About the concession: "That was the plan all along"

[Rose Siding]

Here's an anecdotal story about a young man who returned to the west coast within the last few days from counting provisional ballots in Ohio. I don't have lots of details but I'll share what I've been told.

My mom's been a middle school teacher for about 30 years and today, after school let out, an ex-student stopped by to tell her how important she was to him (not an infrequent occurance- Mom's a great teacher) He's out of school, having studied political science and was very active in Kerry's campaign. I *do not* know at what level or in what capacity.

She told him we'd been very disappointed with the rapid concession and he said: That was the plan all along

Hearing this I pumped her for details and as near as I could surmise, the meaning was that, while there was sadness that it wasn't a blow-out, nothing would be contested until after there was some solid work done on the case first.

Further, it's unclear which group he was associated with in his capacity as a ballot checker, but he told her that while a number of dems were counting, the sheriff accused them of letting errors slip through and ended up taking them to the police station. He told them that he and those working with him were following all the regs- any errors were typos made in the ballots themselves by poll workers, and there were several of those.

That bit lends credence to what he said (in my mind) for this reason: he told my mother that he called his mom from the police station to tell her what was happening. His mother taught in the class next to my mom's for years- she's at a different school now but it's not unlikely that they'll cross paths and discuss the incident.

Now I don't know who told him about it being "the plan all along", if it's commonly accepted among the groups working now in Ohio, or even which specific group he was connected with, but the story cheered me, so I thought I'd pass it on.

[dave502d]

1. Thank you party_line,nice story. n/t

[life_long_dem]

2. Don't forget

Kerry is a strong "closer". I certainly hope he has our back.

[nostalgicaboutmyfutr]

5. more importantly he is a former prosecutor

who know the value of true evidence and what can be done with it....or without it...

he must be looking at this from the point of view as a prosecutor who needs true irrefutable facts

[crispini]

3. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

veddy interesting.

thanks for sharing. :D

[Cobalt Violet]

4. It makes sense that solid work needs to be done first.

Otherwise Kerry would be called Senator Tinfoil.

[dbonds]

6. A less obvious advantage

Think of the things shrub would be doing now if he knew he was out. This gives him less time to throw us into another war or manipulate things for the 'have mores'.

[Sparkly]

7. Any news media coverage of taking ballot checkers to the police station?

That ought to make a story!

[Rose Siding]

9. You'd think...

but I certainly hadn't heard of any. Could be there's just lots of arguing about it and that happens more than we know?

It did sound like heavy handed intimidation. Maybe it fits in with the whole low-profile thing...I'll ask about that when I speak to her again.

I don't even know if any lawyers were involved with that specifically but I did get the impression that he'd been around to talk with them.

[savetheuniverse]

8. strategy

My gut reaction to the concession speech--watching it live--was: this is strategic. Remember the Bill Maher thing about the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he said "That's the thing about Dems, they are smart about their responses" (or something)...

[newyawker99]

10. Hi catastrophicsuccess!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Cha]

11. Well, partyline, this is what some DUers

who are standing up for Kerry are saying..

They don't have "proof" but they seem in tune to the way it would be if they Were working behind the scenes.

You never know until it's over and out just exactly what is going on but I fervently hope that this is the scenario.

[Carl Brennan]

12. I wondered why Kerry amassed so many lawyers.

He is still in this thing.