Yonivore]

I think that make you the racist to think the criminal's race had anything to do with it.

[Tommy Duncan]

Gore raised the issue to begin with.

All the anti-Duk crowd did was run an ad with Horton's picture, quite relevant because, again, Gore fucking named Horton.

Next.

[ChumpDumper]

Gore didn't name him.

[Yonivore]

Who cares...he's a fucking criminal?

Gore raised the furlough issue. The GOP made it real instead of some debating point by putting the ad on the air. If Horton had happened to be white, it would have been the same ad with a white guy's picture.

It's not like the GOP suggested a white criminal was black. Did they photoshop the mug shot to make him black?

[Tommy Duncan]

Doesn't make much of a difference.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton)


Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, and while he did not start the furlough program, he had supported it as a method of rehabilitation. The State inmate furlough program was actually signed into law by Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1972. However, in 1976, Governor Dukakis vetoed a bill that would ban furloughs for first-degree murderers. The program remained in effect through the intervening term of governor Edward J. King and was abolished during Dukakis's final term of office on April 28, 1988.

Senator Al Gore raised the issue of the furlough program during the 1988 Democratic presidential primary. At a debate in New York, Gore alluded to Horton's case although not naming him. After Dukakis won the Democratic Party nomination, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush's campaign released an ad criticizing the furlough program to portray Dukakis as soft and ineffective on crime: this ad also did not mention Horton or his offense specifically.

Subsequently a political action committee (PAC) named "National Security", independently of the Bush campaign, produced a television commercial titled "Weekend Passes" which was much more explosive. The ad not only told the Horton story but also featured his mug shot, which critics of Bush saw as a tactic to divide white and black voters (Horton is a black man). National Security member Larry McCarthy called the image "every suburban mother's greatest fear."

On April 18, 1996, Horton was transferred to the Maryland House of Correction Annex, a maximum security prison in Jessup, Maryland, where he remains today.

[ChumpDumper]

Nice to admit you're wrong.

[Yonivore]

No one played the race card...they played the criminal card.

[Tommy Duncan]

You're splitting hairs. Gore brought up Horton's case to begin with. The Bush campaign didn't "name" him (as if that even matters).

[ChumpDumper]

If it doesn't matter, then don't mention it.

Who's splitting now?

[Tommy Duncan]

You are. Gore raised the issue. Running an ad about the case is not racist.

[spurster]

There is some evidence that the Florida government is trying to affect to the black vote:

www.iht.com/articles/534173.htm (http://www.iht.com/articles/534173.htm)

Bob Herbert: Suppressing the black vote in Florida
NYT
Tuesday, August 17, 2004

The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.

State police officers have been going into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogating them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Governor Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end and acknowledged that it might continue right through the presidential election.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes," he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters' leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.

Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.

The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, 73. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.

The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote."

Now, said Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?'"

According to Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."

Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help Bush.

The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.

[ChumpDumper]

You are confused, I'm not surprised.

[Tommy Duncan]

I'm not confused and I'm certainly not surprised that you have no real answer, chumppo.

[Tommy Duncan]

In re Herbert...

www.realclearpolitics.com...16_04.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_8_16_04.html)



Thursday, August 19 2004

WHAT BOB HERBERT DIDN'T TELL YOU: Earlier this week Bob Herbert caused quite a stir by alleging that officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) were using a phony vote fraud investigation to intimidate elderly African-American voters and try to suppress black turnout at the polls in Florida this November. "The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement," Herbert fumed.

Because this is such a serious and inflammatory charge - and knowing a bit about how Herbert operates - I spent some time yesterday checking out the story. As you might expect, it turns out Herbert omitted several key details (and twisted a few others) that severely undermine his claim that the vote fraud investigation in Florida is illegitimate and designed to intimidate African-Americans.

First let's start with Herbert's characterization of the investigation:

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.

Phrased this way, the investigation does indeed sound fishy. It's also true that when you call the FDLE they refuse to discuss the details of the case - but only because there is an ongoing criminal investigation. This is standard operating procedure anywhere in the country.

But even armed with the sparse information from Herbert's column, after spending an hour or so using Google and Lexis/Nexis you can discover the specifics of the fraud investigation taking place. Here they are:

On March 9, 2004 Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer won reelection with 12,422 votes out of the 24,375 ballots cast. However, to avoid a runoff Dyer needed to break the 50%, which he did in the end by only 234 votes, and with the help of a good number of absentee ballots.

As it turns out, 264 of those absentee ballots were witnessed by Ezzie Thomas, President of the Orlando League of Voters. This is, of course, the same Ezzie Thomas that Bob Herbert describes in his column by saying, "with his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat."

Herbert fails to mention that, as reported in the Orlando Sentinel on July 25, 2004, Mr. Thomas was paid $10,000 by Mayor Dyer to collect absentee ballots for the election and that his handling of absentee ballots has been under scrutiny in the past (including as recently as 2002) though charges have never been filed.

This time, they were. Right after the election in March, second place finisher Ken Mulvaney filed a civil suit to try and get the absentee ballots witnessed by Thomas thrown out and get himself into a runoff with Dyer. Mulvaney interviewed a number of absentee ballot voters and eventually produced 42 signed affidavits alleging mishandling of ballots.

On April 8 a circuit judge in Orlando decided there was enough evidence to proceed with the suit. Additionally, Mulvaney's complaint sparked the FDLE criminal investigation which Herbert decries as a concerted effort to suppress the black vote.

Now that we have some perspective, let's go back and look again at the way Herbert characterizes the investigation in his column:

I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.

The reason many of the people interviewed were elderly African-Americans is because they were selected at random from the pool of 264 absentee ballots in question witnessed by Ezzie Thomas, which he collected from elderly African-Americans. Does this sound like racism to you?

But even that is grossly misleading. The truth is that the FDLE investigation quickly widened to probe allegations that the Orlando firefighters union - a predominantly white organization - broke the law by having its members paid to perform campaign related activities for Dyer while on duty.

Just a little over two weeks ago, on Friday, August 6, the Orlando Sentinel editorial page - not exactly a racist organization - wrote that the probe was justified (quote via Lexis):

charges that there may have been election fraud with some absentee ballots and improper payments to some union firefighters supporting Mayor Buddy Dyer are serious business. The state investigation into those allegations is warranted, even though some people questioned during the probe felt intimidated by state agents.

Certainly the investigators need to show sensitivity. Some of those questioned were elderly blacks who may have encountered intimidation decades ago when registering to vote. Conducting the interviews in a setting that is comfortable, such as their church, can put those seniors at ease. The goal isn't to scare people, but to get the truth.

The state investigation is not unfairly targeting blacks. Part of the probe is focused on the activity of the mostly white fire union that supported Mr. Dyer's re-election bid. A grand jury that met this week considered allegations that some improper payments may have gone to union members.

Even though Mulvaney may not win the case in the end - nor would he be expected to win a runoff against Dyer should his lawsuit prevail - the point is clear: this is a legitimate investigation that is not targeting African-Americans. And it is most certainly not an orchestrated effort by Jeb Bush or Florida law enforcement officers to suppress the black vote in November on behalf of the President.

But that's not what Bob Herbert wants America to believe. After looking at the details of this investigation and comparing it to the truly dishonest and deceitful representation Herbert presented in his column the other day, it's clear that Herbert (along with Krugman, see below) is part of an orchestrated, preemptive effort to deligitimize a Bush victory in Florida should it happen this November.

Why am I so convinced of this? Because the investigation of Ezzie Thomas has been going on for months. As you can see from the very end of this detailed article, up until at least the end of May (and possibly later, I don't know), Ezzie Thomas's lawyer was a guy named Dean Mosley.

Do you think it's just coincidence that Thomas's lawyer is now Joseph Egan, the Orlando-based lawyer who was part of Al Gore's legal team in 2000 and who is now a $1,000 contributor to John Kerry's campaign for president?

And is it also coincidence that the day after Herbert's column came out Terry McAuliffe used the misleading accusations in it to sow even more doubts about the legitimacy of the results in November?

"Gov. Bush should be as troubled as anyone that the Florida state police at 'random' has chosen to enter the homes of elderly African-American voters in Orlando," McAuliffe said Tuesday. "This appears anything but random and it is now incumbent upon Gov. Bush to demonstrate that Florida is capable of holding an election that is fair and above reproach." (emphasis added)

This is truly disgraceful. Herbert, McAuliffe, and the rest of the Democrats - the supposed "champions" of the African-American community - are manipulating the fears of black voters and playing on racial distrust and division to make sure that anything approaching a close race in Florida is contestable, and that any Bush victory is illegitimate. It is, I'm afraid, one of the lowest things I've ever seen. - T. Bevan 11:12 am

[spurster]

And another one. This one mentions Florida's infamous felon list, which included lots of black nonfelons, but no Hispanic felons (the stereotypical Hispanic votes GOP)

www.truthout.org/docs_04/082404J.shtml (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082404J.shtml)

A Chill in Florida
By Bob Herbert
New York Times

Monday 23 August 2004

The state police investigation into get-out-the-vote activities by blacks in Orlando, Fla., fits perfectly with the political aims of Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Party.

The Republicans were stung in the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore became the first Democrat since 1948 to carry Orange County, of which Orlando is the hub. He could not have carried the county without the strong support of black voters, many of whom cast absentee ballots.

The G.O.P. was stung again in 2003 when Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Orlando. He won a special election to succeed Glenda Hood, a three-term Republican who was appointed Florida secretary of state by Governor Bush. Mr. Dyer was re-elected last March. As with Mr. Gore, the black vote was an important factor.

These two election reverses have upset Republicans in Orange County and statewide. Moreover, the anxiety over Democratic gains in Orange County is entwined with the very real fear among party stalwarts that Florida might go for John Kerry in this year's presidential election.

It is in this context that two of the ugliest developments of the current campaign season should be viewed.

"A Democrat can't win a statewide election in Florida without a high voter turnout - both at the polls and with absentee ballots - of African-Americans," said a man who is close to the Republican establishment in Florida but asked not to be identified. "It's no secret that the name of the game for Republicans is to restrain that turnout as much as possible. Black votes are Democratic votes, and there are a lot of them in Florida."

The two ugly developments - both focused on race - were the heavy-handed investigation by Florida state troopers of black get-out-the-vote efforts in Orlando, and the state's blatant attempt to purge blacks from voter rolls through the use of a flawed list of supposed felons that contained the names of thousands of African-Americans and, conveniently, very few Hispanics.

Florida is one of only a handful of states that bar convicted felons from voting, unless they successfully petition to have their voting rights restored. The state's "felon purge" list had to be abandoned by Glenda Hood, the secretary of state (and, yes, former mayor of Orlando), after it became known that the flawed list would target blacks but not Hispanics, who are more likely in Florida to vote Republican. The list also contained the names of thousands of people, most of them black, who should not have been on the list at all.

Ms. Hood, handpicked by Governor Bush to succeed the notorious Katherine Harris as secretary of state, was forced to admit that the felons list was a mess. She said the problems were unintentional. What clearly was intentional was the desire of Ms. Hood and Governor Bush to keep the list secret. It was disclosed only as a result of lawsuits filed under Florida's admirable sunshine law.

Meanwhile, the sending of state troopers into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando was said by officials to be a response to allegations of voter fraud in last March's mayoral election. But the investigation went forward despite findings in the spring that appeared to show that the allegations were unfounded.

Why go forward anyway? Well, consider that the prolonged investigation dovetails exquisitely with that crucial but unspoken mission of the G.O.P. in Florida: to keep black voter turnout as low as possible. The interrogation of elderly black men and women in their homes has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly get-out-the-vote volunteers.

The use of state troopers to zero in on voter turnout efforts is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in Florida. But the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Guy Tunnell, who was also handpicked by Governor Bush, has been unfazed by the mounting criticism of this use of the state police. His spokesmen have said a "person of interest" in the investigation is Ezzie Thomas, a 73-year-old black man who just happens to have done very well in turning out the African-American vote.

From the G.O.P. perspective, it doesn't really matter whether anyone is arrested in the Orlando investigation, or even if a crime was committed. The idea, in Orange County and elsewhere, is to send a chill through the democratic process, suppressing opposing votes by whatever means are available.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Chump,

Horton situation is entirely different than Kerry's latest smear tactic.


Spurster...

The NYT is about as credible as Dan Rather is, if you catch my drift.

[Tommy Duncan]

Again Herbert relies on his characterization of the voter fraud investigation. Just like he refers to Katherine Harris as "notorious." Not exactly the individual I would be quoting to prove African-American vote disenfranchisement in Florida.

[ChumpDumper]

Horton situation is entirely different than Kerry's latest smear tactic.Not really. It's all based on fear. Just scaring different folk.