Reply #30: In the whodunit over who won it, the true villain is slipping away

[dzika]

In the whodunit over who won it, the true villain is slipping away
The Case of the Ohio Recount
by Rick Perlstein
December 21st, 2004 12:00 PM

-snip-
If the Democrats had a Karl Rove—a cunning master strategist who
thinks so far in advance that he wins new wars before the other side
even wakes up to discover there's been a fight—setting up an
election reform movement might be the first thing he would do. It
just wouldn't look anything like the reform movement we have—so
uncoordinated, strategically unsound, and prone to going off half-
cocked that it may end up hurting the crucial cause it seeks to help.

-snip-
What's wrong with this picture? These people should be working
together, not fighting each other. None seems to know what a
coordinated, disciplined, long-term progressive strategy on election
infrastructure would look like; certainly, no one seems to be
working toward one.

Which is exactly what Karl Rove would be doing, if he were a
progressive.

-snip-
As a strategy for election reform, a recount can only work if it
produces a convincing record of abuse. That hasn't happened, and so
neither has the necessary work of educating the public. "Nobody can
say that there weren't long lines in Ohio. And nobody can say that
there weren't more machines in the suburbs than there were in the
inner city. There was not equal protection under the law," observes
Frank Watkins, a longtime progressive activist and campaign manager
for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign. But the recount has
achieved naught in publicizing these problems.

Republicans rely on such failures. If everyone in the country voted
under the same rules of residency and eligibility, their votes
counted the same way, using the same equipment, it would be a lot
harder to hide needles in haystacks. Getting rid of the current
flawed system, ultimately, has to be the long-term strategy—but it
is hard to get good answers from recounters, lawsuit-filers, and
hearing-holders about how that long-term strategy could come
together.

Link:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0451/perlstein.php