Nathan Newman wrote:
>What are you talking about? Electoral activists talk about Bush stealing
the election in Florida and losing the electoral vote all the time....
-All the time???? In November 2000 the Democratic Party absolutely -forbade its "electoral activists" (like Jesse "I am the General -in the War on Drugs" Jackson) to so much as mention "Bush stealing -the election in Florida."
Again, what are you talking about?
Talking about the election on MSNBC on November 22, 2000, Jesse Jackson said: "African-Americans were targeted, many of whom stood in long lines, and the polls closed on them in line. That was illegal. In West Palm, I saw maybe several thousand Jewish-Americans, Holocaust survivors who in their confusion punched two, and it did not mean Gore. So to see the Jewish senior citizens crushed, to see 19,000 more on their confused ballot--all of this is under Jeb Bush's watch, and the secretary of State. I think that it's--deserves more than a recount. It deserves an investigation."
>From The Washington Times (random paper, many others):
January 11, 2001:
"Six national civil rights groups announced yesterday that they are suing
Florida's top elections officials for depriving blacks and others of their
right to vote in November's presidential election. . . The Florida governor
is among several people subpoenaed to appear before the commission, which
voted unanimously last month to travel to Florida to investigate
accusations by the NAACP and the Rev. Jesse Jackson that blacks and other
minorities were denied access to polling places as part of "a systematic
plan.""
Where is the silence in a mass lawsuit?
-In December it threw the recount by refusing -to contest the disfranchisement of thousands of Black voters. In -January 2001 every single Democratic Senator refused the pleas -of Black representatives to challenge the theft politically.
No one "threw the recount." The Dems didn't have the votes to win the vote. It's delusionary to claim that the Democrats had 51 votes that could have changed the outcome. Remember, even if they rejected the Florida ballots, that would have just thrown the election into the House where the Republicans still would have won.
So are you really claiming that Paul Wellstone conspired to help elect George W. Bush President? Come on.
I agree that Gore wimped out and depended too much on the legal system to validate the right to have votes counted (which were upheld notably until it got to the U.S. Supreme Court). But folks are confusing a wimpy strategy during the recount with silence since then.
Nathan Newman