"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."Don't worry. This is not a thread about the evils of the stackable hackable Diebold voting machine. There are plenty of low-tech ways to influence an election. Just ask the members of the DDVC, Deceased Daly Voters of Chicago. They won't answer, because they're dead, but that's just an example. Even out here in the wilds of Montana the politicians have found new and reprehensible ways to take the public out of the equation even in the lousy primaries.
Last night the lil' Missus and I went downtown to the Republikrat "primary" caucus thingie. The actual primary is June 3rd but, wanting to be important and join the other bellowing, milling cattle on Super Tuesday, the Montana GOP came up with this weird new convoluted system to pick a candidate without the pesky voters interfering with them.
I'm still not quite sure how it works. There were many questions about the new system last night, none of which were answered by the GOP party officials to anyone's satisfaction. Perhaps it is truly unexplainable. At any rate, only a select handful of the GOP faithful already in positions of power are allowed to cast votes in the primary. Us peasants were allowed to pretend to be participating, but certainly not allowed to vote.
At any rate, in a small town in a small county in rural Montana, the Ron Paul supporters equaled the other candidates' supporters combined. Several of us gave empassioned speeches in support of Ron Paul. One lady gave a good talk supporting Romney. Another member of the Romney group gave a strong anti-McCain presentation. It was all very nice and civil. The other supporters applauded each speach. I went over and thanked the Romney supporter and the McCain hater for their contribution and good speeches.
The important thing to note was that not one single member of the public present stood up to toot McCain's horn. As mentioned earlier, one woman spoke out quite forcibly and eloquently against him. The GOP Party Faithful thanked us all for our "contributions" in the same tone of voice you would say, "Screw you, you ignorant peons. Now shut up and obey your masters."
So the Great and Powerful Oz went behind the curtain and emerged to announce that John McCain had won our county by a landslide with more votes than all the other candidates combined. Truly amazing.
Is this the last dying gasp of the GOP? I'm registered Independant and only strayed back into the fold this one last time because of Ron Paul. I detest El Presidente Juan McStain. Apparently, just about every other conservative in the country does as well. Ann Coulter went on Hannity & Colmes and announced that if McCain got the nomination, she would not only vote for Hitlery but campaign for her. Rush Limbaugh says if McCain gets the nomination, he will just stay home and not even bother to vote.
Well, GOP Nazi Hierarchy, I believe a great many more among your conservative base will be just staying home. I always vote, even if just to cast my Third Party protest vote, but the days of the "lesser of two evils" are gone for many of us. During the '06 Mid-term elections, the Republikrats tried to out-Democrat and Democrats and got kicked in the teeth and lost a lot of seats in both houses of Congress. Rather than even thinking about learning a lesson from what the peasants were telling them and running conservative "mainstream" candidates, this go-round our handlers leaned so far to the left as to make Al Gore seem like a Right-winger and gave us the Rudy McRomney Show. McStain and his ilk snort derisively at the GOP's alienated and angry conservative base. "Where the hell else can they go, chortle chortle? They'll have to vote for the odious offerings we present them with because 'it's better than Hillary'. Snicker, snicker."
So, if the party of Reagan and (the good one, Teddy) Roosevelt implodes and crashes and burns, they have only themselves to blame. Get a clue you morons.
One spot of good news. Although Romney came in first, some of the other counties listened to at least a few of the peasants and Ron Paul came in second, narrowly beating John McStain. It is doubtful if I will ever again go to any GOP primary or caucus after this but, if I do, I will take a freind's advice and show up with a vat of tar and a bag of feathers. Maybe that's what it takes to get the party's attention.
2 comments:
I was pleased with Dr. Paul's second place win in Montana. 25% of the vote was about the best we've seen so far. Another good metric to measure Paul's support in Montana is how much he has raised there. According to The Washington Post, the top GOP fund raisers in Montana were:
Top Candidates (through Dec. 31, 2007)
Ron Paul $63,992
John McCain $10,030
Mitt Romney $9,585
Ron Paul raised more than 6-times the amount that McStain did in the state. No wonder the Senator wants to control campaign contributions.
Erik Iverson, head of the MT GOP, and a handful of his party-faithful cronies say this was the greatest thing since sliced bread, a tremendous success, and a marvelous way for "the people" to contribute to politics.
However, there has been a rash of editorials in the local newspapers that beg to differ. Mostly they're saying what I said, but without all the bitter sarcasm and all those cuss words I edited out. This whole thing stinks like a wet dog in a pickup cab on a hot sunny day in August after he rolled on a dead carp and ate a turd. "Your vote counts" my sweet patootie.
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