Romney campaign outraged by one man one vote in case of presumed military supporters

Romney campaign outraged by one man one vote in case of presumed military supporters
By: David Apgar Saturday September 1, 2012 7:12 am	Tweet4

The Romney campaign has declared it an outrage that the Obama campaign has sought to deprive military voters in Ohio of the right to vote the weekend prior to election day.

Now, just in case you are so cynical as to second-guess the truthfulness of Romney campaign declarations, a US court in Ohio held yesterday in favor of the Obama campaign, and against a law passed by the newly all-Republican state general assembly late last year, that all voters and not just military voters (who enjoyed an exemption under the restrictive Republican law) should have the right to vote in person during the weekend prior to election day. So, military voters get exactly what they expected. Others get the same as military voters, which is what may outrage the Romney campaign.

All right, that’s a clear, um, misstatement by the Romney campaign. Any time the Romney campaign brands another, er, misstatement as an Obama campaign outrage, though, it’s worth peeling the onion a little further to see just what outrage the Romney campaign is projecting on its opponents.

As background, recall the long lines of black Americans waiting in Cleveland after the 2004 polls had closed and the remarkable fact that state secretary Ken Blackwell had tried to block poll workers from issuing provisional ballots according to Ohio law in cases where they could not confirm a voter’s registration. This after CEO Wally O’Dell of Diebold, the Ohio company that made the touch-screen voting machines that failed spectacularly in 2004 (and failed again in Cuyahoga Country in 2006 when it wasn’t even necessary) said out loud that he could guarantee the state for President Bush. (In case you’re worried about it, Blackwell sold his Diebold shares before the 2006 failure.)

So the Romney campaign is outraged that military voters in Ohio get no better treatment than those trying to vote early after being victimized in 2004 by the cynical withholding of resources to inner-city polling stations. The biggest irony will be, of course, that the overwhelmingly young and shot-at military may well thank the Obama administration for getting them out of wars-for-Republican-reelection by crossing party lines this year and voting Democratic.

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5 Responses to Romney campaign outraged by one man one vote in case of presumed military supporters

Fractal September 1st, 2012 at 6:25 pm 1

As background, recall the long lines of black Americans waiting in Cleveland after the 2004 polls had closed

those trying to vote early after being victimized in 2004 by the cynical withholding of resources to inner-city polling stations

Thank you so much. I wanted to remind everyone about this in Dday’s thread about the Ohio court decision yesterday. I was there, in Cleveland, on election night in November 2004. It was appalling. As for the “cynical withholding of resources to inner-city polling stations” in Cleveland, I blame the Cuyahoga Co. Democratic machine as much as Republicans for what happened in 2004. The judge who just issued the decision pointed out that early in-person voting was either adopted or expanded in 2005. Obviously, the state was forced to do that because of the disgusting discrimination against black voters in Cleveland in 2004.

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caleb36 September 1st, 2012 at 11:44 pm 2

Matt Taibbi’s excellent article on Romney in this week’s Rolling Stone is well worth reading. Taibbii shows how Romney has been an insider from the days of Michael Milken in the 1980s in the transformation of the U.S. economy from one based on manufacturing real products to one based on financial swindling. In every phase of this transformation–from the hostile takeovers of the Reagan years to the dot com craze to the real estate to the real estate bust, Romney has been a leading force. The plastic face he shows to the world covers a truly malicious person.

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zee01 September 2nd, 2012 at 4:31 am 3

Several weeks ago my crazy sister posted “her” outrage that Obama was sueing to limit military folks’ ability to vote, via Facebook with a breitbart article. I knew it was nonsense, so researched for, and posted the facts in reply. She promptly put a ban on me, like I was a stalker or something. These rightwing morons have their fingers in their ears and are humming “nah nah nah.”

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nixonclinbushbama September 2nd, 2012 at 9:56 am 4

A court decision is a complete answer to cynicism? Because court decisions are untainted by politics?

Whose cynicism did Bush v. Gore and Citizens United end, to name but two.

I have become so cynical that whenever I read about a controversial court decision, I try to find out the name of the judge and then google to see if I can find out who appointed him or her.

I don’t know the facts in the Ohio case. I do know that the Gore camp resisted military votes in the recount. (I hate like anything to admit it, but it was Lieberman who publicly insisted that military votes get every benefit of the doubt.)

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letsgetitdone September 3rd, 2012 at 8:58 am 5

Well done.

All right, that’s a clear, um, misstatement by the Romney campaign. Any time the Romney campaign brands another, er, misstatement as an Obama campaign outrage, though, it’s worth peeling the onion a little further to see just what outrage the Romney campaign is projecting on its opponents.

It would be fun to catalog the Romney campaign lies (sorry I’m often not given to euphemisms) about the Obama campaign labeled as “outrages” and then peel the onion in each case.

Wonder if they have enough money to make this faux outrage/projection campaign strategy work. If it doesn’t, then we may have to conclude that there wasn’t enough money in the world to make it work, because the combination of the Romney campaign and their “uncoordinated super PACS” certainly have all the money they need to flood the mass media, and will certainly do so in the remaining couple of months.

We must all hope that there are limits to the effectiveness of money in buying elections, and that we will see those limits in this one.

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