Reply #78: What's your basis for the glowing review of NH election officials.

[autorank]

I was up there on some business a couple of years ago. I picked up a paper and found a most interesting scandal. It seems that the judges in the NH system were giving each other incredible hearings and judgments when one of them appeared before the bar for a divorce case. This involved more than a few judges, quite a few. It was a major scandal. There was a review of some of the cases and it gave new meaning to the term "spousal abuse." Now that's the judicial system, the entire system because it was judges from the various courts appearing in divorce cases. I'm less than inspired by NH civil servants.

In addition, Nader does not inspire me either. I liked his consumer work but 2000 and then 2004 were ridiculous displays of ego and pique. Saying there was no difference between Gore and Bush was bizarre and in retrospect, profoundly mistaken, in the worst way. Had it been Cobb asking for and supervising the recount and had Cobb blessed it, I'd have no problem accepting the result.

I noticed you sneaked in your belief that Bush won. Too bad. We don't know who won but by the evidence used to topple nasty regimes overseas, the exit polls (and ours are superior), it sure doesn't look like it. That's before you even get near the massive acts of voter suppression and other irregularities.

Our party is about to take another screwing in 2006 due to the Ostrich Syndrome and so the focus needs to be right there. The new Voter ID laws the Republicans passed are a Jim Crow revival. Centralized registration databases must be monitored after Florida (twice, 2000 and 2004), and, of course, phantom ballots delivered to a vendor secured and guarded machine, never to be seen after you tochh the screen (not to mention the tabulator problems).

I just don't see any reason, especially after all the horrible actions of Bush and Co, to give him any benefit of the doubt.