Stirring The Pudding

As the first presidential debate looms, and JFKerry sits behind President Bush in the polls, folks on the left are getting scared. In return, they're trying to scare the undecided voters with absurd, blatantly dishonest claims.

The Dems have seen the Florida vote swing more in favor of the President, and they're panicking. Their plan seems to be discrediting the Florida voting system, while blaming those evil Republicans for trying to suppress the Black vote. This would set the stage for more lawsuits, a la 2000, should Bush win in Florida. The effort to plant doubts and discord about the voting process in Florida is well underway.

One African-American civil rights spokeswoman (Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala.) said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that." African-American GOP consultant Tara Setmayer, who has worked on Florida congressional campaigns, called Bland's remarks "insulting" to black Americans. "I think it's insulting to imply that African-Americans are unable to comprehend or assimilate modern-day technology," Setmayer said.

Former President, now Democratic pudding stirrer Jimmy Carter says maximum public scrutiny must be placed on "the suspicious process in Florida." He has repeated the lie that "several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000." First, there are no names associated with voting ballots. They were paper ballots, with no names or other identifying marks attached, placed into boxes with other ballots. It is impossible to determine the identity, much less the race, of the person who cast a certain ballot. Second, the The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which investigated the election for months, couldn't produce a single individual who could credibly show that they had been denied the opportunity to vote, nor could they produce one person who could show that their personal vote had been eliminated.

The Kerry campaign is prepared to send thousands of lawyers to descend on every district with possible voting problems. If Kerry loses Florida, and loses the election by 27 or fewer electoral votes, Florida 2004 will be much, much uglier than Florida 2000.