« Reality vs Truthy Sciencey Fiction | Main | Remembering what makes America a special place »
November 13, 2006
Good riddance
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Just so you know, I spent election day handing out REAL Official Democratic Sample Ballots, at the Muddy Spring polling place in Montgomery County Maryland (where I also live and vote), and may even have persuaded a few undecided voters. But towards evening, as the news trickled out about the dirty tricks being played in the neighboring PG county, the two of us working at the poll began to be viewed with suspicion and were even told, "we know all about you." Coincidentally, I had just failed to persuade someone that, just because he lived in Maryland, it was not ok to vote for a 3rd party candidate, because, to win, Democrats need a big enough majority in this state to overcome the kinds of dirty tricks played by Ehrlich and Steele in 2002 - and because the Democratic party - and our government, is what we make it. And last but not least, because Cardin will make a great Senator. As Steele pointed out in one of the campaign debates, Cardin is "good at policy." Which is why I voted for him in both the primary and in the general election. He was hardly annointed. As much as I would have liked to vote for Mfume in the primary, and believe that sometimes we need those willing and able to shut down the whole process when it isn't working, I could not overlook Cardin's distinguished record. He earned his Senate seat.
I also worked at the polls in 2002, where I recall that, in addition to the Ehrlich and Steele shenanigans in PG county, there was a Republican urging people to vote for the Green Party candidate as one of the delegates, so as to split the Democratic vote in favor of a Republican candidate. And no, I didn't get paid for it.
Update: The Daily Howler adds a few details not included in the Washington Post Story:
2) Ehrlich and Steele used the homeless in 2002 just as they did this year. Their apparent motto? Use the homeless; fool the blacks! Unfortunately, Mosk omits one part of the story from 2002. In that day, the Ehrlich-Steele campaign bussed homeless people from DC shelters to Maryland’s Prince Georges County, where they spent Election Day distributing materials. But uh-oh! At day’s end, some of the homeless were simply abandoned. Busses didn’t appear to return them to their shelters. And it took a near-riot the next day to get them their pay—pay which was believed to be illegal at the time. (A state law barring such payments was later declared unconstitutional.) ...
...4) One unfortunate omission. Unfortunately, Mosk didn’t quote the brilliant Steele, who gave his own absurd explanation this Sunday, on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. During the program, Donna Brazile cited the misleading fliers—fliers designed to make voters think that Steele had been endorsed by several major black Democrats. (The fliers also suggested that Ehrlich and Steele were Democrats themselves.) “I have to laugh at that,” Steele responded, “because that’s the same tactic that the Democrats have used in previous campaigns against each other. And I borrowed from that.” A few moments later, he expounded further. Remember, he’s talking about fliers which falsely suggested that he’d been endorsed by two major black Dems—Jack Johnson and Kweisi Mfume. Johnson and Mfume had actually endorsed Steele’s opponent, Ben Cardin:
STEELE (11/12/06): I think again, we used information to try to convey a perception or to create a perception. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t...Wayne Curry did endorse me. Jack and Kweisi are friends. Certainly we’ve worked with them over the last four years. And I think the thinking was that these were Democrats that we’ve worked with and we’ve supported, have supported the [Ehrlich-Steele] administration. It just didn’t translate well.
But for a caricature of Steele, see this pre-election video clip of P.K. Winsome, who appeared on the Colbert Report as a black entrepreneur to explain why he became a Republican, and again, in another clip (part 1) (part 2) in which he goes back to his old neighborhood to get-out-the-vote.
Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at November 13, 2006 10:09 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.postnormaltimes.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/134