Public Relations News, Features, and Analysis – PR Week — This is getting more interesting by the minute. Like it has made any difference. Read the entire interview. It is quite interesting.
PRWeek: Why do you think this wasn’t covered heavily by major media directly after the election?
Kennedy: I think the mainstream media took up the Republican echo chamber, and just echoed the right-wing talking points.PRWeek: Why didn’t the Democrats themselves pursue this?
Kennedy: Well, there was a lot of complaining; there were a lot of lawsuits. But it got very little traction in the media. But you know, the Democrats on this issue have been abysmal as well.PRWeek: Your story wasn’t based on any secret information, correct?
Kennedy: No, that’s the whole thing. This was not a secret conspiracy. This was done openly and shamelessly. Across Ohio, there were people who did everything they could to stop this.
This discussion is also raging in the Cage Match. A good place for the inflammatory comments.
http://cagematch.dvorak.org/index.php/topic,234.0.html
he should know all about campaign fraud what with his grandfather and uncle paying off the mob for votes in chicago and west virginia talk about the pot calling the kettle black…. the system is rotten to the core BOTH PARTYS!
I read the article, a couple of times, and he convinced me.
I almost never ever believe conspiracy theories because they are so implausible. However, Kennedy claims about Ohio are totally plausible.
It didn’t take much. All they had to do was enforce the rules very strictly at the mostly democratic precincts and go easy on the Republican ones.
They just needed to swing the vote a few percentage and they succeeded. There were a few cases of outright fraud but, mostly, it just was simple unfairness.
Having read the Rolling Stone article I have to admit that there are way too many instances of vote manipulation to just write it off. More coming to a polling place near you soon, by the looks of it.
What facinates me John, it the way you structure the headline, making it sound like you are believe it’s just grandstanding by Kennedy. Coming from an admitted bit of a media whore (Will poke mac fan boys for clicks!), and someone who constantly rails about the stupidity of the current gov.com, it seems strange you would set it up with that slant.
Predictable will behow many comments will dismiss it with, “Well his uncle did it in Illinois, so what’s he bitching about? The whiney LIBERAL.” And, will also bet that that response will come from the same folks who get their knickers in a twist about the need to bring Democracy to Iraq.
I say send the troops to Cleveland where they are needed.
@faustus: ‘m assuming that at some point in your family history, someone related to you has broken the law in some capacity.
As a result, your comment is irrelevant because you’re related a criminal, and I hardly think the opinion of a criminal like yourself matters.
Next time you want to right someone off without even listening to what they have to say just because you’re biased against them for -who- they are, consider how you’d feel if it happened to you.
I have no doubt there was fraud. Ken Blackwell has been the Ohio neocon’s #1 uncle tom for 8 years.
Oh, come on, guys.
I do believe voter fraud occurs – but the claim that the election in Ohio was stolen was debunked long ago, by that famous right wing rag, Mother Jones.
O’Grady, the Democrats’ general counsel…says, “That point of view relies on the assumption that the entire Republican Party is conspiratorial and the entire Democratic Party is as dumb as rocks. And I don’t buy that.”
#7.
“O’Grady, the Democrats’ general counsel…says, “That point of view relies on the assumption that the entire Republican Party is conspiratorial and the entire Democratic Party is as dumb as rocks. And I don’t buy that.” ”
Yeah – so?
The Cleveland Plain Dealer looked into these claims and found nothing. The biggest problem with all these theories is if this vote fraud happened, it would have required complicity by many Democrats as well. There were poll watchers, vote count watchers, etc. Not to mention it’s generally Democrats who pushed for these ridiculous voting machines, and now want to go for internet voting.
It is to laugh coming from a Kennedy.
Voter fraud? Stolen elections? That doesn’t happen in all major city elections controlled by Democrats?
Don’t vote anymore or care too. Just validating the system and not getting any real choices or real input.
“Harping” is the right word, here. I don’t disagree with him, per se, and I definately think the process needs to be reformed, but its like the idea of impeaching Bush now. Maybe he oughta be and maybe it might do some small good, but not enough to off-set Cheney taking over his job.
Then again, if anyone paid any attention to the Governor’s race here, you know it was tight, and took three recounts to get it right. Myself, I’m glad it turned out as it did; I like Christine Gregoire a lot, but it also clearly demonstrates that reforming the voting process is not an easy thing. Since everyone here can get an absentee when they register, participation went up, but it also got that much harder to track. The last two recounts came out within the margin of error.
Which probably says quite a bit, given that we’re that equally divided.
I wouldn’t trust Diebold to make an honest speak and spell, but there does need to be some serious reform and so far, nobody’s taking it seriously, yet.
Now if Bobby wants to get on the stick and do a Rolling Stone interview about what he’s doing on THAT front, I might let him wax Barak Obama’s car. Otherwise I got all this from Keith Olbermann right after the election…
Sour grapes, move on and nominate a democrat who can actually win.
I can’t believe Americans continue to use voting machines. One guy in the cage match showed that a company which makes lottery terminals also uses the same design for voting machines… that one’s too easy.
If there WAS a fix or conspiracy, the position and actions of the press should not be the cornerstone of either party’s argument. If you have actual evidence (not just whining and grandstanding) the proper avenue is through the AG’s and the courts, not Rolling Stone.
If you have no proof and just want to harp, piss and moan over losing, the media is your only option.
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell was one of President Bush’s top fund-raisers, ranked in the elite “Pioneer” echelons for collecting a minimum of $200,000. In a 2003 fundraising letter, O’Dell wrote he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to (President Bush) next year.” O’Dell hosted a Republican fundraiser at his own posh private residence.
Is it any wonder many of us don’t trust the “black box” voting machines this company has manufactured?
>>If you have actual evidence (not just whining and grandstanding) the proper avenue is through the AG’s and the courts, not Rolling Stone.
You’d think this would be true but we live in a time when conservatives will not investigate their own.
Bush could be selling crack out the back door of the Whitehouse wrapped in kiddie porn and congress would never investigate.
If you have no proof and just want to harp, piss and moan over losing, the media is your only option.
Comment by Greg Mc — 6/21/2006 @ 8:33 am
If you bother to read the article, you might notice that Kennedy did NO investigative work. He totally relied upon already public information. One of his complaints is that NO media has followed up on the story. The courts have refused to take this up simply because the votes were already certified and thus beyond the court’s ability to correct them, the same action the Supreme Court took in 2000 when it appointed Bush as President.
BTW, The Plains Dealer is no longer the newspaper it once was. It too has become an Bush apology source.
Insert joke here:
- Lotto machines turned into voting machines. this is not a comparison, they ARE lotto machines. This is the lotto machine they used for the system http://www.olivetti.com/site/public/businesssector.asp?sid=&cid=296&iid=478 and they hid away the keyboard for the voters and made this http://www.smartmatic.com/solutions_03-2.htm. You have to download the PDF to be able to see a pic of that machine.
My thanks to pedro.
The saddest thing is that the Olivetti machine can and will produce a ballot receipt. They’re being used in other countries as voting machines exactly that way.
They had to remove that feature for American electoral commissions.
The problem as I see it moss is that this is still too complicated. Why not just mark a ballot?