Support the New Hampshire recount
January 13

I made a small donation to Dennis Kucinich to support his effort to get a recount in New Hampshire. You might think I'm contradicting what I said Thursday about my opinion that the New Hampshire vote count was accurate. I'm not. I still don't think anything funny in an election fraud sense happened there. However, I recognize this is a widespread suspicion to explain why the pre-election polls are wrong. I therefore support the recount for several reasons.

First, there has to be confidence our elections are free and fair, and where there is doubt it must be resolved. One of the points I consistently make when claiming fraud is that the people who can investigate refuse to do so. When they also benefitted fmro the alleged fraud, I'm pretty sure it happened.

Second, claims of fraud will be undermined where there isn't evidence. Recounting should quiet suspicions about New Hampshire, and strengthen credibility about other suspicious elections.

Third, I'm a strong advocate of optical scanners. If the recount matches the original result, that should prove paper ballots with optical scanning are superior to touchscreens, since the recount wold not have been possible without the paper, and these ballots aren't prone to printer problems. It will also prove to those who think election fraud is just "conspiracy theory" in the perjorative sense that recoutns can resolve doubts.

Fourth, if the recount shows the optical scanners screwed up, then I'll know to stop advocating these things with such confidence.

A Dead Polar Bear Award for the EPA
January 13

It's been a while since I gave out a Dead Polar Bear Award, which goes to someone who is denying the overwhelming evidence of climate change, or is helping bring it about. I've got a doozy though. This time it's a government agency. In fact, it's the agency that is supposed to deal with pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is run by a man who think environmental protection is not part of the agency. Essentially, the administrator, Stephen L. Johnson has denied California a waiver so it can have stricter rules than federal regulations require in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These waivers have been routinely granted for decades. This time, not only was it denied, but Johnson refuses to explain. The EPA staff unanimously advised Johnson to grant the waiver, and said California would sue and win if it was denied. California Attorney General Jerry Brown urged Senate Environmental Committee chair Barbara Boxer, who happens to be from California, to issue subpoenas if that what it takes to make Johnson hand over his documentation. Maybe he doesn't have any, but just followed orders from the White House. Brown told Boxer, "Subpoena these guys. Send the marshals out. Get them to tell us under oath. They are not going to get away with this. Sooner or later, we are going to uncover real corruption . . . that is dangerous to California and to the whole world." It's probably more ideology than outright bribery that got the White House to push Johnson this way, and he probably needed very little pushing. Essentially, global warming meets conservative government, where conservatives handled this the way they handle everything: with secrecy, incompetence, and cronyism.

Wear orange to protest Guantanamo anniversary
January 10

Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners to Guantanamo. Witness Against Torture is holding protests in several locations, and urges anyone to wear orange as a sign of protest, even if you can't attend.

Clinton's win wasn't fraud
January 10

I don't buy the theory that Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire because of election fraud. I say that as someone who is convinced Bush stole his two elections, and that the Republicans have benefited from fraud in other races throughout this decade, at least. Look around this blog at the many entries about election fraud (including just a couple weeks ago). I have a whole quotes archive for election fraud. You can't doubt I think election fraud is a huge issue, but it will be undermined if fraud is charged where there isn't strong evidence for it. In this case, I don't buy the fraud charge:

• Most cases of election fraud involve wrongly turning voters away at the polls, like when only Democratic precincts have five hour waits, or voters are mysteriously purged from registration rolls. I've heard no reports of something like that happening this time.
• Most of the rest involve touchscreens doing something funky, like "losing" votes or switching them. New Hampshire using paper ballots or optical scanners, so anyone committing fraud has to risk getting caught in an audit.
• A strong sympathy vote from women protesting sexist attacks would explain the results, and there is a large amount of anecdotal evidence that women reacted strongly to the vicious attacks on Clinton. This is consistent with exit polls showing women went heavily for Clinton.
• Those citing fraud point to Chris Matthews' statement that the exit polls were showing support for Obama, but come on, that's Chris Matthews. Look at the results in the Union Leader link.
• Clinton led in pre-election polls for a year before Iowa, and trailed just a few days. The polls released the day before the election were taken in the prior days, and would have missed a movement the last couple days. John Zogby says his last poll showed the movement to Clinton, but he didn't have a large enough sample in one day to release the results.
• Undecided voters sometimes move as a pack. It's a common occurrence (such as the 2006 Minnesota governor election, not that I expect you're familiar with our governor, but it's the first that to mind), and decided voters who aren't firm in their decision often move with them. If the undecided moved heavily to Clinton, then her support would be higher than polls indicated while other candidates would be where the polls predicted. That appears to be what happened, since the polls were right for all candidates in both parties except for Clinton.
• The Obama bump predicted after he won Iowa did happen. He was way behind before Iowa, and he lost by a narrow margin. Clinton had a big gain in the last couple days, but it was still just a three point win. If voters for non-viable candidates had been forced to make a second choice like in Iowa, there may have been a different result.

Essentially, the weakness in the fraud charge is that the apparent oddities are more easily explainable other ways, whereas Ohio 2004 or Florida 2000 are explainable only by fraud.

Things I learned while down with a cold
January 6

I've had a nasty cold this last week, so I've been neither blogging nor working. I have learned some things however.

• Having a cold makes it hard to order an "egg mcmuffin". I also learned I indulge in some high calorie food while sick.
• One of my historical reenactment groups had an outdoor event on New Year's Day. We were outside only an hour, but still, it was January ... in Minnesota ... and I was sick. Not the best idea maybe.
• Republican caucuses are different from Democratic caucuses (we're getting into the more serious content now). I watched C-SPAN's coverage of a Democratic and Republican caucus in Iowa Thursday night, and I was struck by the differences between the two. The Democrats were pretty much like the Democratic caucuses in Minnesota. The Democrats debated, traded, and elected the individuals who would be delegates to the state convention, while Republicans heard pitches for some campaigns and then voted, getting nothing to say about who would be delegates at the next level. The Democrats elected local party officers, while the Republicans heard the local chair name THE candidate for a post, announce election by acclimation if there was no objection, and hearing none in a couple seconds, declared the election over. The Democrats spent a lot of time on their resolutions, while the Republicans just left. Other people higher up get to pick resolutions I guess. I didn't see how the Democrats started their caucus, but the Republicans started with an explicitly Christian prayer. No non-Christians need apply. Is there still a difference between conservative churches and the Republican Party?
• Gov. Pawlenty blew it big time. I'm referring to the special election Thursday a state senate seat. It was on the same day as the Iowa caucuses, and I suspect that wasn't coincidental. As seems typical, Pawlenty called a special election for a time when turnout should be low, like being missed among the election news from Iowa. He also called it for a Thursday, and on the day students at colleges in the district were just getting back from Winter break, thereby reducing the chance they would even know there was an election. He clearly operated on the theory that low turnout benefits Republicans. I have my doubts this conventional wisdom is still accurate. But that's not all. The seat was open because Pawlenty appointed a long-serving incumbent as a judge. He picked a senator from a district presumed safely Republican, but he took a chance in that the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor Party) was one seat from a veto-proof majority, so if anything went wrong... and it did. Pawlenty campaigned for the GOP candidate, picked a date to suppress turnout, and I have to guess the GOP GOTV effort matched the DFL, but the seat flipped. Pawlenty could have picked a member of the state House, or someone not in the legislature, but Governor Traffic Jam doesn't compromise. Nor, apparently, does he match the influence of Al Franken and US Rep. Tim Walz, both of whom campaigned for the DFLer Kevin Dahle.
• Combining the two prior bullets, and what we saw in 2004 and 2006, the youth vote is Democratic. They put Obama over the top in Iowa, and despite the timing of the election, they turned out big time in the special election to vote heavily DFL. For the moment at least, another piece of conventional wisdom is wrong: young voters turn out like other voters. Not only do they turn out, they're liberal. Obviously they've all been reading this blog.
• The special election took place in a rural district verging on exurban. I have a pet theory that in the Midwest, the Republicans are in danger of being reduced to a suburban party that competes sometimes in rural areas. The special election fits that theory, as does the turnout in the Iowa caucuses, where the Democrats doubled the Republicans. There are explanations, I know, but at the risk of warning the Republicans, I hope Democrats will notice that the rural areas can be ours.

So to apply these lessons, we have a realistic chance to render Governor Traffic Jam nearly irrelevant in terms of passing legislation. The DFL is just a few seats away from a veto-proof majority in the House to match the majority in the Senate. Pawlenty can't be foolish enough to deliberately create a vacant seat again (he's Bush's mini-me in attitude, but a little smarter) but the House is up for election this year, and it's worth the effort to gain a few more seats. Those seats are likely to be rural seats (inner tier suburbs have become competitive too). Two of the three US House seats held by the GOP are a suburban/rural mix, and we have a shot. There may be no safe US House seats for the Republicans this years thanks to Rep. Jim Ramstad's retirement from his safe seat in the 3rd. The odds are against taking any of the suburban seats, let alone all three, but for a happy moment 10 months before election day, let's contemplate the possibility of all eight seats being blue (including blue dogs).

OK, that was fun, now go vote (or caucus).