Salon: My Right Wing Degree (Learn how to rig an election)

[AtLiberty]

MY RIGHT WING DEGREE

How I learned to convert liberal campuses into conservative havens at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, alma mater of Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jeff Gannon and two Miss Americas

By Jeff Horwitz
May 24, 2005
Salon

One recent Sunday, at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, a dozen students meet for the second and final day of training in grass-roots youth politics. All are earnest, idealistic and as right wing as you can get. They take careful notes as instructor Paul Gourley teaches them how to rig a campus mock election.

It's nothing illegal -- no ballot stuffing necessary, even at the most liberal colleges. First you find a nonpartisan campus group to sponsor the election, so you can't be accused of cheating. Next, volunteer to organize the thing. College students are lazy, and they'll probably let you. Always keep in mind that a rigged mock election is all about location, location, location.

"Can anyone tell me," asks Gourley, a veteran mock electioneer, "why you don't want the polling place in the cafeteria?"

Stephen, a shy antiabortion activist sitting toward the rear of the class, raises his hand: "Because you want to suppress the vote?"

"Stephen has the right answer!" Gourley exclaims, tossing Stephen his prize, a copy of Robert Bork's "Slouching Toward Gomorrah."

*snip*

There is no better place to master the art of mock-election rigging -- and there is no better master than Morton Blackwell, who invented the trick in 1964 and has been teaching it ever since...

Go to Salon and click the one-day pass:

www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/25/blackwell/

[TexasLawyer]

1. absolutely sickening

[mahina]

2. Thanks, know thine enemy.

[tech3149]

3. That's an article we should all read

and remeber it well

[meganmonkey]

4. Ugh - that is just scary. Skin-crawling

:scared:

For me the worst part is that I don't want us to have to BECOME that to beat it, you know? I don't want to have to stoop to that level of calculated, cold-hearted manipulation in order to win.

What to do, what to do....

[AtLiberty]

6. Not necessarily, meganmonkey...

We could go a long, long way educating people (particularly campuses) to beware of certain tactics.

[AtLiberty]

5. What can we do to remove its charity status?

The Blackwell Institute has nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity status, raking in millions.

What can we do?

[AtLiberty]

7. PLEASE -- I urge all of you to read this article!

[Wilms]

8. kick n/t

[riqster]

9. Unfortunately, these cats are the smart ones.

We see the idiots like Rove, but these people are far more dangerous.

[Bill Bored]

10. Blackwell? Any relation to Katherine? nt

[Amaryllis]

11. Could someone post the gist of the article?

[Carolab]

12. I'd LOVE to read this but getting a day pass at Salon SUCKS

n/t

[AtLiberty]

14. Getting a day pass at Salon takes 10-15 seconds...

[Carolab]

15. I have YET to understand it. I click on the logo, watch the ad

and nada! Wassup?

On edit: It finally worked.

"Enough people were yelling and screaming about the president that if they'd actually picked up the phone book and started calling, they might have won," he says. "They went to concerts, they bashed the president, but they didn't work. If enough people had, maybe we'd have a different president. The election was not inevitable. And too many think it was."

Excuse me, but I distinctly remember a HUGE GOTV drive? I personally partipated.

Blackwell decries the "conspiracy"--methinks he doth protest too much.

[Wilms]

13. kick n/t