Reply #74: My wife and I were at there at the Sunday morning Rainbow PUSH Town Hall

[GettysbergII]

Meeting and while Dean certainly did make those witty statements there was a lot more 'meat' to the meeting than just Dean cracking wise to Faux News ass lickers. Here's a few other nuggats that went unreported.

Jesse Jackson Jr did a wonderful job of historically framing the case and the need to not only renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but to also enact a constitutional amendment legalizing our right to vote so there will be legal grounds to contest future elections as he pointed out there surely will be a need to and that this will be a battle that will go on every election year. He also stated he was sick of hearing "old folks" recalling the hard fought civil rights battles won in the past when they needed to get off their asses and start fighting the ones in the present. Eternal vigilance is what's called for. He also stated it time to stop supporting Democrats that vote like Republicans. He was actually the most commanding speaker there.

Jesse Jackson Sr came up with a delightful metaphor about the two party system comparing it to the two tracks of L ( Chicago subway) but that its the third rail that we're always told to watch out for that provides the juice to run the train. In keeping with this the next ten PUSH programs will deal with constitutional issues. Of course at the start of the press conference he lapsed into his used car salesman persona, shamelessly waving his son's new book at the cameras (with a big picture of of Jr on the cover) throughout his introductory speech.

The most important statement I believe Dean made was to tell us to be prepared for a bombshell of a report the Democrats should be releasing in the next 10 days or so that documents the widespread voter suppression and fraud last November in Ohio particularly and the country in general.

Many other very astute voter rights advocates participated on the panel pretty much echoing the complaints and remedies you'd find here at DU in the 2004 Election Results and Discussion section (sans the Exit Poll stuff) including castgating Kerry for not challenging the vote ('pre-emptive surrender'as Penda Hair of the Advancement Project called it)and outrage at the paperless trail and rightwing owned voting machines. Dean assured everyone that the Democrats will be ready for a serious legal tussle if necesary in 2006.