I remember when I was running for state senate here in Ohio way back in 1996...

[WCGreen]

Of course I ran as a Democrat being that I was also the Treasurer for the County Party here in the Cleveland area...

Even though there was this disconnect between the voting registers and the voting outcomes, I felt that I could ease their minds because I was an accountant. I mistakenly thought that the reason they voted republican was because they wanted fiscal restraint.

Time after time, these precincts that were 55% registered democrat would vote, by large margins, for republicans.

This particular Senate District had a very high concentration of Union folks living there.

I would go to a lot of union halls and give speeches and meet with the leadership. That was all rah rah and hunky dory.

But afterwords, when I would go out to work the crowds I heard a lot of "you're a baby killer I ain't voting for you" or "you're gonna take my guns, I ain't voting for you..."

Every time I heard that from one person at a table I would see other heads nod in agreement.

The FOP and all the other local police fraternity's nine times out of ten go with the GOP because they think they are hard on Crime because liberals are on the side of the criminals...

It was very frustrating.

Then there were all the times I went going door to door and working off a voter file sheet. I only stopped at Independents and Democrat homes.

I was running against the prototype for todays conservatives, openly hated gays and was always quick to vilifying "some people"....

Mostly I got I'm with Gary from independents and the democrats were just polite.

It was hard to convince people to put up a year sign.

Even the local party organization wouldn't openly support me. They gave me token checks, were polite but when I asked for their endorsement, I got the hems and the haws...

There was this one time, after a brutal day of walking through two precincts, that really stuck with me.

I stopped at this house that showed all three people who were registered to vote were democrats.

I knocked on the door and the guy came to the door, looked me up and down and said "I ain't voting for you, you're gonna let niggers move into my neighborhood." He slammed the door in my face after I said "I guess that means your going to vote for the other guy."

I know it's anecdotal, but it was pretty clear that all the people who were registered as democrats only voted democrat when they participated in primaries.

It was very frustrating to see precincts that were 55% or more democrat went for republican over and over again.

[Robb]

1. Thanks for this. I always like an opportunity to remind folks, too:

The other side has been gaming the system for decades:

[Tippy]

2. K&R

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. It's a shame that their ignorance stopped them from voting for you.

They just could not see it.

It must have been really tough...

[WCGreen]

4. It was...

But I stuck with it, believing that in a presidential year, this guy could be beat...

[Kolesar]

5. My activist friend took the petition to repeal the GOP voting laws to the Fireman-Union hall

...And none of the firefighters would sign the petition.

This was in August. Their leadership sucks. At least they should have signed it first as an endorsement. They take the Democrats for granted.

[Fumesucker]

10. I'm related by marriage to a union firefighter..

Wingnut to the core..

[liberalhistorian]

6. I lived in NE OH for decades until 2005, and

was politically active often. I think I might have some idea of who you are, lol!

And I think you're also talking about Gary the Nutball Suhadolnik. Ugh, what a fucking crazy NUTBALL he was; I remember just how frustrating it was to have to see him get in over and over again and wondering what his next embarassing nutball expressionw was going to be. I'll never forget when he said that "we should check how well our electric chair still works on an immigrant, so we'll know if we have to fix it or not." GAH.

[WCGreen]

9. Yep, it certainly was GS....

[valerief]

7. And the super secret software electronic voting machines flip an enormous amount of votes, too. nt

[WCGreen]

8. This way before electronic voting.....

[valerief]

11. But they've been using electronic voting for years and have been flipping votes for years.

I know you were talking about before that. Before the Contract On America.

[WCGreen]

12. Electronic counting, not voting here in Ohio...

There was also a paper trail to compare the totals to.

The year before I ran, I sat on the Board of Elections and oversaw two elections. There were questions but we could go back to the hard data and see...

This was after the Contract on America. That was in 1994.

[Ikonoklast]

13. What you witnessed was those that would exodus the Democratic Party.

They are the racists, the religionists, the gun nuts, the anti-choicers, the single-issue voters that the Republicans love, and welcome, then fuck over with impunity knowing that they'll come back for more just as long as they keep them scared over their favorite single issue.

The modern Republican Party is comprised of a collection of these single-issue voters who are all nothing but puppets of the Billinaire Class, but just don't realize it.

Mostly some very ignorant, fearful, and just plain stupid people who are nothing but pawns in the game.

[valerief]

14. And when do they ever count the paper trails? And when they do, SCOTUS stops them. nt

[WCGreen]

15. One of the municipal elections was recounted by hand while I was

on the board. Now that was for an election 1995, things are way different today.

[valerief]

16. I figure, if they can recount by hand, they can count by hand. But that would be "transparent"

and the US can't have transparency.