WHO WILL WIN IN NOVEMBER?

Election be damned. Why I am eagerly awaiting tuesday for is to see an end to those 30 second adds and the phone calls that come a dinner time spelling out the virtues of a candidate.

Sorry Fox, no dishonesty, just sloppiness. I quoted your post with its copy/paste, cut away everything but the part I wanted to respond to, wrote my response underneath and clicked "submit". That's all there is to it. No misattribution intended

But I agree that it would have been extra nice to take the effort to go up to the quote tag and delete the bit saying /="Foxfyre"/. Even if not many people actually do that, it is the scrupulous thing to do.


Umm.. where exactly did the writer point that out again? You're just making this up as you go along, aren't you?

Below is what the article actually said..:


Yes, thats all there was on that.

The public is fickle; Diebold is not.

edgar, Succinct and to the point.

Thank god we here in MN only use optical scanners and the law requires a random audit of a certain number of precints to compare paper ballot to machine count.

Now this is something we agree 100% on.

Foxfyre wrote:


Nimh wrote


No, I was responding directly to your post which I quoted and you re-quoted. You were the one who made a big deal about the Pope opposing the death penalty and so it was not unusual that Pelosi, a Catholic, would also oppose it. I don't disagree with that.

But Pelosi is also 100% unqualified pro choice which goes against the teaching of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. So if you are going to argue it to be normal for her to be true to her faith on one issue, you should also acknowledge that she is not within the norm on the second issue. At least that would have been the more honest critique. The writer didn't bring the Pope into it at all but simply mentioned the contrast between the two positions. You brought the Pope into it. Did you make that up?

Personally, I don't fault her, as a candidate, for going against the teachings of her Church. But as a pro-lifer, I count it a negative for elected office that a person favors abortion on demand at any time for any reason. A single issue would not necessarily be a deal breaker for me, but when included with many other more extreme liberal views as the writer of the editorial enumerated, in my opinion it does paint a clear picture of how Ms. Pelosi would likely lead as Speaker given that opportunity.

It is a scenario that no conservative or moderate would relish.

Otherwise, I accept your explanation and apology for misquoting me.

I was glad to note a paper trail printing out as I voted yesterday.

Yes, a paper backup is certainly desirable and that is one good thing our governor has accomplished in New Mexico too. The only problem is that the trend seems to be to eliminate voting machines altogether and go back exclusively to the paper ballot. Personally I would like to see both used as a check and balance in case of the remote possiibility of rigged machines or unscrupulous vote counters.

Of course then you always have the conspiracy theories and valid questions if the voting machines and paper ballot backup don't tally.

I'm nearly for 30 years now counting votes (and working at elections). I really can't imagine how you could convince (well, certainly not here) at least eight persons from four different parties plus four civil servants to close their eyes or to do whatever "unscrupulous" all together ...

Walter, Only in America...

The problem here is that some precincts are virtually all of one of our two major parties and in some areas it is difficult to find multi-party poll watchers much less vote counters. And just look at all the conspiracy theorists out there who are certain Diebold machines cannot be trusted. Or as in 2000, all the people who filed suit to challenge or have counted pregnant chads, hanging chads, or an unidentified mark of any kind on a ballot. I definitely see some disadvantages to a two-party system.

The myriad challenges and lawsuits filed after ever U.S. general election is living proof that hanky panky is suspected everywhere.

That certainly might be so (everything in your post, I mean :wink: ).

We do get sometimes only poll workers from three parties as well. Recently, however, a couple of persons not members of any party at all, too. [We watch the election in two shifts, then both shifts count together - the recording persons and the chairpersons are of some "public institution", mostly civil servants.]

You said, literally, that "The writer" whom I quoted, "who wasn't Foxfyre" - so thats the writer of the article you'd posted - "quite correctly pointed out that a Catholic who is not pro life but is against the death penalty is perhaps more inconsistent than would be say an Atheist furthering such opinions."

He did no such thing. You made all that up yourself. Fine - its a valid enough point, actually - you argue it well enough. Its just not one ever made by the writer to whom you attribute it.

And thats kind of ironic considering this conversation started with you calling me "incongruous or dishonest" because I accidentally misattributed a quote.

Meanwhile, I'll join the call for a paper trail from voting machines.

This year for the first time there's discussion about the reliability of voting machines in Holland too - we've been using them in increasing numbers for a succession of elections already, by now the whole country would have voted with them, and nobody ever questioned them. But last month there was a small scandal, as it turned out that a certain brand of the voting machines used did not properly protect the privacy of the vote.

They've been withdrawn for the elections later this month, and so the city of Amsterdam will now have to vote the traditional way, with paper ballots and a red pencil, again. The city has actually had to lease back the ballot boxes, because they'd already sold them last year as collector items...

The writer wrote




Foxfyre wrote


Okay, I threw in the Atheist anaolgy, but the writer was obviously pointing out Pelosi's inconsistency, though a Catholic, in condemning the innocent to death but defending the guilty against the death penalty. And my point was obviously to state my opinion that you criticized the writer while leaving out the critical point of the writer's statement.

Nimh wrote


If I ?'make it up' by using an Atheist as illustration, you would have to honorably concede that you ?'made it up' by bringing the Pope into it to counter the writer's opinion of Ms. Pelosi's opinion. The writer did not mention the Pope nor was he inferring anything about the Catholic faith other than it is pro life. I think He was using that to illustrate that she, a Catholic, would have to be radically liberal to hold the unqualified pro abortion stance that she advocates along with the liberal incongruous propensity to condemn the innocent and defend the guilty when it comes to the death penalty.

Now can we please stop this ridiculous argument? I haven't used an ad hominem argument but objected to your attributing a quote to me that I didn't make. As you wrote it, it was both incongruous and dishonest. You apologized for that and I accepted the apology believing you when you said to did not intend to do that.

That should be the end of it.

It is all simple to understand.

Conservatives only care about babies before they are born, Liberals care about babies after they are born.

Today's NYT front page

"November 5, 2006

G.O.P. Glum as It Struggles to Hold Congress

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 ?- The battle for Congress rolled into a climactic final weekend with Republican Party leaders saying the best outcome they could foresee was losing 12 seats in the House. But they were increasingly steeling themselves for the loss of at least 15 seats and therefore control of the House for the first time in 12 years.

Democrats and Republicans said the battle over the Senate had grown fluid going into the final hours before the elections on Tuesday. Democrats said they thought they were almost certain to gain four or five seats and still had a shot at the six they need to take control.

Republicans were pouring money into Senate races in Michigan and Maryland this weekend to take advantage of what they described as last-minute opportunities, however slight, in states currently held by Democrats. And a new poll Saturday showed that Senator Conrad Burns, the Montana Republican, was tied with his challenger after a visit there by President Bush.

Party strategists on both sides, speaking in interviews after they had finished conducting their last polls and making their final purchases of television time, said they were running advertisements in more than 50 Congressional districts this weekend, far more than anyone thought would be in play at this stage.

Nearly all of those seats are held by Republicans, underscoring the degree to which President Bush and his party have been forced onto the defensive two years after he claimed that his re-election had given him the political capital to carry out an ambitious domestic and foreign agenda.

"It's the worst political environment for Republican candidates since Watergate," said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster working in many of the top races this year.

As the final weekend began, the parties made final tactical moves as candidates sparred over the war, the economy, corruption and competence and as elaborate get-out-the-vote campaigns were rolled out. At stake was not just control of the House and the Senate, but also potentially the course of the Bush presidency in its last two years and the debate over how to proceed in Iraq.

Democrats bought advertising time in yet another House race that had long been considered safe for Republicans, that of Representative Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado. Mr. Bush appeared at a rally in Ms. Musgrave's district on Saturday morning, part of a late flurry of campaigning by the president aimed at shoring up struggling Republicans in some of the reddest states in the country, including Nebraska and Kansas.

In another bit of news that sent a chill through many Republicans, a University of New Hampshire poll showed Representative Charles Bass, a popular moderate Republican from New Hampshire who had not been seen as vulnerable this year, trailing his opponent after Democrats spent $1 million in his district.

In upstate New York, Representative John E. Sweeney, a Republican who had seemed to be weathering a tough challenge, was described by party strategists as in new danger after his local newspaper, the Glens Falls Post Star, withdrew its endorsement of him, citing reports of a domestic violence episode involving Mr. Sweeney and his wife.

Joe Gaylord, who was the political lieutenant to Newt Gingrich when he led the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, said that based on polling he had seen in recent weeks, he expected his party to lose 25 seats to 30 seats on Tuesday. That general assessment was repeatedly echoed in interviews with Republicans close to the White House.

"It's very grim," Mr. Gaylord said. "Things are dreadful out there."

Representative Thomas M. Davis III, a Virginia Republican and veteran party strategist, said: "There's no question we're going to take a hit. The only question is how hard it would be."

Still, some Republicans and Democrats said that Republicans could be bolstered by structural advantages that could, at the very least, minimize the party's losses. Aides to both parties said that at least 20 races were close enough that struggling Republican incumbents could be pulled to victory by the party's sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation.

Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, has assured nervous associates that the Republican turnout operation would help save the party from electoral disaster.

Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, the New York Republican heading his party's effort to hold onto the House, said: "Turnout will be key to us in these three dozen races that are close across the country." In a sign of how unexpectedly challenging the climate is for Republicans, Mr. Reynolds has had to devote much of his time to his own tough re-election battle.

For all the deep unhappiness that polls show with Congress, Mr. Bush, his party and the Iraq war, only about 10 percent of House races could be considered even remotely competitive. That figure stands as a reminder of the enduring power of incumbency, and of how a dominant party can protect itself by drawing Congressional districts that serve as bulwarks during stormy seasons. There are 34 incumbent House members and one senator running for re-election unopposed.

"If the Democrats end up with 53 percent of the national vote and still don't get a majority in the House, which is conceivable, it's a clear sign that this Republican structural advantage has really kicked in," said Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman, said in an interview that the "race for the House remains very close, and I believe we will keep our majority.

"And I think the Senate, in the last week," he said, "has been very good for Republicans and very difficult for Democrats."

His Democratic counterpart, Howard Dean, offered a different reading of the electoral environment. "The president is spending the last Sunday of the campaign in Nebraska!" he exclaimed, alluding to that state's largely Republican status. "Who would have ever thought that?"

Appropriately enough for a campaign that has been marked by searing negative advertisements, the campaign-closing round of advertising ?- which in more typical years has consisted largely of gauzy 30-second spots in which the candidate makes an earnest plea for support ?- was this weekend led by another round of dark charges on topics including coddling terrorists and raising taxes.

"Drunk Driving. Arrests. Federal investigations," an announcer says in a new advertisement aimed at Mr. Sweeney by his opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand.

Across the country, but particularly in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana, the massive voter turnout operations began rolling into their final 72-hour plans, with one more round of telephone calls and personal visits to voters who had long ago been identified. Volunteers bused in from around the country ?- the roll call of states ranged from to New Jersey to Mississippi?- assembled at the Ohio Democratic Party in downtown Columbus Saturday morning, to gather literature, lists and their marching orders for the day.

The tautness of this midterm election was in evidence across the country. Representative Deborah Pryce, an Ohio Republican, could barely hide her frustration Saturday as she feverishly went table to table in a restaurant looking for support.

"It's been a tough, awful race," Ms. Pryce said to a table of voters.

"Well, we are concerned for you," responded Donna Beachy, 76, of Plain City. "The Democrats are really out working hard. We're getting three calls a night, all with recordings, and most of them are from Democrats."

In the Senate, Republicans girded themselves for what strategists from both parties described as the almost certain defeat of Senators Mike DeWine of Ohio and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. They said that Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was also probably headed for a loss. Democratic hopes of winning a seat in Tennessee seem to have faded in recent days, while their chances of unseating Senator George Allen of Virginia appear to be on the rise, leaders in both parties said.

But Mr. Burns, a Republican who has been struggling all year in the face of a tough challenge by Jon Tester, was said by aides in both parties to have grown stronger in recent days. A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon for Lee Newspapers and published on Saturday found that Mr. Burns and Mr. Tester each had the support of 47 percent of the voters.

Republicans said they were still hopeful of unseating Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, after pouring $5 million into his state over the past 10 days. But some analysts said the onslaught might prove to have been too late to make a difference; a WNBC/Marist Poll released Saturday evening showed Mr. Menendez with an eight-point lead over his Republican opponent, Tom Kean Jr.

In what some senior Republican strategists said was something between a long-shot and a Hail Mary pass, Republicans were spending money in Michigan to defeat Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic incumbent, as well as in Maryland, hoping that black voters in the state would desert the Democratic Party and vote for Michael Steele, a black Republican running for an open seat.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat leading the party's effort to win the Senate, said : "I would say it's going to be very close one way or the other. The odds of it being four, five or six seats are higher than it being three or seven."

In the House, Democrats seem all but assured of picking up open Republican seats in Arizona, Iowa and Colorado, along with the Ohio seat of Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges and stepped down on Friday.

Party leaders said the Republicans who seemed headed for defeat on Tuesday included Representatives Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and Chris Chocola and John Hostettler of Indiana. Other likely Democratic pickups include the Florida seat being vacated by Katherine Harris, who is running for Senate, and the upstate New York seat being vacated by Sherwood L. Boehlert.

Officials in both parties said more than 20 House contests remained very tight, which is why Democrats could end up capturing at least 30 seats or falling short of the 15-seat gain they need to take control, depending on turnout and last-minute shifts. A number of respected independent analysts, including Stuart Rothenberg and Charles Cook, have predicted that Democrats could gain 35 seats or more.

It is possible that no Democratic incumbent will be knocked out of office, though Republicans have made a concerted effort to unseat two Democrats in Georgia.

Faced with diminishing opportunities, Republicans have continued through this weekend to spend money to hold on to two other seats vacated by Republicans who left under clouds: Mark Foley of Florida and Tom DeLay of Texas. The fact that the party had to pour resources into those two races, along with others in which incumbents had been hurt by their own scandal or tainted by the fallout from the Foley Congressional page scandal, was said by Republican strategists to be one of the biggest problems they faced.

"The scandal seats have clearly hurt us and put us at a disadvantage," said Carl Forti, a senior strategist with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting."

Then why arent liberals adopting every child in state care,orphanages,and otherwise neglevted?

If what you say is true,why are there children in darfur starving to death and why does any child on the planet die of disease?

Shouldnt the liberals have already stopped all of that,with as much money as they hae thrown at the problems?

mm is so dumb, he can't see the irony of his own statment.