My little politics blog

Hardly.

You said earlier that 16,000 Republicans had committed a felony carrying a $2,500 fine in Cuyahoga County.

I was wondering what was going on. Electoral fraud is considered serious here.

Fining them all would bring in $40 million and not fining them opens up the possibility that not all felonies are prosecuted.

Why is it a felony? Would the primaries not work if it isn't? Can you choose which laws to disobey?

It's me who is confused.

At least one member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to investigate some Republicans who may have crossed party lines only to influence which Democrat would face presumed Republican nominee John McCain in November.

Those who crossed lines were supposed to sign a pledge card vowing allegiance to their new party.

In Cuyahoga County, dozens and dozens of Republicans scribbled addendums onto their pledges as new Democrats:

"For one day only."

"I don't believe in abortion."

A Plain Dealer review of thousands of records showed few of those who switched were challenged by poll workers.

Sandy McNair, a Democratic member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said Friday that the manipulation of the system was troublesome.

"It's something that concerns me, that I think needs to be looked at further," McNair said. "This is not a structural thing by the Republican Party. If it's a problem at all, it's on an individual level."

Lying on the pledge is a felony, punishable by six to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

There's evidence that the same thing happened in parts of Texas. So Hillary may not have legitimately won either Ohio or Texas. I wonder what'll happen now in Pennsylvania. The super delegates need to be kept aware of this. Write lots of letters!

It's hard to believe how screwed up our electoral system is.

Thanks for the link bfn.

One of the comments is-

Quote:

There's evidence that the same thing happened in parts of Texas. So Hillary may not have legitimately won either Ohio or Texas. I wonder what'll happen now in Pennsylvania. The super delegates need to be kept aware of this. Write lots of letters!

It's hard to believe how screwed up our electoral system is.

Maybe European observers are required like in the Pakistan election.

It looks crazy from here.

Our media present it as cut and dried simple but scratch the surface and it looks like a right can of worms.

Who exactly is allowed to vote in primaries? And what % of the electorate are they?

Maybe European observers are required like in the Pakistan election.

It looks crazy from here.

Our media present it as cut and dried simple but scratch the surface and it looks like a right can of worms.

Who exactly is allowed to vote in primaries? And what % of the electorate are they?

Gerrymandering for congressional redistricting.

Finally, the Barack Obama campaign has found a big gun to help shoot down Hillary Rodham Clinton's self-proclaimed foreign policy experience. And he may be the wackiest gun of all: Sinbad, the actor, who has come out from under a rock to defend Obama in the war over foreign policy credentials.

Sinbad, along with singer Sheryl Crow, was on that 1996 trip to Bosnia that Clinton has described as a harrowing international experience that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on day one, a claim for which she's taking much grief on the campaign trail.

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the "scariest" part of the trip was wondering where he'd eat next. "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'

As for Hillary's other big foreign policy question -- should an American president speak to undesirable foreign leaders? -- that one, too, is grossly unfair to Obama. He has said that, yes, he would personally negotiate, but so did Richard Nixon (and that Metternich of Metternichs, Henry Kissinger) with China, with extraordinary success.

The question in foreign policy is not to have a president who sets rigid parameters, but one who is a "universalist," who understands the mentalities at work in the peoples and leaders of the world, realistically, and who thus knows what will work and what will not. Obama has that crucial capacity, one that escaped even the great FDR and Churchill in World War II: Their problems with Joseph Stalin began, historians have told me, when they misdiagnosed him as a malleable interlocutor instead of a vicious paranoid, when they began to call him "Uncle Joe."

As the man I would choose as having these capacities above all others, former Secretary of State James Baker III, said, "There's no such thing as presidential experience outside of the office itself." The quality we ought to seek, he went on, "is leadership."

That is a quality that Obama has, and one that he embellishes with his sometimes aloof style, but also with his refusal to get down and dirty with some of his less discerning opponents. Leadership is not fighting whatever gets in your precious way at any moment. It is exemplifying and embodying an entire set of profound American principles and beliefs and giving such expression to them on the international stage that other peoples will want to be more, and not less, like us.

I'm happy for you, spendius:

Sinbad pokes more holes in Hillary's claims of foreign policy experience -- yes, THAT Sinbad:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/03/sinbad_unloads_on_hillary_clin.html

Excerpt:

Quote:

Finally, the Barack Obama campaign has found a big gun to help shoot down Hillary Rodham Clinton's self-proclaimed foreign policy experience. And he may be the wackiest gun of all: Sinbad, the actor, who has come out from under a rock to defend Obama in the war over foreign policy credentials.

Sinbad, along with singer Sheryl Crow, was on that 1996 trip to Bosnia that Clinton has described as a harrowing international experience that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on day one, a claim for which she's taking much grief on the campaign trail.

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the "scariest" part of the trip was wondering where he'd eat next. "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'

McCain will crush her with this stuff.