Reply #27: fair enough, let me rephrase:

[Mike Niendorff]

"back in 2000, when it really might have changed something".

Back in 2000, the Congressional Black Caucus took the issue up. They challenged Florida's electors, and they clearly had cause to. Al Gore won the popular vote. Al Gore quite certainly won Florida, too. The SCOTUS decision that stopped the count was blatantly partisan and equally as blatantly the product of bad faith. Impeachment of the Five Criminals was a real possibility. All that was needed to start that fight was for ONE DEMOCRATIC SENATOR to stand up and be counted. ONE. Yet not one Democratic Senator would do it (including John Kerry, I might add).

IMHO, 2000 was the brink of real action. Nation-changing action. Shake-up-the-whole-system action.

2004? Sorry, but whether there was fraud or not, it's simply not as nakedly in-your-face as it was with the open theft of the 2000 election.

Thus, my relative comparison of the two situations. Still, I admit that I am somewhat tipping my hand here, because for all the legitimate points that have been raised about Ohio, etc, I'm still not seeing enough to convince most people of large-scale fraud (and, yes, the exit polls are clearly a smoking gun, but the same was true in 2002, as well (see: Georgia)). Maybe it's just a matter of awareness (people are certainly making this an issue in a way they should have -- but didn't -- in 2002), but I'm still cynical because 2000 was just so blatant by comparison.


MDN