Reply #55: What a cheap oportunist attack

[karynnj]

The Edwards were silent through at least the middle of 2006. They were not among the people speaking out when the MSM was treating people who did as if they were out of their minds.

If Edwards thought there was a case, wasn't he, as a citizen, responsible for at minimum putting the information out there.

The fact is the Edwards said nothing for a year and a half - and have STILL not said anything substantial.

There STILL is no proof that could have been taken into an Ohio court that would have changed the numbers to Kerry winning. Remember that by sometime in December the Republican dominated Ohio legislature, by the Constitution had to designate the delegates to the electoral college. Even if the impossible were done and we had a whistle blower, there is a good chance that at most it would have thrown the election into dispute. The December time frame allows enough time for recounts, but not a trial to prove that there was fraud. There is no provision for a new election. In 2000, there was talk (from John Roberts) that the legislature should say the election was in dispute and vote the delegates directly.

Look at New Hampshire, where the Republicans were caught red handed blocking the GOTV lines in the 2002 race between Sununu and Sheehan. There are people who were indicted and convicted, but not till last year, 2006 - four years into Sununu's term. Not to mention that even though that race was close and it is probable that this illegal action suppressed Sheehan's votes, no one has tried to change the result of the election - Sununu is the Senator. Sheehan is running against him again in 2008 and is miles ahead.

That was a situation where we had proof of what was done and by whom - and it took 4 years to go through the courts. In Ohio, we may, at some point, now that there is an excellent Democrat in the job of Secretary of State, get that needed proof of anything illegal that was done. As in NH, the result would be that people could go to jail and the history books would show that the Republicans stole 2 elections in a row.

Barabara Boxer joined the black caucus in 2005 to get the types of abuses that occurred into the Congressional record and before the public. The MSM downplayed them, which was why they needed to be on record. Look at the coverage of this issue in late 2004 and early 2005, there were very few mainstream Democrats who touched the issue, and John Edwards was not among them, Kerry was. Bill Clinton, less than 2 weeks later, was babbling at the opening of his library of liking both Bush and Kerry and within a month bad mouthing Kerry. In 2000, the entire nation knew the election was in debate. In 2004, the media was immediately speaking of a big Bush victory - focusing on the 3 million (which did decrease when all the ballots were counted in states like CA, well before the absentee, military and ex-pat votes were counted).

Teresa Heinz Kerry was ridiculed and attacked for saying in Seattle in 2005, when asked about the election, that it was a problem IF the machines could be manipulated and that this needed to be fixed.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/214744_joel07.html?source=rss

Kerry spoke as early as January 19, 2005 on voter suppression. Looking for a link, I found this as well - which shows some of the milder flack Kerry got. (do a google and you can find RW accounts that go as far as calling him delusional or worse.)

http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/002929.html (Note that Kenyon College had kids voting after 11 hour waits. The machines were not distributed proportionately - here, Kerry said ONLY what was absolutely 100% provable, as would be expected from someone known for his meticulous work both in Senate investigations and as a prosecutor. Note the comments in the AP article - those are the ones that went into nation-wide articles.

Here's how it was reported in Boston:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2005/01/18/kerry_alleges_voters_were_suppressed?pg=full

I did not hear the Edwardses making this an issue at all, until the climate changed in 2006.