The Old Parlor Game

[bemildred]

Grand Theft Elections

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For decades Americans have watched both political parties stealing elections by stuffing ballot boxes, resurrecting the dead from local cemeteries so they can have a voting night out every two years, losing ballots on the way to the counting house, and providing Jack Daniels to election officials and vote counters. I think it was Will Rogers who said that more elections were won by whiskey than by ballots in the counting house.

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But it has been ever so.
The Legend Of "Landslide Lyndon"

Over 100 years ago during the age of the Robber Barons the industrialist Mark Hanna managed the presidential campaign of William McKinley. Hanna said openly that the United States was and should be ruled by "a business state" and that any questions of government in a democracy could be answered by money.
Hanna made collecting campaign funds easy. He just told the owners and directors of large corporations and businesses how much they should pay to maintain their interest in "government." He didn't have to bother with such inane titles as "Pioneers" and "Rangers" to raise huge amounts of money as the Bush dynasty does.

Democrats have done their share of stuffing the ballot box and turning election days into the nights of the living dead. In Lyndon Johnson's first run for Congress 'tis rumored that Lyndon was out in Johnson City Cemetery copying names from tombstones the night before the election. He squeezed by that one and forever became known as "Landslide Lyndon."

After LBJ's "cemetery" campaign the old cemetery-vote joke made the rounds again. This joke actually came from one of Rutherford B. Hayes's campaigns but it certainly applied to LBJ's campaigns, too. A little boy was asked why he was crying. For my poor dead father," said the boy. "But your father has been dead for 10 years." The boy sobs, "But last night he came back to vote for Lyndon Johnson and he never came to see me."

Gadfly