by Bill O'Connell on May 1, 2009
Politics Over Core Beliefs
Now that Arlen Specter has jumped ship to the Democratic Party, there is outrage amongst the Republicans. Sorry, folks, but I don’t share your outrage so point that muzzle away from your other foot. In 2004, Arlen Specter had a strong primary challenge from Pat Toomey, a conservative. Toomey came within two percentage points of beating Specter and taking the Republican nomination. Not sure that Toomey could win the general election and fearing losing control of the Senate to the Democrats, President Bush and Senator Rick Santorum, also a conservative, threw their weight behind Specter, a moderate at best, though a liberal label would fit all the same.
So, where do we stand today? Bush is gone. Santorum is gone. The Democrats not only control the Senate but are a whisker away, with Specter’s help, of gaining filibuster-proof control. It’s the same old story. Republicans get weak kneed about being strong conservatives and then wonder why they lose? They cut deals with liberals or statists as Mark Levin aptly calls them, and then get their heads handed to them on Election Day. Bush and Santorum should have either stayed out of the race or thrown their support behind Toomey back in ’04. Specter won the primary and the general election and proceeded to thank Bush by sticking his thumb in Bush’s eye whenever he got the chance.
So spare me the angst, the hand ringing, the “how could yous?”. Republicans had the chance to fix this in 2004 but they went wobbly, as Margaret Thatcher used to say. So stop your whining and learn your lessons and don’t do it again.
by Bill O'Connell on January 6, 2009
Who could forget, if the left would ever let us, the Florida brouhaha about Bush stealing the election? The fact is that Bush won the election, he won the recount, he won the re-recount, and he not only won according to a investigation by the Miami Herald and USA Today but according to that investigation if the rules that the Gore team wanted were applied, Bush’s margin of victory would have tripled. But all you ever hear from the left is that Bush “stole” the election. When it comes to stealing elections the Democrats are the pros.
In 2004, the race for the governorship of Washington state was very close with Republican Dino Rossi winning over Democrat Christine Gregoire by a mere 261 votes. Under Washington law a vote that close requires a machine re-count. The results of the hand recount was that Rossi won again, this time by 42 votes. Rather than concede, the Democrats ponied up $800,000 for a hand re-count. After that recount it showed Gregoire ahead by 129 votes. Okay, shut it down, it’s over, we have a winner. Due to the closeness of the race Rossi asked Gregoire to a runoff election. Gregoire refused. As she put it, “The bottom line is the election is over. Today we have a governor-elect. It’s time to move forward, and I am prepared to take on the people’s work.” In King’s county, the final tally had 3,539 more votes counted than voters who participated in the election.
Fast forward to Minnesota. When the election results came in Norm Coleman, the Republican won by just over 700 votes. After the election, ballots started showing up in the trunk of cars; some districts were ruled that the election night votes were accurate, other districts were ruled the opposite; a number of duplicate ballots were not marked duplicate as required and so were counted twice. Many districts had the same situation as the Washington election where the numbers of votes tallied exceeded the number of voters.
So where is the outrage from the media. Bush wins four out of four and he “stole” the election. Gregoire and Franken lose the general election and some shady counting turns up in the recount or recounts (you have to keep recounting until the Democrat is ahead and then you immediately stop), where you have more votes than voters and everything it just fine. Just like we have heard next to nothing about the Washington election these past four years, don’t expect to hear much from the press when Democrats steal an election.
