Will George W. Bush win Florida? - GREAT piece on why some here are wrong

[Bombtrack]

about the notion that Florida is any REDDER than in was in 2000, or that Graham is a worse vp choice than anyone else. Don't listen to the media whores, Ohio is not the Florida of 2004, Florida is the Florida of 2004, except the Nader voters, the purged minorities, and the jews for Buchanon are back, bigger, and ABB - - - - - - -
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http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/8088116.htm

Will George W. Bush win Florida?

He has plenty of reasons to worry about November

By Mark Logan

MY VIEW


President Bush made his 19th visit to Florida at the Daytona 500, sporting his best "Bubba attire." Not wanting to leave out the wine and cheese set, the president later stopped by one of the state's ritziest restaurants - Bern's Steak House in Tampa. If Bush keeps up this pace, you can expect to see him soon walking down Florida's beaches every weekend in presidential surf shorts offering tanning butter for votes.

Why all this interest in Florida? The president's own political czar, Karl Rove, had already declared Florida "Ground Zero" in 2004. The president's baby brother, Jeb, was re-elected to an unprecedented second term as a Republican governor and now leads his party and the state with an iron fist.

The Bush Brothers Inc. also regularly harvest millions of dollars from Florida's wealthy. Every time President Bush visits the sunshine state, he not only takes back a tan and, no doubt, some Indian River grapefruit, but also a couple million bucks. They even have names for the guys who raise a hundred grand (Pioneers) or two hundred (Rangers). Florida is swarming with these guys.

Why the concern about Ground Zero?

One simple reason: If W doesn't win Florida, he doesn't win the election. If the Democratic nominee wins Florida, the Democrats win the presidency. There are at least six reasons Rove is legitimately worried about Florida: polarized voters, veterans, jobs, the deficit, Hispanics, and the Graham factor. . . .

[GOPBasher]

1. Excellent news! Now...

let's hope there's a fair election.

[Bronco69]

2. It would be great to win Florida,

but I think the Dems can win without it. I don't even think it's an issue this year.

[Bombtrack]

3. Of course we can, but that's not the issue

This issue is that it's still the easiest way to beat him. If we win Florida, we can still afford to lose a blue state or 2 to Bush. It gives us the best margin of error if we are as competative in Florida or more as in 2000

[Bronco69]

4. I see your point

Sorry, it's too early for me to be thinking. :-)

[Florida_Geek]

5. OTOH Florida is Touchscreen voting Jeb has push them

:(:(:(

[Bombtrack]

6. And what states aren't? Basing decisions on paranioa aren't going to

get us anywhere.

There has been election reform all across the country. I'm confident in the party that they will get to the bottom of any questionable technology before the election.

E-Mail the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, and the Kerry campaign, and ask them to meet with representatives from the vote-fraud activist community, but don't just abandon any hope of winning places because you're afraid of things yet verified

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Arkansas has rejected touch screen voting

Our Secretary of State said that the technology isn't secure enough, and we'll stick with our usual ballots.

[Bombtrack]

8. Ok, but until polling shows otherwise, Arkansas isn't a real possibility

for Kerry. It's not one of the 8 red swingstates. It was lost by over 6 points by a Tennesseean, and there hasn't been really any big population shift there.

[Awsi Dooger]

10. Come on, paranoia is a prerequisite on DU

Rule One: we win big. They steal bigger.

Based on Diebold software, we are stuck 3% in Florida already. That rises to 4% if Bush slumps in the polls, and 6% if Katherine Harris begins dating an unfortunate Diebold programmer.

[xchrom]

9. hope springs eternal

that would be a wonderful symmetry if dems won florida in nov.

[Bombtrack]

11. bump

.

[Bombtrack]

12. b

u
m
p

[Beetwasher]

13. Unfortunately Florida is a Lost Cause For Dems

Not because there aren't more Dem voters in Fl., I believe there ARE more Dem voters and in a fair election, the Dem would win hands down. The problem is the whole state is RIGGED for Repubs to win thanks to Jeb and his cronies...

[Bombtrack]

14. read post 6

By your logic we should write off Ohio and every other red state(or blue, I don't know) with republican(Bush loyal) governor and/or secretary of state

[Beetwasher]

15. Nope, Fl. is Definitely the Worst of the Bunch

I truly hope I'm wrong...The rigging has already been entrenched and implemented in Fl through voter roll purges and BBV, that's not true for other states, or at least not to the same degree, yet (though possibly GA is a lost cause too)...

[Bombtrack]

16. You say Georgia and Florida are the worst because the most paranoia

has been publicized about them.

[Beetwasher]

17. Paranoia? How Repugnantly Dissmissive Of You

How about reality. It's not paranoia that 90,000 minorities were purged from voter rolls in Fla and STILL don't have their right to vote returned. You think that's paranoia? That's reality...

Diebold and Cleland's loss in GA is also reality, not paranoia. Maybe you haven't been paying attention...

[DaisyUCSB]

18. First, you don't know how many voters were purged who shouldn't have

been, no number can be acurately verified, although it probably was alot. But secondly, you don't know how many of them have had there right to vote returned. thirdly, even after the purged voters and the stopped recount, the official margin was 517 votes. Do you think it's possible that an additional 517 minorities plus might be likely to turn out this time BECAUSE OF the purged voters? That that is what will garentee an excitement in Floridas minority community like nothing we've ever seen? Do you think that more than 517 of the hundred thousand Nader voters are going to vote for Kerry? How about the jews for Buchanon? Are they going to vote for Pat again? Or do you think it might be a possibility that they to will carry the bitterness about that to a new excitement?

You're mixing the issues. And these are seperate issues that clouded in defeatist paranoia. Florida is just one of dozens of states to reform their voting systems with new technology that people are scared of. But it's assinine to single out Florida because of seperate issues that happened to say that the voting machines their make the state any more unwinnable than any other red state.

[Beetwasher]

21. I Sure Hope Your Right

But I think it's just plain naive to think Florida is like every other state. Evidence says otherwise and the Chimp's brother is in charge.

Voter roll purges, shady machines are NOT separate issues when you're talking about an election...How could you say that? They're integral issues when your talking about an election.

I do hope many more people are motivated because of the travesty of the 2000 election and they probably will be motivated, but it's also probably likely that their votes will be just as meaningless and dissappear into the void, like so many others did in 2000.

[Bombtrack]

22. You obviously haven't studied the issue of the purge

They hired a company to do a one time purge of the rolls in reaction to a law passed to clean up voting after there was a scandal in the Miami mayoral election where dead people and other non applicable names voted. Basically ballot-stuffing. But the company included some of those with misdemeanors and those who were no longer officially fellons. Only some counties even used the list. It's impossible to know exactly how many were purged there was only one list and it's a seperate issue from voting machines, which is an issue that affects every state, county, and municipality with new voting machines, and to say that all those places are void, is an automatic forfiet of the election. Ohio also has a GOP governor and sec of state. And it's the state the DIEBOLD chair or whatever promised to deliver for Bush. So what do we do? Forfeit Ohio? No, we make sure the DNC has thouroughly monitered and researched everything before the election

[sushi]

19. According to a psephologist

John Kerry will win Florida, and the election! I hope that he's right.

[Bombtrack]

20. whaaaaa????????

.

[Bombtrack]

23. bump

[Bombtrack]

24. again

,

[Hippo_Tron]

25. Yeah that's basically the case...

I think we should just let chimpy waste all of his money here and try to win in Ohio, Arkansas, and WV.

[Bombtrack]

26. it's not one or the other. We're going to try to win all the red swingstat

es. It's just that there are no really good midwestern vp choices, but there are a couple of good southern ones(Graham, Landrieu)