Can Kanye West Help Señor Trumpanzee Steal An Election He Can't Win Legitimately?

Kanye's wife, Kim Kardashian shrugs off his outlandish behavior by reminding everyone that he's bipolar, trying to generate pity for him and sympathy for herself. He's been committed to a mental hospital at least once and, although not officially diagnosed as psychotic, every indication points right at that. And now he wants to help Trump win a second term-- by appealing to low-info fans of his music who might otherwise vote for Biden. I doubt much is going to come of this-- other than lots of fines for faking signatures on nominating petitions in every state in which he tries, unsuccessfully to get on the ballot.

Yesterday, though, the Washington Post assigned legitimate reporters, Rosalind Helderman and Josh Dawsey, to cover Kayne's clown show. They report that Republican Party operatives in Wisconsin, Arkansas, Ohio and other states are working to help get him on the ballot. Ohio and Wisconsin I can understand... but Arkansas?

"West’s presidential effort," wrote Helderman and Dawsey, "has largely sputtered since he formally filed to run as an independent candidate representing the 'Birthday Party' in July. He has held just one campaign rally last month in North Charleston, S.C., where he appeared onstage wearing a bulletproof vest and broke down in tears, prompting his wife, Kim Kardashian West, to post messages on Instagram asking for the public’s 'compassion and empathy' as he struggles with bipolar disorder. But in at least five states, Republican activists and operatives-- including some who have publicly supported Trump and a lawyer who has worked for his 2020 campaign-- have been involved with efforts to try to get the rapper on the November ballot... Their involvement raises the specter that his candidacy is being propped up by a GOP-driven effort to siphon votes from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden." You think? Señor Trumpanzee, of course, swears he has "nothing to do" with it. It's an open secret that Trump personally persuaded West to do put on they farce. Helderman and Dawsey reported that Sam Nunberg, who worked for Trump for four years as he prepared his presidential run before they had a falling-out in 2015, "said the effort to get West on the ballot was the kind of political scheme that would both appeal to Trump-- and potentially help him. 'Does the Biden campaign want Kanye West campaigning in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, in Milwaukee?' he asked. 'I don’t think they do.'"

A spokesperson for West’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Asked by a reporter for Forbes Magazine this past week if his goal was to take votes from Biden, West said in a text message he was “walking . . . to win.” Told he could serve as a spoiler in the race, West responded, “I’m not going to argue with you. Jesus is King.”

West’s shoestring campaign appears to consist solely of a bare bones website that until Saturday featured only a hand-scrawled message from the performer, asking supporters to sign a petition to help him get on the South Carolina ballot. He did not ultimately submit paperwork in that state, where he held his sole rally, before the July 20 deadline.

His newly updated site features a montage of disparate images, including a picture of Jesus and a photograph of Earth from space, along with 10-point policy platform that includes restoring prayer to the classroom, reducing household debt burdens and criminal justice reform-- along with an invitation to donate to his campaign.

West’s campaign has so far filed petitions to appear on the ballot in 10 states, but some of those submissions, as in New Jersey, have been found insufficient by state officials.

Others are still being reviewed. On Friday, officials in Illinois found that 60 percent of the signatures the campaign submitted there were invalid, leaving West without the required 2,500 signatures to appear on the ballot. The campaign can still challenge the finding.

Despite his campaign’s struggles, there has been a flurry of activity by GOP operatives to get him on the ballot in recent weeks.

The effort has been particularly striking in the swing state of Wisconsin, where Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by less than 23,000 votes in 2016. Studies have shown that turnout among Wisconsin’s Black voters dipped significantly that year, likely contributing to Clinton’s loss. They are expected to play a key role in the presidential vote again in November.

On Tuesday, as local reporters watched, West’s ballot petition was delivered to state regulators by Lane Ruhland, a Madison lawyer who is the former general counsel for the state Republican Party.

Just weeks ago, Ruhland was listed as an attorney representing the Trump campaign on a document filed in a lawsuit against a local television station, according to court records. She did not respond to requests for comment.

To get on the ballot, Wisconsin law requires a candidate to submit signatures from between 2,000 and 4,000 state residents and identify 10 people who would serve as electors should the candidate win the state.

Of the 10 electors listed on West’s petition, The Post found at least six appear to have ties to the Republican Party.

They included Fred Krumberger, whose wife, Marian, is the immediate past chairwoman of Wisconsin’s Brown County Republican committee. According to pictures she posted on Facebook, the two attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and were photographed with the new president at an event, standing in front of the U.S. and Wisconsin flags as Trump flashed his signature two thumbs up.

Another West elector, JM McKoy, is listed as an officer on the website of the Young Wisconsin Republicans. The Facebook page of a third West elector, Terri Steinbecker, features a banner that includes Trump’s name and a bald eagle and a profile picture featuring the slogan of the conspiracy movement QAnon.

A fourth, Jordan Wieland, has tweeted that he is the brother-in-law of Joe Fadness, the campaign manager of Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s unsuccessful 2018 reelection bid.

...The effort to get West on the ballot was decried by David Crowley, a Democrat who took office in May as the first Black executive of Milwaukee County. Crowley said the effort appeared aimed at peeling off minority voters to boost Trump.

“This is the Republican Party really trying to take advantage of someone’s mental state,” he said, referring to West’s bipolar disorder. “It’s appalling. It’s insulting. Quite frankly, I can’t believe they’re really doing it.”

Crowley said that he believes Black voters would see through the effort.

“We want them to know we will not be tricked,” he said. “If he is on the ballot, we will tell the community what this strategy is and not let them be confused by the Republican Party and Donald Trump.”

Two formal challenges to West’s candidacy were filed on behalf of five Wisconsin voters on Friday, arguing among other things that his forms were filed just past a 5 p.m. deadline on Tuesday and that they failed to include West’s home address, as required by state law.

One included signed affidavits from people who had signed the petition for his candidacy but said afterward that they were misled about its purpose. One said he was told only that it was related to voting. Another said she was told she should sign simply to indicate that she was registered to vote.

“Kanye West would not get my vote, and I think it’s a joke that he’s running for president,” the voter swore.

West’s campaign has until the end of the Monday to respond. State officials will decide likely later this month whether he has qualified for the Wisconsin ballot.

Before declaring his candidacy, West repeatedly praised Trump, saying the two shared “dragon energy.” In October 2018, West visited Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, a surreal scene in which the rapper sat across the Resolute Desk from the president, rattling on incoherently about the 13th Amendment, American manufacturing and his own mental health, dropping profanities in the process.

He wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat and repeatedly complimented Trump, who nodded, speechless for once, as reporters and TV cameras looked on.

West behaved so erratically that even Trump was taken aback, asking aides afterward, “What was up with him?” according to a former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation.

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner argued that hosting West and Kardashian West, who worked closely with the White House on an effort to reform criminal sentencing rules, could improve the president’s standing with Black voters, according to the official, who said Trump was swayed by the electoral argument.

Not long before West announced his candidacy, the host committee for Trump’s convention in Jacksonville discussed inviting the rapper to perform a “revival-style” concert on the eve of the GOP convention, according to a person familiar with the discussions, a sign that Trump’s staff have in recent weeks viewed the rapper as an ally and asset.

"The five stages of GOP scandal-mongering," according to Paul Waldman

And the Borowitz Report has shocking news


Earlier this week Dana Milbank devoted a Washington Post column, "Meet the chief prosecutor in the GOP's Benghazi show trial," to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the lying jackass scum-weasel who actually referred to the Benghazi "select committee" hearings House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner chose him to preside over as a "trial."


"This contempt vote was like the end of a toddler's tantrum, the final hoarse scream before the child collapses in an exhausted heap on the floor."

-- Paul Waldman, in his "Plum Line" post "The five
stages of GOP scandal-mongering: A reader’s guide"

by Ken

The contempt vote Paul Waldman is talking about, of course, is the thunderbolt hurled the other night by the slime-weasels known as House Republicans, vilely abetted by a menagerie os ConservaDem slime-weasels, against Lois Lerner, the former IRS official targeted for daring to look into right-wing fake-charitable who flagrantly and unapologetically flout the regulations applicable to charitable organization, which they aren't in any way, shape, or form -- as we can tell easily from their very pretense to be engaging in charitable activities when they don't believe in charity to begin with.

In their seething rage, hate, and plumb-dumb ignorance, they have no attitude toward anything that isn't "me me me" is "Chuck you, Farley." Of course those organizations have absolutely no earthly purpose other than the political" and any pretense otherwise simply proves the total fraudulence and illegality with which they were established and operated. Their intent has never been anything other than to flout every law and regulation they are bound to respect as a fundamental condition of their existence.

Many of them, of course, are too stupid and too uncaring of law to even be aware that the only reason those organizations were formed was to flout the laws. The rest of them, of course, delight in their criminality. What they're doing is dropping their pants and taking a stinking dump on America.

Now the slime-weasels who coddle and pander to this human garbage have risen to the full height of their bestial criminality and voiced their official contempt for Lois Lerner.

And then there's Benghazi. Bestial life forms that have never uttered a public word of truth in their scum-sucking existences and will go to their graves without ever doing so, short of a deathbed conversion, are in high moral dudgeon over the tragic events at the consulate in Benghazi, while understanding not a single thing about where or what the place is or what happened there -- at any time in its history. It's their way of pretending that, though they have chosen to live their lives as debased beasts, they occupy some sort of high moral ground. Probably when they were blithely ignoring past incidents at U.S. embassies and consulates, mostly under Republican administrations, or when their leaders were slashing funds for protecting U.S. embassies, the slime-sucking America-hating fake-patriots were out having sex with barnyard animals.

They truly believe that some psychotic god they claim to worship put them on earth to lie their putrid carcasses off.

To return to the IRS follies, "You may be wondering," Paul Waldman asks," what ever happened to that IRS scandal, anyway?" (Note: There are scads of links onsite.)

It went the way of pretty much every Obama administration “scandal,” which is that it turned out to be not nearly as scandalous as Republicans had hoped.

In fact, a clear pattern has emerged on how these scandals have unfolded, one that might be helpful to keep in mind as we start paying attention to Benghazi again. Here’s a handy guide:

Stage 1: Worse than Watergate!

Whenever a controversy emerges, Republicans immediately jump to the conclusion that they’ve struck political gold. At last, the true depths of the Obama administration’s treachery will be revealed! However much is known at first and whatever the allegations are, Republicans can be relied upon to say it was worse than Watergate, partly because they seem to have forgotten what Watergate was actually about, but mostly because it’s Barack Obama we’re talking about here.

“This makes Watergate look like child’s play,” said Michele Bachmann about Solyndra. “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate,” said Peggy Noonan about the IRS (so that means that it wasn’t worse than Watergate, but it was worse than Iran-Contra). And everyone agrees that Benghazi is worse than Watergate. “I have made a study of different cover-ups – the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and Iran-Contra,” said noted scholar Sen. James Inhofe. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I think this is probably the greatest cover-up, in my memory anyway.” Benghazi would drive Barack Obama from office, said Mike Huckabee: “I remind you — as bad as Watergate was, because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die.” Rep. Steve King put it in perspective: “If you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is.”

Stage 2: The facts show something problematic, but not Watergate-level scandal

This is where things get complicated. Every controversy is unique, but the pattern has been that the actual facts do reveal something problematic, but not the criminal malfeasance Republicans were hoping for.

For instance: The IRS scandal was about ill-trained workers ham-handedly trying to apply vague laws they didn’t really understand, not a conspiracy directed from the White House to swing an election by holding up the applications of a bunch of Tea Party groups to get special tax status as social welfare charities. Benghazi was a chaotic mess, and different decisions could have been made leading up to it, but nobody in the White House or the State Department cruelly decided to let American personnel die. Solyndra was one of many companies the government supported in its green tech efforts, and they went bankrupt when the price of silicon for solar panels plummeted and their technology was no longer cost-effective, but there was no nefarious conspiracy.

Every case has lessons that can be learned, but none of them gave Republicans what they were really after: the scandal that would destroy Barack Obama’s presidency.

Stage 3: The (not so) dramatic hearings

Republicans decide to go ahead with hearings anyway, in most cases overseen by the spectacularly incompetent Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee. The hearings reveal no new information, though they do provide an opportunity for Republican members to pretend to be outraged, and for ranking minority member Elijah Cummings to argue bitterly with Issa. In some cases, like Benghazi, this results in a downgrading of the central allegation, from the charge that people high up in the administration were directly responsible for four deaths, to the current charge, that people high up in the administration spun the events after the fact in an attempt to make the administration look good, which is 1) absolutely true, and 2) not a crime.

Stage 4: The rage at the media for not paying enough attention

A core feature of Republican rhetoric on all these controversies is the complaint that the mainstream media are ignoring the story, and only Fox News is brave enough to bring the truth to the American people. But in fact, in every case, the media did pay attention for a time. Most all of these controversies got blanket coverage for a while. But that coverage inevitably petered out when Republicans were unable to substantiate their most dramatic claims.

You may not need much in the way of facts to get the scandal train moving — breathless allegations and high dudgeon are usually enough — but unless some real misdeeds are revealed, the train will slow to a stop. Republicans’ real problem isn’t that the media didn’t pay attention to the scandals, it’s that there just hasn’t been much there, leaving the media with little choice but to move on.

Stage 5: The last gasp

That’s what the contempt vote against Lerner is, and in some ways, that’s what the select committee on Benghazi is, although that will be an extended last gasp. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the select committee is going to uncover nothing meaningful that we don’t already know. Why? First, because there have already been lots of hearings and testimony and investigations and documents turned over, and no malfeasance has been revealed. Second, because I doubt these clowns would be capable of finding anything even if there was anything to find. It’s all about theater.

Indeed, GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, the head of the new select committee on Benghazi, accidentally admitted as much, as Dana Milbank points out:

Asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about the possibility that his panel’s work would continue into the 2016 election campaign, Gowdy replied that “if an administration is slow-walking document production, I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.”

A trial? And the Obama administration is the defense? So much for that “serious investigation” House Speaker John Boehner promised; his new chairman intends to play prosecutor, proving the administration’s guilt to the jury — in this case, the public.

Once the committee convenes, the media will be all over it for the first couple of days. And after it becomes apparent that no blockbuster revelations and no scandalous misbehavior being uncovered, they’ll drift away. And then Republicans will start complaining again that the media are conspiring with the administration in the cover-up.

And then, of course, the lying jackass scum-weasels will be braying about their new "worse than Watergate" scandal.


AND CHECK OUT THESE SHOCKING
BOROWITZ REPORT POLL FINDINGS

May 9, 2014
POLL: MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHO NEED JOBS WANT CONGRESS TO GET TO BOTTOM OF THIS BENGHAZI THING FIRST
Posted by ANDY BOROWITZ


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- Millions of unemployed Americans who have fruitlessly been looking for work for months are determined that Congress get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi, a new poll indicates.

According to the survey, job-seeking Americans hope that Congress will eventually do something about job creation, but they are adamant that it hold new hearings about Benghazi first.

By a wide majority, respondents to the poll “strongly agreed” with the statement “I would really like to find a job, but not if it in any way distracts Congress from my No. 1 concern: finding out what really happened in Benghazi.”

In related findings, a survey of Americans found that taxpayers overwhelmingly consider Benghazi hearings to be the best use of taxpayer money, well ahead of schools, roads, and infant nutrition.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner released the following statement: “I want to reassure the American people that, until we have completed our Benghazi investigations, there will be absolutely no action on job creation, infrastructure, immigration, education, housing, or food.”

#

Meet the new face of the Republican Party: Fairfax County (VA) Electoral Board imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman

State Sen. Mark Herring, Virginia's apparent AG-elect

by Ken

In the end I decided to go conventional and lead with a photo of Virginia State Sen. Mark Herring, the Democratic provisional winner of the race for Virginia state attorney general. Most of the way, though, my plan was to lead with the tweet reproduced below, with the caption (from Alex Rogers's Time "Swampland" report (see below): "While Brian W. Schoeneman, a Republican member of the Fairfax Electoral Board, protested through Twitter that all [absentee ballots] had been counted, upon further review, state election officials found that a tabulation machine had broken and the votes on a replacement machine weren't counted."

Oh, I assume there'll be a recount, since state law provides that if the margin of victory is less than ½ percent the state pays for a recount, which means it should be more or less automatic. And especially in the case of a result this close, everyone should have an interest in getting the vote count correct.

However, as we can already see, there's one group of Virginians that have no interest in getting the count, but only getting it their way. You could say it's just coincidence that the major vote-counting errors that have turned up so far all favored the Republican candidate. What you can't say is that Virginia Republicans gave rat's ass about anything except getting the result they want. Which brings us to my nominee for the man who most closely represents what the Republican Party stands for in the year 2013, imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman.

Consider this portion of from Alex Rogers's Time "Swampland" report, "With 164 Vote Attorney General Victory, Virginia Democrats Sweep State":

Episodes occurred in Fairfax and Richmond counties, two of the most populous in the state. Among other election observers, Michael McDonald, an associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University, found that absentee turnout from Fairfax didn't match his prediction. While Brian W. Schoeneman, a Republican member of the Fairfax Electoral Board, protested through Twitter that all had been counted, upon further review, state election officials found that a tabulation machine had broken and the votes on a replacement machine weren't counted. Around 3,000 votes were then reviewed, and a large majority went to Herring, who at that point was losing in the unofficial tally. "I don’t know if they would have caught it," said McDonald, who joked that Schoeneman "is going to regret for all of his life" that "infamous tweet."

In Richmond, state officials failed to enter more than 200 votes, throwing the aforementioned 17-vote lead for Obenshain to the razor-slim 117-vote margin for Herring. In this case, officials realized their mistake well before it hit social media.

These errors have an easier chance of being reported and caught by outside observers in Virginia, due to the state's "unusually transparent" electoral process, according to McDonald, because the state releases not only overall numbers, but also breakdowns in how a vote is cast (including absentee) and in what precinct. That openness, combined with the high level of interest due to the closeness of the campaign, can lead to a messy, but effective evaluation.

"These are common errors for certification across the entire country," says McDonald. "Usually you don't get to see into the factory where the sausage is being made."

Now, I don't consider this race a lock, as long as there are still votes to be counted. After all, the Republican Art and Science of Election-Stealing now goes into extra innings. There's always the pre-Election Day Phase (throwing up as many obstacles as possible to The Others' voting for The Others' candidates while making it as easy as possible for Our Voters), the Election Day Operation (the crunch-day version of the same thing, which runs up till the last polling place closes, or the last Other voter has been sent away without voting), and the Vote Miscounting Drill (for those tension-fraught hours, or if necessary days, before a result is announced). If you still haven't nudged the result your way, you may still have a chance if you can slide it into the Recount Circle.

Some of the stuff the R's came up with this time was truly inspired, like ruling -- after all the safely Republican counties had already resolved their lesser problems with provisional ballots -- that anyone who had cast a provisional ballot and had hopes of, you know, having it counted, would have to appear in person to beg for that indulgence. You'd think the folks who came up with that one would be under lock and key by now, but not in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

To belabor the obvious, the problem with imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman isn't that he was wrong about all those votes having been counted, although it's hard to see how that plays in his favor. It's not even in hoping that his candidates prevailed; that goes with the territory. The problem is that he was presented with the powerfully suspicious circumstance detected by Professor McDonald of the near-certain undercount in what I believe I heard described on the radio as the most heavily Democratic part of the state's most populous and most heavily Democratic county. An official with a modicum of competence or honesty (either one would have done it) would have taken the opportunity to recheck his ground. Instead imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman doubled down on his imbecility and dishonesty, not to mention his incompetence.

Professor McDonald suggests that imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman is going to regreat "that infamous tweet" for "all the rest of his life." That's being much too kind.

Nothing will change the fact that enough Virginians voted for statewide candidates who are certifiably insane and thugs to boot to make the gubernatorial race close and the AG race micro-close. Of course the Democrats countered by serving up a gubernatorial candidate nobody could possibly vote for without holding his/her nose. That's a problem for another day. Today's problem is finding a way to have Republicans barred from participating in any aspect of the polling and vote-counting operation. They just can't be trusted.

Ask imbecile-liar Brian W. Schoeneman.

#

Republican Sabotage Mars Election Process In Wisconsin Again

Yesterday Blue America hosted a live chat with Wisconsin legislative heroes Sen. Chris Larson and Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch over at Crooks and Liars. He represents a district in southern Milwaukee Co. and Sandy's is further north and then beyond Milwaukee into Ouzaukee and a bit of Waukesha. She's running for the state Senate seat currently held by Scott Walker puppet Alberta Darling. So far the State GOP has failed in their efforts to recruit a fake Democrat to challenge Sandy to a primary, though not through lack of trying.


Yesterday Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice confirmed the Republican Party's attempt to sabotage the Democratic efforts to replace the 6 recalled Republicans with progressive Democrats. He refers to it as "dirty tricks," but there is also a question of criminal behavior that needs to be looked at-- from a party notorious at trying to rig elections.

In letters obtained by No Quarter, local Republican Party officials are encouraging their GOP colleagues to collect enough signatures to get a fake Democratic candidate on the ballot in each of two upcoming recall elections.

The spoiler Democrats, who are identified by name in the letters, would run in the Democratic primaries for the seats now held by Republican Sens. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon.

Both of the fake Democrats have a history of giving almost exclusively to major Republicans.

"We need to make sure Democrat challengers face primaries to allow our Republicans time to mount a campaign," Dan Feyen, chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party, wrote in the letter to "fellow conservatives" on Friday.

"A Democratic primary," Feyen continued, "will push the general election back by one month, so that Senator Hopper can have more time to organize a campaign against his liberal challenger."
That's verbatim what is in the other two-page letter encouraging support for the second fake Democratic candidate, except that note substitutes Olsen's name for Hopper's.

By running these fake Democrats, Republicans would force the Democratic challengers to spend money on a primary that could have been used in the general election. Plus, the spoiler candidates could launch negative attacks on the Democrats while the Republican incumbents remain above the fray.

Feyen confirmed that he sent his letter trying to get a "protest candidate" on the ballot in the Hopper race.

What's more, he said there's a good explanation for why his letter and the one written by local Republican officials in Olsen's district were virtually the same.

"It's something being coordinated by the RPW," he said, referring to the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

Today might be a good day to consider bolstering the campaigns of Jessica King, deputy mayor of Oshkosh, who's running against Hopper, and Assemblyman Fred Clark, who's challenging Olsen. You can contribute to both their campaigns-- as well as to the other Democrats running against Walker's shills at Blue America's Beyond Recalls.

Former MD Gov. Rob't Ehrlich pushes the sleaze envelope, and our pal Milt Shook offers his take on the 2010 elections

This "unlisted" YouTube video, "Andy Barth reports on Bob Ehrlich's devotion to his family," can be accessed only by people who are given the link by the maker. But since the maker, ehrlichformaryland, is the Ehrlich Republican gubernatorial campaign, it's a good bet that they're going to be getting the link for this and their other campaign videos out there. The twist is that interviewer Andy Barth is known to Baltimore-area viewers for more than three decades' worth of local TV reporting -- producing segments that looked, gosh, pretty much like this!

"Every campaign, every candidate, especially in today's digital age, looks for ways to communicate directly with voters and get around the media filter. I don't see anything wrong with that. But I've never seen this exact situation."

-- Democratic media strategist Mo Elleithee, about the Barth-Ehrlich YouTube spots, as quoted by the Washington Post's John Wagner

by Ken

Here's a story I've been better-dealing for a few weeks now, but I did want to take note of. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of election sleaze, but it's yet another tribute to the capacity of American pols to push the sleaze envelope wherever there's an opportunity -- and it's a chance to touch base with a longtime pal, and one of the blogosphere's great firebrands.

Have you been keeping up on the thrill-a-minute Maryland governor's race? What, you don't even know who's running?

Okay, I was kind of vague about it myself until I read the above-noted Washington Post piece in late June, and discovered that Maryland voters are getting a rematch of the 2006 race, only with the roles reversed. This year Democratic Gov. Marvin O'Malley -- who's not exactly the favorite Dem of anybody I know, or anywhere near the top of that list -- is the incumbent seeking reelection against the man he unseated four years ago, Republican Robert Ehrlich. These days Ehrlich is an anachronism of sorts among Republicans, a man of such modest conservative credentials, you'd expect him to be a prime target of Teabagging wrath, being as he is of what we might call the Norm Coleman wing of the party -- opportunistic candidates of moderate-to-liberal background who saw a better electoral opening among the R's and accordingly made the connection based on the principle that matters most to them: What's in it for me?

We should note that the Ehrlich campaign hasn't tried to put these "spots" on TV, where Andy Barth's newsman recognition might really stink up the smell test. Of course what the campaign is trying to do is exactly to exploit the bypass-the-media electricity of online video virality. This seems to me a pretty poor message for that medium, but that doesn't diminish the sleaze component of trying to cash in on whatever recognition and trust Andy Barth built up in those decades of screen presence. You'd think that, even now that he's jumped over to the political side, he might have a bit more regard for whatever journalistic cred he once built up, but all this proves is that when it comes to politics, all America is a giant whorehouse.

I had another reason for tuning in, however feebly, to the O'Malley-Ehrlich rematch. Ehrlich is a bête noire of our longtime online political pal Milt Shook, who these days is sounding the horn of enlightened liberalism in a blog called Please...Cut the Crap! As it happens, Milt has known "Bobby" Ehrlich, well, maybe not quite back to the cradle, but a long ways back, and has a fondness for his old playmate that recalls the affection of Captain Ahab for that darned whale Moby-Dick, except without the respect.

So naturally I wanted to get Milt's take on the O'Malley-Ehrlich nail-biter, and asked him for his thoughts, knowing how tight he and his old chum Bobby are. "So tight," he shot back in late June, "that I’m considering working on his opponent's campaign?"

This is going to be an entertaining race, because he and O’Malley really can’t stand each other. Ehrlich and his wife (a former paralegal in his law office when he was still practicing) have a radio show in Baltimore, and he’s thus far refused to give up the show until he officially files his candidacy papers. So last week, O’Malley ran an anti-Ehrlich ad right in the middle of the program, and the Democratic Party apparently had people call his radio show and challenge him. Here’s some coverage of it at TPM.

Now we get down to the insiderish dope:

Bobby is actually quite the little prick, and he really can’t stand dissension. He has no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with him, which is probably why he gets on my nerves so much these days.

By the way, there isn’t a snowball’s chance that Ehrlich can win. Even in good times, the GOP has a hard time in Maryland; there’s no way they’re going to go with a retread. It’s funny, though; he’s actually trying to position himself as an outsider. Yeah… that sounds like a winner, huh?

Finally, Milt offered a perhaps surprising perspective on the elections:

Of course, the Republicans nationwide are in a hole. I don’t see them gaining any net seats to speak of. If they do, it’ll be about five in the House and 1-2 in the Senate. A lot of people are touting the “conventional wisdom,” but there’s a major flaw in their theory that the GOP should win seats this time… WHO is supposed to win them? They have an empty bench…

I've learned a huge amount about politics from Milt over the years -- not least to take seriously his often unconventional, no-bullshit take on events.

#

Desperate Republicans Have No Intention Of Going Down To Defeat With Either Dignity Or Honor

It has finally dawned on Republican Party leaders that they are in the middle of Desperationland. Easy enough to sneer and say they earned it-- and more-- but desperation is leading them down some unhealthy paths, unhealthy for all of us.

Republican office holders are aware that McCain's coattails are not just negative, but positively toxic. The three special election House candidates he campaigned for-- all in very Republican districts-- all lost in upset elections. GOP strategists are starting to whisper the word "landslide," and they mean a Democratic one that could leave the Republicans with impotent rump caucuses in both houses of Congress.

Everywhere, Party leaders are starting to finally realize the trouble they're in. Asked if McCain could win Wisconsin, former Republican Governor and McCain friend Tommy Thompson claimed it isn't impossible but when he was asked if he's happy with his friend's campaign, he said "No; I don't know who he is." And that's a feeling that people all over the country are having about McCain, who has tried to do everything he could to make Americans feel that he's someone they know and trust-- no one does-- and that Obama is "not one of us" and scary and different and unknown. It's almost funny when it comes from Sarah Palin who no one but Alaskans and a few religious extremists ever heard of before a month and a half ago.

Several party leaders said Mr. McCain needed to settle on a single message in the final weeks of the campaign and warned that his changing day-to-day dialogue — a welter of evolving economic proposals, mixed with on-again-off-again attacks on Mr. Obama’s character-- was not breaking through and was actually helping Mr. Obama in his effort to portray Mr. McCain as erratic.

Former McCain colleague and ex-Missouri Senator John Danforth said “This is a year where everything that could go in Obama’s favor is going in Obama’s favor. Everything that could go against McCain is against him. It’s absolutely the worst kind of perfect storm.”

The campaign itself is as confused, dysfunctional and erratic as the candidate. There's conflicting advise coming from every direction, poll numbers that look less and less likely to turn around and criticism from state party leaders who see their own fiefdoms in jeopardy because of McCain's inept performance. Endangered GOP incumbents like Gordon Smith of Oregon and Lee Terry of Nebraska are starting to take out ads that look like they're trying to distance themselves from McCain and tie themselves to Obama. McCain and his advisers blame his reputation for running a gutter campaign on everyone but themselves-- even on some of his own supporters who they call "nuts." McCain doesn't want to be identified with the "nuts" and he seems to have hoped Palin could placate them. But the party itself is almost nothing but nuts now. One far right extremist who runs the Colorado GOP, an unsavory and corrupt Dick Wadhams, best known as a kind of junior Karl Rove, is demanding that McCain needs more mud, not less. He thinks the campaign-- even in the face of the economic collapse threatening families all over the country-- must be all about Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. The nuts love hearing about them.

So what's the game plan for the next 24 days? I think the media has scared the McCain camp away from depending on blowing up and antichrist argument and taking it out of backward hellholes like Lynchburg and into places where normal people live like Florida, Virginia and Ohio. So how is he going to try to win in post-medieval parts of the country. Steal it of course.

They're already setting up the backdrop by screaming ACORN, ACORN, ACORN, as though it had any relevance to anything-- other than GOP paranoia and projection. Just the way FactCheck.org found McCain's pie-in-the-sky claims about a conspiratorial relationship between William Ayers and Obama "groundless, false, dubious... and malicious," the hyped up slander of Acorn is being debunked as well. Adam at Progress Illinois is doing great work to get behind the media-generated hysteria that McCain's camp is demanding. He absolutely tore CNN's sensationalistic and completely misleading report to shreds on Friday.

CNN's Drew Griffin took his network's Special Investigations Unit to Lake County, IN yesterday in an attempt to document election problems in the area. Did he discuss the active and legitimate voter suppression campaign taking place there, in which local Republicans are blocking early voting in three Democratic leaning cities? Not at all. Instead, he focused on faulty registration cards submitted by the current bete noir of the conservative movement, the community organizing group ACORN. What's worse, his report (and most other media accounts) grossly misrepresented the intent and professionalism of ACORN's registration efforts

.
While McCain and his allies at Fox have persuaded lazy journalists that ACORN has been up to something nefarious by turning in fake registration forms, they never mention that ACORN is required to turn in all forms they collect and that ACORN has been flagging the suspicious ones for the registrars. Only a Republican trying to muddy the waters and set the stage for an argument that "everybody" cheats, would claim that there is some kind of equivalency between systematically disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters in Democratic leaning areas of battleground states and someone turning in a registration form claiming to be Babe Ruth or Richard Nixon. Can anyone with a straight face claim that "Babe Ruth" or "Richard Nixon" is going to try to vote in November? Or what about 7 year old O'jahnae Smith? Are Republicans worried that she's going to show up on election day and demand to vote? Believe it or not, the Wall Street Journal had a calmer and more reliable report.

Meanwhile, though, the Republican Party apparatus has moved into high gear to actually steal the election, as we reported last Wednesday. Last week the NY Times reported on illegal efforts in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina to remove eligible voters from the rolls. Republicans have already been challenging military voters in Virginia and Montana, although when their scheme was discovered and exposed in Montana they quickly backed down.

StealBackYourVote.org suggests 7 steps to protect yourself from GOP voter suppression

STEP 1:  DON'T DON'T DON'T mail in your ballot!! Absentee ballots are often not counted for the weakest of reasons. Furthermore, there are new rules in many states that you must photocopy your ID and send it with the ballot. However, they often don't even tell you that. So hundreds of thousands of absentee votes will not be counted for this reason.

STEP 2:  VOTE EARLY ...VERY EARLY! Many states are already allowing you to vote. Do it NOW. That way if you're not listed on the voter roles, you have plenty of time to get your complaint heard.

STEP 3:  REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER! There is a TON of purging of voter rolls going on. It's not enough to think you're registered. Double check twelve times. You can check online at www.votersunite.org. Once you're done with that, go register. ...Then go register.

STEP 4:  DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT if your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their "provisional ballot" would be counted, BUT IT WON'T. Don't listen to the little old lady!! DEMAND that poll judges make the judgment ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID.
If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And help those around you when you're at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!

STEP 5:  STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER!  Walk out your front door and get active!!  Volunteer to help with the campaign. Or ignore the campaign and do something on your own. It's as simple as printing out these ELECTION PROTECTION steps and leaving them at people's doors. Hell, you could hand them out outside the polling places. Don't sit still or this election will be stolen. And go to a swing state if at all possible.

STEP 6:  FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS VOTE WITHOUT FRIENDS!  Don't go to vote alone. Bring friends!! Lots of them or only one of them. Make it a date. Arrange to have lunch with everyone after you vote. Whatever it takes. And have your election protection phone number WITH YOU (1-866-OUR-VOTE).

STEP 7:  IT AIN'T OVER 'TILL IT'S OVER! If the election is indeed stolen, don't throw in the towel! The day after is CRUCIAL! Three words need to be chanted over and over again: COUNT EVERY VOTE. For example, in 2000 Al Gore lost because of a Supreme Court decision that was 5-4 against him. Imagine if he had won that court decision. But if half of America had not chanted COUNT EVERY VOTE after election day, we would never have gotten to the Supreme Court. Half of America could've thrown in the towel on election night, but thanks to people in the streets, it was fought to the end.

And if you think the idea of GOP dirty tricks exaggerated, please treat yourself to the amazing Lee Atwater documentary. Atwater wrote the playbook for Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt. Watch the trailer

As for how McCain and his media allies are twisting ACORN into a scandal they can use for cover for their own plans... take a look at the kind of coverage this made up "news" has been getting:

GIULIANI BACKER WHO TRIED RIGGING CALIFORNIA ELECTION CHARGED WITH BITING A WOMAN'S ASS

Grassroots activists led by the Courage Campaign, with some help from wealthy Democratic Insiders eager for another Clinton Administration, caught onto Giuliani's nefarious plot to steal the 2008 election by splitting up the 55 California electoral votes. last week, they shot the Giuliani dirty trick out of the water and he's back facing the reality of no votes from the West Coast-- if, by some satanic miracle, he manages to trick the wingnuts who control the GOP nominating process into voting for him in enough primaries to give him a shot at Hillary in '08.

This morning's NY Times, which well remembers the sleaze that overcame New York City politics when Giuliani was mayor, warns that this is just a taste of what we can expect in 2008. Although Giuliani denies being behind the failed attempt to tamper with the California electoral system, the Times reports what is common knowledge in California: "the measure has been driven almost entirely by people who are associated with or have given money to Mr. Giuliani’s presidential campaign."

One of Mr. Giuliani’s top fund-raisers, Paul Singer, a New York City hedge fund executive, donated nearly all the money raised so far in support of the measure — roughly $170,000 — to be used to help gather signatures to qualify it for a statewide vote. Organizers have until Nov. 29 to collect the signatures of more than 400,000 registered voters for the initiative to appear on the ballot next June.

The money for the measure was donated through Take Initiative America, an organization led by a lawyer in Missouri who has also donated to Mr. Giuliani’s campaign. A spokesman for the Missouri group, Jonathan Wilcox, was once a spokesman and speechwriter for Bill Simon, a one-time Republican candidate for governor of California and now co-chairman of Mr. Giuliani’s California campaign.

Democrats who opposed the attempted Giuliani coup-- he can't admit being involved because that would expose his grievous hypocrisy at not supporting similar measures for Republican states like Texas, Florida and Georgia-- filed a complaint with the FEC. Their beef is that Giuliani has already been caught cheating over a year before the election and that money-laundering, a serious felony was involved. They point out that Singer, a well known crooked dealer and a real bucket of right-wing slime, didn't "reveal himself as the money bags behind the effort" until he was exposed by Democratic activists.

Amid the accusations and pitfalls, Thomas Hiltachk, the lawyer who drafted the initiative, walked away from the effort, citing ethical concerns about the way the money was raised. His resignation has left the initiative’s future in serious jeopardy, and many Republican consultants around the state are advising their clients and friends to steer clear of the effort, suggesting it will be challenged on constitutional grounds if it passes.

Aside from Hiltachk, two other GOP hacks, Kevin Eckery and Marty Wilson, have also disassociated themselves with the Giuliani scheme once they realized they were pawns of a front organization. One lawyer investigating the case points out that "Singer's contribution... raises questions about potential money laundering, illegal coordination between a candidate and an independent committee, and whether federal contribution limits were exceeded. 'As an agent of Giuliani's, Singer would be prohibited from soliciting or directing a contribution in excess of $2,300,' said Harrison, who works with San Leandro-based Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, a firm specializing in election law. 'We'd like the FEC to determine what Giuliani knew, when he knew it, what conversations he and Singer had about the contribution and how TIA was created. Whose idea was it? How did it come about?'... Under California law, the Campaign for Equal Representation was required to disclose its true source of funding. It identified Take Initiative America, which was created on Sept. 11, but Hurth, the lawyer behind the committee, refused to disclose where the $175,000 came from." (And that would be Giuliani''s billionaire pal Singer.)

Giuliani, of course, denies he was behind the plot. He makes the preposterous claim that he likes the system the war it is so that he could win all 55 electoral votes. "As far as I'm concerned, you can leave it the way it is. In fact, in some ways you might consider, I think that this is a state I can win." Sure he can. But now that his top fundraiser, the notorious Paul Singer, has been exposed as the $175,000 donor, when will it be revealed which one of the Giuliani backers bit a woman in the ass? I have to laugh when these right-wing hypocrites talk about themselves in terms of Family Values and all they can come up with is a whoremonger like Giuliani! One can only imagine what a Giuliani White House would be like.


UPDATE: ASS BITING GIULIANI CRONY EXPOSED

Charles Hurth III is a shady GOP operative in Missouri who has been a key plotter in the Republican dirty trick that sought to steal the 2008 election by breaking up California's electoral vote bloc. There has been a good deal of talk about his relations with Congressman David Dreier, a Giuliani supporter who reprsents a sububan Los Angeles district even though he lives and works in Kansas City. Hurth's, Giuliani's and Dreier's plot against the California electoral system is being investigated and the FEC has received a formal complaint against Giuliani. But this isn't the first dirty busines Hurth has been involved in.

According to AP, Hurth is an ass biter, who was tried, convicted and fined for attacking a woman and biting her butt, breaking skin.

When she was made the butt of Charles Hurth III's prank, Maia Brodie vowed revenge, and she got it - taking a $$27,500 bite out of his wallet.

"I feel the damages were appropriate," Brodie said Thursday after jurors upheld her civil lawsuit against Hurth for biting her buttocks in a bar 2 years ago.

Brodie said the reward would help ease her humiliation.

She was at the bar near St. Louis University, where she studied law, in September 1987 when Hurth grabbed her hips and bit her, Brodie testified. Hurth and his friends laughed, pointed and exchanged high-fives, she said.

The bite broke the skin on Brodie's buttocks, causing "searing and throbbing pain" so severe she couldn't sit down for three days and was unable to attend classes, said Gerald Greiman, her lawyer.

Hurth, a lawyer, admitted biting Brodie but said he did not mean to hurt her and considered his action a compliment. Hurth testified he had previously bitten the buttocks of two other women at fraternity parties in 1981 and 1982 while attending Vanderbilt University.

Jurors deliberated about 90 minutes after hearing two days of testimony, awarding Brodie $$2,500 in actual damages and $$25,000 in punitive damages.

FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS-- REALLY GOOD NEWS: THE REPUBLICANS MAY STILL TRY TO STEAL THE ELECTION, BUT IT WON'T HAPPEN IN CALIFORNIA

It looks like all that work by the Courage Campaign and the Calitics netroots has paid off-- big time! This evening the L.A. Times reported that the dirty tricks initiative to split up the California electoral votes by counties (without a corresponding split up of the electoral votes in Florida and Texas) has failed. I had heard that polling for it shows that only one in five Californians would vote for it. But the Times says the backers are pulling the plug because they have no money to hire people to get their petitions signed. and, believe me, this was never going to be a volunteer effort.

The Times' Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds.

The Times, of course, tries assigning credit to some big money/Insider Hillary backers. It has more to do with the grassroots action against it, the organizing efforts of the Courage Campaign and the fact that the shady Republicans behind it, Californians For Equal Representation are a bunch of cronies of David Dreier's from Missouri and their actual agenda was the theft of the election for Giuliani.




THIS CAN'T SHOCK ANYONE WHO HAS FOLLOWED GIULIANI'S CAREER

Although his staffers are professing ignorance, it was a Giuliani pal and fundraiser, NY hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who was putting up the money to rig California's electoral system. Singer has donated well over a million dollars to Republicans and right wing outfits... and to Joe Lieberman.

CALIFORNIA-- COMMITTING POLITICAL SUICIDE?

Marlene Rose is a DWT contributor from way up in the northern reaches of the Doolittle Bad Lands. She's trying to clean up the territory. Here's a report she wrote late last night. After reading it, please watch the blogger video along the same lines we posted on Saturday.


I have always prided myself on being a Democrat, the party that fights for the less fortunate. I have not, however, considered myself a fool. The proposal to award California’s electoral votes on a district by district basis that was favored by 41% of the Democrats polled is electoral suicide.
 
If the Democratic and Independent voters of California do not wake up, we will never elect anyone but a Republican president. The new initiative being proposed by GOP lawyer Thomas Hiltachk is brilliant in its seeming fairness but is actually a political scam to keep Republicans in the White House. He proposes awarding electoral votes on a district by district basis rather than the present system in which whoever wins the popular vote in the state wins all of the electoral votes.
 
This initiative is not one that is being proposed throughout the nation. Only California will be asked to guarantee the election of the Republican candidate by handing over nearly half our electoral votes while red states like Texas can ignore any Democratic votes that may have been cast.
 
It is amazing how inventive Republicans are at stealing elections. They have mastered minority vote suppression, hackable electronic voting machines, and purging voter rolls. Nothing, however, is as sophisticated as this effort to emasculate California as a force in presidential politics.  Bob Herbert says it best:  “What the Democrats need to do now is make sure that California voters understand that they are the latest targeted pawns in the GOP’s long-standing efforts to undermine not just the Democrats, but democracy itself.” 
 
The goal is not to make elections more responsive to the will of the people, but rather to make the election of a Democrat almost impossible. Allocating 20 or more of our 55 electoral votes while the rest of the country maintains a “winner-take-all” policy is guaranteeing a Republican president in perpetuity.  . Stealing more than 20 electoral votes by the Republicans would guarantee a baseline equivalent to all the electoral votes of the winner-take-all states of  Illinois, Pennsylvania or Ohio. 
 
Our districts are so gerrymandered, no presidential candidate would ever set foot in California.  We need only count how many GOP and Democratic Congressmen and women represent this state and we would know how many electoral votes would go to each candidate.
 
Every vote should count, but that means every vote in the United States, not just in California.  Carving out California votes for the GOP candidate means no Democrat will ever have a fair opportunity to be elected president. If we do favor a change, only the proposal to endorse presidential election by popular vote will ensure the election of the person selected by the majority of the country.
 
The winner-take-all Electoral System has many faults, but for California to unilaterally commit political suicide is insane.  We should be leading the parade to elect presidents by popular vote. Until then, unless every state provides proportional representation to the Electoral College, California should not fall for this scam. No one who cares about democracy should sign the petitions to place this piece of garbage on the ballot or, if enough signatures are gathered, no one should vote for this initiative.

-Marlene Rose

UPDATE: BRADLEY WHITFORD SAYS "NO!" TO DIRTY TRICKS

FIGHT BACK AGAINST REPUBLICAN DIRTY TRICKS

Last weekend a handful of bloggers got together in a quiet residential neighborhood on the northern edges of L.A.'s San Fernando Valley to talk, among other things, about how to thwart Republican efforts to steal the 2008 presidential election with another dirty trick-- this time not in Florida or Ohio-- but right here in California. You may have read about this before but this time David Dayen (D-Day) helped pull together a video that seeks to explain it as well. Take a look:



You want more than just bloggers? Today's New York Times carries a stark warning that the Republican effort is a boldfaced attempt to steal the election again, one that could become a constitutional crisis and one that even Republican Governor Schwarzenegger calls "dirty pool."

It’s panic time in Republican circles. The G.O.P. could go into next year’s election burdened by the twin demons of an unpopular war and an economic downturn. The party that took the White House in 2000 while losing the popular vote figures it may have to do it again.

The Presidential Election Reform Act is the name of a devious proposal that Republican operatives have dreamed up to siphon off 20 or more of the 55 electoral votes that the Democrats would get if, as expected, they win California in 2008.

That’s a lot of electoral votes, the equivalent of winning the state of Ohio. If this proposed change makes it onto the ballot and becomes law, those 20 or so electoral votes could well be enough to hand the White House to a Republican candidate who loses the popular vote nationwide.

...A sign of the bad faith in this proposal is the fact that there is no similar effort by the G.O.P. to apportion electoral votes by Congressional districts in, for example, Texas, a state with 34 electoral votes that is likely to go Republican next year.

Longtime observers in California believe the proponents of this change-- lawyers with close ties to the Republican Party statewide and nationally-- will have no trouble collecting enough signatures to get it on the ballot in June. The first poll taken on the measure, which is not yet widely understood by voters, showed that it would pass.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and one of the nation’s pre-eminent constitutional scholars, believes the initiative is blatantly unconstitutional. “Entirely apart from the politics,” he said, “this clearly violates Article II of the Constitution, which very explicitly requires that the electors for president be selected ‘in such manner as the Legislature’ of the state directs.”

In Mr. Tribe’s view, the “one and only way” for California to change the manner in which its electoral votes are apportioned is through an act of the State Legislature.

...The operatives behind the initiative are experts at causing trouble. The effort is being led by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer who was one of the leaders of the successful effort to recall California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Politics is not just hardball to this crowd; it’s almost literally a fight to the death.