Friday, October 31, 2008
Coming Into The Home Stretch: Election 2008. All The Stops Are Being Pulled and a Lot Of Voter Suppression Holes Are Being Plugged
Posted by ed. dickau at 6:29 PM
Coming Into The Home Stretch: Election 2008. All The Stops Are Being Pulled and a Lot Of Voter Suppression Holes Are Being Plugged As It Has Become Obvious That There Are Armies Of Citizen Watchers On Patrol.
Contentious Hearing Today Results in Order For Republican 'High-Tech Forrest Gump' to Testify Under Oath on Monday
Appearance to Answer Questions on 2004 Election Scheduled Just 24 Hours Prior to Election 2008...
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/
We cannot let up on any effort to deal with voting procedure break downs, but never before in the history of this nation has there be a policing apparatus of the people to ensure the integrity of this election. The biggest problem we have been having in the last 48 hours is the sane coordination of the variety of organizations involved. This is no time for ego and turf battles; it is time for common sense cooperation. On the scene locals need to guide the way and aid and professionals need clearly defined responsibilities. In most states that is being accomplished. Being most familiar with Ohio and North Carolina at the moment I can say that both of these states have potentials for Election Day problems, but the resources to cope with them are in place.
There will be reported flash points and no one should go off the deep end; they will be attended to. North Carolina, more so than Ohio has some real vitriol and deep seated elements of division that have to be watched. The Dole Hagan Ad conflict, if it backfires, as it appears to be doing at this moment should just about turn North Carolina Blue in a big way.
The media will prowling around all weekend for any scavenger trash limited index model poll to declare a closing gap and preparing their sound bit lines for a close and exciting night Tuesday night. Exciting I want, but the best defense for the integrity of this election is to drive out the vote and deliver this election in 350 plus Electoral Vote victory. There are plenty of coattails in play that are helping Democrat candidates in House, Senate and Gubernatorial races in play. There are some personal heroes that people are pulling for, under dogs that unfortunately thing do not look good for as they are being overwhelmed by the stigma of Independent candidacies and money! Minnesota and Al Franken is an example…just too close to call; keep your fingers crossed! These are the election where voter turnout will be the deciding factor.
The info widget below are probably the best for your breaking news updates.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/senate/nc/north_carolina_senate-910.html
Rep. Price: Dole ad 'pathetic'
"It's a deeply offensive ad. It is an untruthful ad. It's a slanderous ad," Price said in an interview on MSNBC. "I think it's pathetic and it's a sign of desperation."
"All the major newspapers in the state today have editorialized against this, and I think it's more in sadness as well as in anger, I guess you might say, that Elizabeth Dole would stoop to this here at the end of a long career just to save her seat, implying that her opponent is not a woman of faith. It's just over the line, way over the line," Price continued.
"It's the worst I've ever seen in North Carolina, and that's saying something."
The ad is centered on Hagan's attendance at a Boston fundraiser where some of other guests were members of the atheist group Godless Americans.
The narrator of the ad suggests that Hagan, a Christian, is aligned with the group.
"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?" the narrator asks. As the ad ends Hagan's photo is shown as a voice cries "there is no god."
Hagan has responded with her own ad chiding Dole for "bearing false witness against fellow Christians."
Dole meanwhile has doubled down on the attack, releasing a second ad Friday linking Hagan to the group.
The North Carolina Republican's campaign manager Marty Ryall defended the ad in an earlier appearance on MSNBC, claiming the ad has "nothing to do with [Hagan's] faith."
"It's never been an attack on her faith. It's all about who she went up and associated with, and now she's trying to deny it," Ryall said. "It has everything to do about associating with a group that wants to take 'under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance, they want to take 'in God we trust' off of money."
Charlotte Observer Editorial: Dole's desperate turn to Big Lie advertising
Somewhere, Jesse Helms is laughing and clapping in glee
Charlotte Observer
October 30, 2008
North Carolina knows from sad experience about negative election campaigns and misleading, untruthful advertising. In the 1950 campaign, opponents of the late UNC President Frank Porter Graham used a doctored photo of his wife with a black man to inject race into a Senate campaign and help defeat the revered educator. In 1990, Sen. Jesse Helms used the infamous “white hands” ad, blaming the failure of a white person to get a job on a minority and “a racial quota” to help defeat former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt.
When Helms retired in 2002 and Salisbury native Elizabeth Dole was elected to take his place, voters here breathed a sigh of relief. Surely Dole would not stoop to the racial appeals that marked too many N.C. elections and soured so many people on politics. It just wasn’t her way. While she might be every bit as conservative as Helms, her style was not divisive. She did not demonize her opponents.
Until now. In a new TV ad that must have the late Sen. Helms smiling and cheering from the great beyond, the Dole campaign has attacked her opponent, Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan of Greensboro, as “godless.” Hagan attended a September fundraiser in Boston sponsored by dozens of people and co-hosted by two persons associated with a group called Godless Americans PAC. Dole’s ad says Hagan took “godless” money. Hagan’s campaign says she did not receive money from the PAC, though she did get money from one of the co-hosts. She has demanded Dole halt the ad.
Hagan’s attendance at any fundraiser and acceptance of a contribution is a fair topic for comment. Yet Dole has resorted to the Big Lie technique, morphing a kernel of truth into a monumental fiction.
How so? The Dole campaign stepped across a broad line, portraying Hagan as not Christian and suggesting she does not believe in God. The Dole ad shows a picture of Hagan while a woman’s voice, not Hagan’s, intones, “There is no God.”
This is indecent. It is the modern-day version of the “white hands” ad, a lie born of Dole’s desperation in a race in which she has trailed for weeks. It is also a deliberate attempt by Dole’s campaign not just to distort the truth, but to shatter Hagan’s admirable record as an elder for more than a decade in Greensboro’s First Presbyterian Church, as a Sunday School teacher and a volunteer in her church’s fundraising campaigns, worship services and community service programs.
Political campaigns in this state are often hard-fought, with bitter, overwrought accusations that stretch the truth, embellish the facts and attempt to confuse voters. Hagan has hit Dole hard. Dole has hit Hagan hard. That is par for the course.
This ad is something else, an attack on a Christian woman’s faith against all evidence to the contrary. It is wrong. It may well backfire on Dole.
It has no place in N.C. politics. Unless she admits this egregious, shameful mistake and acts appropriately, Elizabeth Dole has no place in N.C. politics, either.
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