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The stupid party In case anyone was wondering why the Republican Party is known as “the stupid party,” it turns out that the Bushies, those erstwhile evil geniuses, have scheduled themselves to nominate W as the Republican candidate after the deadline set by several states for placing a nominee on the ballot.
Sadly, every state but one has scrambled to accomodate these patent screw-up. Now, I can understand Republican state legislatures amending their statutes in this circumstance, but why on earth would anyone expect the Democrats in Illinois to do so?
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I always thought ‘The Stupid Party’ was the name used for the Tories!
It is more than a screw up. They knew what Illinois’ deadline was BEFORE they scheduled their convention. I was at the Board of Elections meeting in March 2003 when the discussed the letter the RNC sent them requesting the Elections Board just ignore the current law and “recertify” them after the deadline. The RNC also made the argument that the PResident isn’t actually nominated at the convention anyway, so the deadline shouldn’t apply. Then they criticized Kerry for his exact same thoughts on waiting to accept his nomination until after their convention so he could spend more money.
But anyway, I believe the Elections Board would have let Bush sneak by ignoring the rule of law if I hadn’t caught it and went public with it immediately back in May 2003. Yes, I’ll take credit for this one as I’ve been hammering away on this for the past year. The Democrats are willing to change the law for Bush if the Republicans agree to “forgive” $1 million in campaign fines against Dems. This while charade has been dispicable from both sides and a total mockery of the principles of democracy we are supposedly the experts on while we “install” democracy in Iraq.
Throw in the unequal ballot access requriements in Illinois, which make it harder for “third” parties to run candidates than most democracies in the WORLD,, and what the Republicans are doing looks more similar to what Fidel Castro or Saddam Huessein would consider elections. I’ve got “book” at my blog on this if anyone is interested in reading it.
Thanks for mentioning this and it’s much worse than you could imagine.
Why bother?
Voter fraud by the Democrats is so rampant in Illinois that no Republican presidental candidate has a chance.
Why bother indeed? Both partys are fairly incompetent. The English and Australians seem about fed up with theirs. As do Many other nations.
Maybe it’s about time we shook the political tree and club whatever nasty monkeys fall to the ground.
Has anyone been paying attention to the political meandering in Canada recently? Quite abit of fun to tell you the truth. Ahh politics…how fun it is…it’s a shame that Canadians in general are so slow at getting angry at their politicans that by the time the shit has hit the fan, government is hemorrhaging so badly that they don’t understand ‘why’.
I figure 8-10 years, and this country will be about ripe for a Libertarian party. We are seeing the base movement and founding groups now, that is ofcourse that the government simply doesn’t collapse under it’s own weight from fiscal mismanagement. I mean, we can only loose/forget or blow $3 or $4 billion every so often here. And the Liberals have done that in the last 5-6 years.
Maine is another state where the two Maine parties have orchestrated it so that third parties have no chance of being recognised. Its rediculous and undemocratic but typical of the Maine political elites thinking.
Jeff Trigg is quite active in the Illinois Libertarian Party.
Form my e-mail conversations with him I have found him to be interesting and intelligent despite my often abrasive style.
However, like all doctrinaire Libertarians he is a bit clueless about how politics is played (and has been forever). What the Libertarians in America have set as their goal is to change the market prefrence of the electorate from Coke and Pepsi to Dr. Pepper. In other words an impossible dream.
Libertarians decry the Tweedle Dee/ Tweedle Dum politics of the two parties with out a bit of marketing understanding as to why they are so similar. Try asking a Lib why Coke tastes a lot like Pepsi and what that has to do with politics.
Now to the main question: The Ds can’t afford to throw the Rs off the ballot despite the law because it would create a large sympathy vote for the Rs. Thus it is in the Democrat’s interest to see that Bush is on the ballot.
Jeff has done the Libs no good by fighting city hall. They would have been much better off selling their acquiesence for ballot access. Such horse trading is not the Libertarian style. Thus they will never amount to much politically. If they keep doing what they are doing they will be ignored. If despite everthing they become successful their policies will be co-opted.
Which is why these days I consider myself a Republican leaning independent.
Well, it isn’t as if having Bush on the ballot in Illinois would make a whit of difference. Illiinois is a Democrat state and will remain so for as long as I can imagine. We have a hard enough time getting even close to electing Republicans in rural Wisconsin (Kenosha).
I would imagine that the date will have little effect as states prone to voting for Bush will accomodate the change while states that wouldn’t (Illinois) won’t make any difference anyway.
The same thing happened a few years back in New Jersey, when the utterly corrupt Bob Torricelli pulled out of the Senate race after the deadline for parties to place their candidate on the ballot. They went to court to get the senile Frank Lautenberg on the ballot to replace him, and got their way in court.
“Jeff has done the Libs no good by fighting city hall. They would have been much better off selling their acquiesence for ballot access.”
Where the heck do you think I’m going with this? It’s called playing politics contrary to your clueless doctrinaire opinion that you know the first about my knowledge of how the game is played or how I’ve been playing it the past year.
M. Simon, you were one criticizing us for trying to immitate Pepsi and Coke with Republican (RC Cola) Cal Skinner in 2002, and now you are accusing us of not knowing why there is little difference between Coke and Pepsi? You flip flop more than John Kerry or your indicted hero George Ryan’s staffers sitting in prison answering FBI questions. I suppose this is proof you will use whatever suits your needs to bash Libertarians even if exposes your illogical hypocricy.
Tell me, M. Simon, how many Libertarians beat incumbents in 2003 in Illinois? You’re the one that’s clueless.