Author: Fuzzy Curmudgeon

What a dumbass. From the WashTimes:

Only three days ago, Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, professed to be confident of a Florida blowout for his party. “There are lines already, huge lines, people, a record vote coming out in Florida,” he told NBC’s Tim Russert. “We are going to win Florida, which is going to set us up, Tim, very nicely for 2004.”
The threats and boasts, widely echoed by other Democrats, came to naught.

I’ll say. Not only did Jeb win, the lovely and intelligent Katherine Harris won her Congressional race. Sounds to me like all those huge lines and record vote were to tell the Democrats a big “fuck you”. Although I’ll agree with him on one point; as far as I’m concerned, the Dems are set up very nicely for 2004…to go down in flames.
However I don’t agree with this analysis:

“Over time, the raw feelings of the Florida recount receded, and people took a second look at George W. Bush and liked what they saw,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the state GOP in Georgia, where Republicans celebrated Rep. Saxby Chambliss’ defeat of Sen. Max Cleland, the Democratic incumbent.

I think Floridians were simply incensed that Gore and the Democrats made them look like morons in 2000, and I don’t think the raw feelings of the recount receded at all, especially from talking to people I know in Florida. The problem is that the revenge the Dems smelled in the air was aimed squarely at them for causing the whole problem in the first place. The butterfly ballot designed and approved by Democrats; Democrats putting an undue burden on the state with selective recounts; Democrats dissing Katherine Harris for following the law of the state in certifying the election; Dems trying to get military ballots thrown out; a Democratic FL Supreme Court trying to overturn the will of the people. I think Floridians saw through the BS served up by the Dems and realized that it wasn’t the GOP that was trying to disenfranchise them; it was the Dems.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.

In NC, Erskine Bowles loses. Another Clinton repudiation.
In FL, Jeb Bush wins, and wins big. Another Clinton-Gore repudiation.
In GA, Saxby Chambliss wins. Proving that disabled veterans who vote against defense can be defeated.
Too much fun.

Indianapolis Star says Carson is winning in the 7th after an early 3000-vote deficit.
Fuck. Another two years of this senile old woman.

In another entry in the “it’s about me” story of Julia Carson, the Indianapolis Star reports

In an ominous reminder that today was the fight of her political life, a pin broke on the voting machine just as U.S. Rep. Julia Carson was casting her vote this morning.
The pin would let Carson vote for any candidate but herself.

What a hoot. The machine was smarter than the candidate.

Carson was the second person to use the machine, and poll watchers said it was fixed in about 10 minutes. Only four persons had to use a paper ballot.
Election officials said they didn’t believe the failure affected any other ballots.

Well duh, folks, if she was only the second person to use the machine.

Still, Carson was concerned. “Wouldn’t it have been a travesty if I had not been able to vote for myself,” she said. “Some elections are won by one vote.”

No, the travesty would be if you won by one vote. And if you lose, I guarantee it won’t be by one vote. My liberal wife even voted against you.

The WashTimes has an article today that says the Maryland Attorney General has told the MD Democratic Party that it would be illegal to pay workers to get workers to the polls today unless they “refrain from advocating a candidate or a party”. The Dems say they will proceed but will give their workers “strict instructions” not to campaign. Yeah. I’ll bet. I can hear it now: “No campaigning, guys, or we’ll have to double your pay.”
The article also contains the following, also to be expected:

Democrats have also accused the Republicans of soliciting paid Election Day workers by posting fliers at Bowie State University and sending e-mails to other college students. There have also been reports that Republicans are discouraging turnout by black Baltimore voters with fliers citing the wrong election date, Nov. 6, that also warn voters to take care of outstanding tickets and warrants before entering the polls.
Paul D. Ellington, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, said the charges were baseless.
Shareese DeLeaver, campaign spokeswoman for Republican gubernatorial nominee Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., said staffers did not post the fliers, send the e-mail messages nor engage in other efforts to pay Election Day workers or suppress turnout.

Sounds like Dem dirty tricks to me. Follow the money and I’d bet you’d find that Dem operatives planted all this stuff so they’d have something to beat on the Republicans with.
Here’s another thing that points up the difference between Dems and Republicans:

The state’s tight gubernatorial race has both parties closely watching the election process today, with Republicans enlisting off-duty police officers to watch for irregularities at Baltimore polls and Democrats assembling a legal team to watch for voter-suppression activities.

Obviously, the Republicans are more interested in stopping illegal voting (“irregularities”) whereas the Democrats are more interested in letting anyone vote who shows up breathing (“watch[ing] for voter-suppression activities”).
Isn’t that interesting.

More evidence as to why Israel needs a two-party, winner-takes-all political system like ours instead of the coalition government of one-issue minor parties forced on them by adopting the English Parliamentary system.
Israel is — politically — extremely weak. I suspect that one of these days, in a crisis, the military will take over, more in sorrow than in anger of course, and that will be the end of the Knesset and civil government until a new Constitution is written that provides more stability and rids the country of the theocratic bullshit that impedes it (and encourages the rise of tiny religious parties, which are the absolute worst). The sad thing is that this is possibly the best thing that could happen to Israel right now, second only to a Government of National Unity with a mandate to govern until the crisis is past regardless of who resigns from it in a hissy fit. The Army is a wonderful tool, but when wielded by revolving-door governments, it’s not very useful at all. Armies depend on political stability behind them in order to do their jobs, and when they don’t get political stability, they don’t know what’s going to hit them next. This tends to engender sentiment for military coupmanship, with all that entails.
(Please don’t react to the above by telling me I’m not much of a Zionist because I don’t believe in Israel’s future — you’re right. I’m not a Zionist, and I don’t have much faith in Israel’s future. Judaism is time-based, not place-based. Jews don’t need the Temple Mount, or for that matter, any part of the Holy Land, to worship God. (And FWIW, “God” is not His Name, so I see no reason to use the “G-d” circumlocution in English, no matter how much of a Conservative Jew I am.) What Jews need is to wake up, smell the coffee, and quit letting themselves be led like sheep to the slaughter. That means they need to embrace things like gun ownership, military service in the countries in which they live (instead of military service in Israel), and a general “connectedness” with society instead of hiding behind religious laws and customs that were designed to minimize contact with the goyim.
Zionism to me is nothing more and nothing less a Great Escape from engagement with the rest of the world in the manner of those contact-minimizing laws and customs. Sure, let’s all run off to Israel and live in a state that is organized on Jewish principles, and ignore the rest of the world. It’ll make us easier to target next time.
I have friends who believe that making Aliyah is the most wonderful thing an American Jew can do. I guess if you like the idea of living in the middle of a war zone surrounded by 200 million kill-crazy Arabs, that makes a great deal of sense. But only in a very warped way.)

What do the people who died in the WTC, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93 have in common?
They can’t vote today. So I just did.
Down the Democrats. Up the Republicans.
Death to terrorists.

Democrats constantly play the race card. This makes them racists.
Democrats are against a sensible peacetime defense. This makes them warmongers.
Democrats are against a good, working intelligence service. This makes them supporters of terrorists.
Democrats want us personally disarmed. This means they want us to live in fear.
Democrats believe in welfare and social programs. This means they don’t find anything wrong with poverty.
Democrats have Al Gore, and worse, they let him talk to strangers. This means they aren’t serious.
If anyone has any more, feel free to contribute in the comments. I was just sitting here and these popped into mind as I was remembering why I plan to pull the Republican lever in the morning.

and Julia Carson is fighting for her political life in a squeaker against Brose McVey, so our lovely local Democrats are reverting to type and accusing the Republicans of racism.
To think I went to high school with our Mayor.

SBC-Yahoo! DSL has been down all morning, so the blog has also been down. (And I can’t work, either, which is even more irritating.)
I find it interesting that I didn’t have an hour’s downtime before SBC switched from Prodigy to Yahoo!, but ever since they did, I’ve been getting all kinds of downtime. Even little power glitches which should be meaningless (since I have everything UPS- and surge-protected) hose the router and necessitate a reboot.
Things are not happy here at One Man’s Vote. And SBC are going to hear about it, given that I pay the big bucks for commercial DSL.