America incapable of holding elections

DMW

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ers/index.html

What the fuck?!?!

This is so stupid on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. For those to lazy to read the article, the Bush administration has invited The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to preside over the November presidential elections.

Essentially Bush is caving into a select few congressmen and woman who are still bitching and moaning about the 2000 election. This is possibly the stupidest thing Bush could have done in this situation. By doing this, Bush is implying that there is something wrong with our election system, and consequently giving credibility to the radical leftist theories of stolen elections. What does he think this will accomplish? Does he think he's going to gain some votes by appeasing a select few on the far left? I think not. The people that pushed for this are going to slander and fight Bush tooth and nail no matter what he does. If anything, this is going to cost him votes. A lot of people are very offended by the implication that we, the founders of the representative republic, need some Europeans to watch over our shoulders to make sure we hold our elections properly. Fuck that and fuck Bush. He's done some pretty dumb things, but in my book this takes the cake.

Right now I'm pretty pissed at the Democrats for putting forth such a piss poor candidate, and leaving us without a viable alternative to Bush. (At least not to those of us that are even moderately conservative)

Miakal

Bush should've just put together a special independent commission to watch over the elections, not something foreign.

The 2000 election was stolen. Many American elections have been (Nixon Vs. Kennedy being a perfect example).

DMW

But what is the point? From Bush's perspective, this makes no sense. Like I said before, to utilize any kind of independent group to oversee the elections and make sure they're "fair this time," is to imply that they may not have been fair in 2000. Now, anybody that believes the election was corrupt in 2000 is not going to be voting for Bush this year under any circumstances, so he gains nothing there. If there are any close calls in this year's election that the Dems lose, similar to Florida last year, the libs will be crying foul and making a big hoopla out of it now matter who is presiding over the election. I think anyone who doubts that is kidding themselves.

So Bush won't be gaining any votes out of this, and this won't give any more legitimacy to a potential close-call victory in the view of liberals, so what exactly is Bush gaining out of this? All he's doing is giving credibility to conspiracy theorists.

Disco Raheem

That's a very elitist, US-centric statement.

"We don't make mistakes, we're the best GODDAMN country ever! USA! USA!"

DMW

So you're telling me you wouldn't be offended if John Howard decided to bring in a group of Americans to make sure you're holding legitimate elections? I bet you would.

The point of that comment was that we've been doing this whole election thing for a very long time and we're doing just fine. There are plenty of countries around the world that probably should have internationally controlled elections, but the US isn't one of them.

Invictus

Hmm, from what i read it does seem that Bush is wading into murky territory here. I can see what hes trying to do though but its naive. As well as appease the left hes trying to shove Micheal Moore and his fans a big fat rebuttal down there throats if he wins.

For example

Micheal Moore : Bush rigged the 2004 elections
Bush : hey fatass no I didn;t and these Europeans can prove it.

However the likely hood of him winning is in the air at the moment. It will be interesting to see if Kerry (has he actually made a point yet that is not reactionary) picks up on this.

Miakal

Bush is doing this not to appease conspiracy theorists or crazy nut job liberals but the American people. I'm willing to bet that the majority of American people feel that there was some level of 'foul' play. They may not blame Bush and they may not even blame Conservatives but they don't feel it was a true representation of how the votes were cast.

It says something about Bush that he is willing to do this. However, having the U.N. and whatnot seems more than I'm comfortable with. Still, it's not like they are deciding the final elections, they don't even have a true say at all, they are just their to watch over and report if there are any inconsistences.

DMW

And I would be willing to take that bet. I happen to believe that only those that are already firmly behind Kerry believe that the 2000 election was somehow illegitimate. I've never seen a poll that asks this question, so I guess there's no real way to know the answer to this.