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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Belt and suspenders

Belt and suspenders

by Kay|  January 15, 20124:06 pm| 80 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Education, Election 2012, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

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More like this, please:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Attorney General Eric Holder plans to deliver a speech on voting rights on Monday at a Martin Luther King holiday rally in South Carolina, a state where just weeks ago his Justice Department blocked a new voter identification law.

Holder plans to attend a rally sponsored by the civil rights group National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the state capitol building in Columbia, S.C., according to a statement from the NAACP.

That was where lawmakers approved the tough new law that required voters to present identification to cast a ballot, which conservatives argue is needed to help prevent voter fraud.

But critics of laws like the one passed in the state argue that citizens should not have to present identification to exercise their basic right to vote, which they say is unlike requiring identification for privileges like driving.

I think this is great timing, because of the DOJ action in South Carolina, sure, but also because of the national media covering the GOP primary.

The best protection against voter suppression is voter awareness and education. Lawyers and activists are all well and good, but at the end of the day what we need is lots and lots of media attention and lots and lots of energized, informed voters. We’re not going to be able to stay or overturn all of these laws, and there are no do-overs.

One of the things that makes election law different from other regulatory schemes that people encounter in their daily lives is the one-off nature of each election. A voter who is wrongfully disenfranchised cannot remedy that injustice as to that election. There’s only one 2012 election. It won’t be repeated. If a legally registered voter is denied a ballot the best lawyer in the world can’t fix that after the fact.

So, belt and suspenders: DOJ orders and ACLU lawsuits and voter protection people running around with their hair on fire, sure, great, but also big media-heavy events and voter awareness and preparation. Tell voters the rules have changed. Tell voters how the rules have changed. Tell voters barriers have been deliberately set up that they’re going to have to get over. Tell voters to expect the worst and plan accordingly.

We may not be able to get media to stop slobbering over internet luminary James O’Keefe, but we can go around the celebrities and pundits and Tea Party governors and increase awareness among the groups of ordinary voters conservatives disfavor. We can give voters the tools and information they need to protect their own vote, if (when) the lawyers and judges fail.

One more thing, a hopeful thing: this coordinated voter suppression effort really took off in 2006. Six years later, as more and more states adopt increasingly restrictive schemes, we’re finally, finally to the point where it’s national news, and it’s taken seriously. That, all by itself, is huge. Conservatives and their paid mouthpieces have dominated the fake-debate over “voter impersonation fraud” for years. We’ve heard plenty from the voter suppression side. It’s well past time we heard from the voter access side. They think one fraudulent vote is one too many? Well, guess what. We on the access side think one wrongfully disenfranchised voter is one too many. Sounds like a stand-off to me. Let’s have a real debate, where both sides get a microphone.

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80Comments

  1. 1.

    KG

    January 15, 2012 at 4:12 pm

    They think one fraudulent vote is one too many? Well, guess what. We on the access side think one wrongfully disenfranchised voter is one too many.

    Reminds me of the old question of “would you rather a guilty man go free or an innocent man be incarcerated?” And while I believe that you are on the right side of the divide on the voting rights issue, I think it’s also worth pushing back against those that would restrict access to the voting booth. The burden should be on them to show cases where voter fraud actually happened… cases other than their own acts of voter fraud a la O’Keefe.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    January 15, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    @KG:

    The burden should be on them to show cases where voter fraud actually happened… cases other than their own acts of voter fraud a la O’Keefe.

    Caveat: video was heavily doctored and highly unreliable. Having said that…

    Even then they still got a ballot. But the ballot doesn’t just sit there. It goes into a box where it waits to be counted and verified by other checks in the system. It’s not like once the ballot is cast it becomes a solid vote instantly.

  3. 3.

    Kay

    January 15, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    @KG:

    The burden should be on them to show cases where voter fraud actually happened

    Absolutely. I’ve been using “err of the side of the honest voter” here lately.

    O’Keefe even fucked up. He got a name wrong. He had a live voter as dead, because of the extremely common situation where people at the same address share the same name, but for a middle initial.

    Ask your postal carrier about that. James Q. Public and James P. Public at the same address :)

    Happens all the time.

  4. 4.

    MonkeyBoy

    January 15, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    A big difference between vote fraud and vote suppression is that after an election vote fraud can be criminally prosecuted and change the election results while vote suppression is only prosecuted in some minor circumstances and never changes the election result.

  5. 5.

    General Stuck

    January 15, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    I read today, that in 30 years or so, the US majority of citizens will not be white. Add into that, the fact that a sizable minority of white people eat granola and listen to Hearts of Space in the here and now, and vote proudly liberal, and you can see the trajectory the average white wingnut is on.

    Their backs are against the demographic wall, and they know it. Next year, this year will seem like the peaceful good ole days, and the next, and the next. A reckoning is on the horizon, and its patient zero for a coming fever from birthrights lost. It’s possible the transition will smooth out some over time. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

    My writing is getting increasingly fatuous from oodles of purple prose. I don’t care.

  6. 6.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    Yes, these laws didn’t start just recently–Mitch Daniels was the first R. governor to put them in effect. Remember when the elderly nuns were denied their right to vote in Indiana in 2008? It was because of Daniel’s voter I.D. law, already in effect there.

    Yet Obama won Indiana–albeit narrowly, but he did win it. And that was before anyone was paying attention to that law.

    I actually think that the Rs are stirring up a hornet’s nest with these laws, and will achieve a result opposite to the one they want.

  7. 7.

    c u n d gulag

    January 15, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    They don’t want to debate.

    They want to dictate.

    And to them, Stalin’s rule is the primary one:
    “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”

    Or, the voting machines.

  8. 8.

    gwangung

    January 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    Reminds me of the old question of “would you rather a guilty man go free or an innocent man be incarcerated?”

    And, remember, Republicans proudly answer, “Jail them motherfuckers, no matter what!”

    (Or, kill them….they’d rather kill an innocent man than let a guilty one go free).

  9. 9.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    @General Stuck: Exactly, General.

    Really, the Republicans have to do something to disenfranchise all those new non-white voters. Else, they will fade away into a party that might be seen by some as extremist, irrelevant and out of office.

    (Of course, they also might try to stop race-baiting, but then there’s their “base” to consider.)

  10. 10.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 4:32 pm

    @Emerald:

    Yet Obama won Indiana—albeit narrowly, but he did win it. And that was before anyone was paying attention to that law.

    You’re right that no one was paying attention to that law, in terms of media or national, but it was absolutely the legal precedent that led to all the other laws, because it went to the SCOTUS.

    The thing is, Daniels was the low point in 2006. The newer laws are still more restrictive.

    The Ohio law was huge for voting access people. Now it looks like a cakewalk, compared to the newest batch. It’s hard to conclude, looking at the trajectory of these laws, from somewhat restrictive to more and more restrictive, that they’re put forth in good faith. Ohio passed a voter ID law. The moment conservatives were in power again, in 2010, they went after early voting. They’re restricting access. That’s what they’re doing. Virginia is looking at a still-more restrictive law. What justifies that? They didn’t have the facts to prove the need for the first round. Now they’re on round two?

  11. 11.

    Linda Featheringill

    January 15, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Their backs are against the demographic wall

    I agree wholeheartedly.

    This is also one of the things that Samara has been going on about. Perhaps you could publicly agree with her?

    ETA:
    Also – In line with your observation about a sizable minority of white people being DFHs: This fact plus the participation rate of minorities supports Samara’s theory that Republicans would have to win about two-thirds of the white vote in order to win a national election.

    Peace. Out.

  12. 12.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    January 15, 2012 at 4:37 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Oh for heaven’s sake. Our resident Lady JarJar babbles meaninglessly about that topic as on all others. She keeps asserting Romney is bound to lose – and offers no math whatsoever to support her claim.

    Also too NFL open thread, where?

    Go Packers!

  13. 13.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    January 15, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    And the moran O’Keefe and his goons actually impersonated a LIVING voter … put these fvckers in prison. (After a fair trial and conviction by a jury of their peers, of course.) The real threat comes from these bogus sting operations and phony claims of massive multiple votes by individuals.

  14. 14.

    anon

    January 15, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Their backs are against the demographic wall…

    Is that really so obvious? I assume most of the growth in “non-whites” means Hispanics. While they vote Republican less often than non-Hispanic whites (I’m still astounded by the fact that a majority (55%?) of non-Hispanic whites voted for as terrible a candidate as McCain in 2008), they’re hardly as reliable as African-Americans.

  15. 15.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    @Emerald:

    I have to say, I also love Holder going to SC because Governor Haley is no longer popular, and she’s particularly incoherent when defending this law. She gets immediately impatient and angry when it’s raised. When it first passed, she laughed it off. HAH HAH HAH. She thought it was delightful that voters might be disenfranchised, but that was back in the day when she was riding high.
    It’s like she’s pissed off that she has to deal with those pesky voters AT ALL.
    Hopefully she’ll toss off something ill-considered and stupid. Maybe she can invoke states’ rights again. Whatever the hell that means.

  16. 16.

    Raven

    January 15, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    I’d really hate to even border on derailing this important thread so PLEASE put up a football thread.

  17. 17.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 4:46 pm

    @Raven:

    John did, or I would have. You have to tell me, though, and be specific.

    To me, football-baseball-basketball is always “on”, 24/7 :)

    I don’t recognize special sporting events as distinct from the general sports noise.

  18. 18.

    General Stuck

    January 15, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    @anon:

    I didn’t say all minorities vote dem, but all of them vote for dems more. Whatever the calculations of math at any given point is, the wingnuts will lose more and more electoral viability, unless they moderate their speech and actions toward minorities as a party.

    I just don’t see that on the horizon, and I thanky the FSM that Nixon got the show rolling with his Southern Strategy, and the wingnuts have the nihilist xenophobes in their party to contend with. Deal with the devil, and all that.

  19. 19.

    wrb

    January 15, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Their backs are against the demographic wall, and they know it.

    Nah, their media control is too powerful. A surprisingly high proportion of Hispanics vote for them, considering how badly they’ve been treating them.

    Hispanics and Asians are available to be plucked by the right-wing media machine as soon as they are really needed.

    The right isn’t in demographic trouble. The plutocrats have been using the white working class in recent rounds. They have other groups in the on deck, and the tools to win them.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    January 15, 2012 at 4:49 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:
    It’s been obvious for a long time, perhaps since before m_c herself was born, that white people will be a minority again in America within a few decades. But the way she goes on and on about this (among other things), you’d think she was the only one who was aware of it.

    Besides, I think it unwise to try to pat m_c on the head. She might bite. ;–)

    @kay:
    I’m still surprised that Governor Haley, herself a woman of color, supports a law intended partly to discriminate against nonwhite people trying to vote.

  21. 21.

    gwangung

    January 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    I didn’t say all minorities vote dem, but all of them vote for dems more. Whatever the calculations of math at any given point is, the wingnuts will lose more and more electoral viability, unless they moderate their speech and actions toward minorities as a party.

    In Washington state around the turn of the century, the Asian American population was fifty fifty Dem/Rep, with a small core of elected Asian officials.

    Currently, the Asian American population is solidly Democratic.

    Hm. Wonder why.

  22. 22.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    @kay: Ah yes, I forgot that was the one that went to SCOTUS, which upheld it (of course they did).

    However, I predict that, as these laws grow ever worse, a backlash will occur.

    Black people are not going back to Jim Crow. They are not going back, and they know how to fight. Watch.

    All those new brown voters in the coming demographic wave are going to resent being disenfranchised. They will respond.

    The Republicans eventually will regret doing this. Although, they have to do something to stop all those new Americans from voting. Alsotoo, they have to keep up their race-baiting or lose their own base.

    The coming battle is going to be epic, and the Republicans are going to lose.

  23. 23.

    Mark S.

    January 15, 2012 at 4:51 pm

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    (After a fair trial and conviction by a jury of their peers, of course.)

    Good thing you got that in there, so we could be spared another lecture from burnsie.

  24. 24.

    gwangung

    January 15, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    @wrb:

    Hispanics and Asians are available to be plucked by the right-wing media machine as soon as they are really needed.

    Not after being pissed on.

    People REMEMBER that kind of shit. We’re not stupid, you know.

  25. 25.

    General Stuck

    January 15, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @wrb:

    Do you what your Kool aid chilled? Any way you want to cut and parse it , the trend marches on for better prospects for dems, and less for wingers/ The media can’t stop wingnuts from hating, and the voting gap between say Hispanics, is growing towards dems. Even the current generation of Cuban exiles, or at least their children.

  26. 26.

    Micheline

    January 15, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Why are there pro-Romney ads on this website?

  27. 27.

    MikeJ

    January 15, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    @Micheline: Because they pay for them. Click on those ads and take some money away from Mitt and give it to the only fact cat that matters, Tunch.

  28. 28.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    herself a woman of color, supports a law intended partly to discriminate against nonwhite people trying to vote.

    I think the expression is “dance with the girl who brung you”.

    Hard Right conservatives put her in power. I (myself) don’t believe she is one, but that’s where her base is, and that’s what (she thinks) her base wants.

    What’s interesting is how quickly they’ve abandoned her. I saw a Tea Party site where they’re referring to her as “Tricky Nikki”. Like Sarah Palin, she’s got some issues with transparency. She comes off as defensive and paranoid, and I think that plays, publicly, as not confident in her own ability to do the job. That’s tough for women in politics. It’s unfair, but they have to behave as if they know what they’re doing, always. To me, she seems as if she rattles easily, and takes personal offense to political/policy attacks. She can’t do that.

  29. 29.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    @kay: Well, I think the major reason for going after SC was because of the Voting Rights law. It applies to SC, but not as overtly to Indiana. Holder only has authority over those states with an established history of discrimination against minority voting rights.

    However, as you say, the fact that Haley is now so unpopular in her own state does rather add to the fun.

    And the term “states rights,” as used by the old Confederates, referred to only one states right: slavery.

    Methinks it means close to the same thing now.

  30. 30.

    Woodrowfan

    January 15, 2012 at 5:01 pm

    I don’t like the “no ID vs. ID” framing. Many people want voters to show some ID—it’s requiring a narrow range of IDs that causes the problems and disenfranchises voters. If states allowed a wide range of forms of IDs it would “fix” the so-called problem but still not disenfranchise voters. Mail every voter a free voter card, and allow utility bills, school IDs, workplace IDs, library cards, etc. How many people have NO ids at all? And hell, if they don’t have any ID, let them sign a form swearing under penalty of law, that they are who they say they are.

  31. 31.

    Woodrowfan

    January 15, 2012 at 5:03 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Asian Indians are one of the few groups of nonwhites that tend to vote republican. It’s kind of like the Cubans among the Hispanic vote.

  32. 32.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:06 pm

    @Emerald:

    Black people are not going back to Jim Crow. They are not going back, and they know how to fight. Watch.

    I read a Latino voting rights activist in Texas who said the same thing. Along the lines of “young people take rights for granted, until those rights are threatened”.
    I try to be real practical, here. I tell people to go in person to the Bd of Elections if they’re denied a ballot on election day, because that’s where the career people are, and a person standing there is impossible to ignore or blow off, unlike a phone call. Stand there, until they show you why you can’t vote. Be polite, but don’t move until your issue is addressed.

  33. 33.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    @Woodrowfan:

    Well, but we tried that, In Ohio. We passed a broad ID law in 2006, utility bills, etc. and they came right back and tried to narrow it in 2010. We had to stay the 2010 law with a petition drive.

    I don’t know that compromise works, quite frankly. Give them an inch, and they come right back. You know why? Because it’s not about the ID. If it was about the ID, we wouldn’t have had to gather signatures in Ohio in 2010, because we HAVE an ID law.

  34. 34.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:20 pm

    @Emerald:

    Holder only has authority over those states with an established history of discrimination against minority voting rights.

    There’s that, too. The VRA. Preclearance.
    Conservatives are attacking that in several courts, and they might prevail.
    They lost a big round last week, but they’ll be back!
    The VRA itself is under attack. It’s one of Ron Paul’s big issues. States’ rights! He thinks it’s unfair that certain states are singled out, because he’s a moron who knows nothing about the history of his own state.

  35. 35.

    slightly-peeved

    January 15, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    I think some Republicans did try and reach out to Hispanics as a long-term strategy. Unfortunately for them, a whole bunch more Republicans riled up anger against all minorities as part of shoring up their base. Sacrificing Long-term gains for short-term gains could be the Republicans motto these days.

  36. 36.

    dogwood

    January 15, 2012 at 5:23 pm

    @kay:

    To me, she seems as if she rattles easily, and takes personal offense to political/policy attacks.

    Yet, these are the exact qualities wingnuts love in their female candidates. Outside the fact she had a larger national platform, there’s a reason Sarah Palin has a larger national following than Michele Bachmann and Christine the Not a Witch who are basically just as attractive, dumb, and crazy as she is. Bachmann and O’Donnell’s crazy conspiracy talk is usually not about them. With Palin, it’s always about her. What the media is doing to her and her children. Wingnuts seem to love that crap.

  37. 37.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:27 pm

    @Emerald:

    There’s a lot going on with conservatives and preclearance and the VRA, and none of it is good.

    This is a great site for the whole horrible story.

    Anyway. It’s sort of a multi-field battle, voting. It just gets worse and worse. I woulda thought the VRA was bullet-proof, considering that it took a constitutional amendment and a huge federal statute to allow people to vote in the first place, but I was wrong.

  38. 38.

    ruemara

    January 15, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Oh, because Nikki Haley may be a minority, but she doesn’t think of herself as such. She’s one of them, not one of those loathsome darkies.

  39. 39.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    @dogwood:

    Yet, these are the exact qualities wingnuts love in their female candidates.

    Maybe wingnuts do, but the rest of the country does not. Has any politician ever been sold as hard as Palin was? The harder media tried to sell her, the less people liked/respected her. She’ll never be a (serious) national candidate again. If Haley is ambitious, she should stop listening to the Tea Party. Their national candidates don’t wear very well, (Palin, Cain) and she’s a young woman.

  40. 40.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    @kay: Oh I have no doubt that if the Roberts court gets their hands on the Voting Rights Act they will overturn it, with Clarence Thomas in enthusiastic agreement. In fact, I’d imagine that’s the real goal of all these I.D. laws.

    And imagine if the Rs beat Obama this year. The the next president will get at least two SCOTUS appointments (although I doubt that the Senate will confirm anyone Obama would appoint–won’t that be fun).

    As to going to the Board of Elections, well yeah, but how many people have the knowledge or the simple time to do that? I was denied a vote once in a primary election (I hadn’t changed my address or anything else, but my name somehow disappeared from the roster), and I meekly accepted a provisional ballot, even though I knew it would never be counted. And I didn’t have time to go protest to anyone.

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    January 15, 2012 at 5:37 pm

    @kay:
    I had to do exactly that to get a vote by mail ballot in CA. I demanded(OK nicely but still) the clerk to show me why I couldn’t vote. Wouldn’t move till he did. And the sheriffs office and jail is next door, so I had that going for me. I now get my ballot. And I’m an old white guy.
    BTW the reason why they wouldn’t give me a ballot was that the address I gave was my business. They said they could only send one to a residence. I asked how did a homeless vet get a ballot? Then I told them, I was born here, I’m a vet, I risked my life for the right for citizens to vote and I’ll be damned if someone is going to take that away.

  42. 42.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    January 15, 2012 at 5:39 pm

    @kay:

    I don’t think Haley has a prayer at the national level after the past year. She’s screwed up big time in South Carolina, there are pretty well sourced stories of multiple adulteries and there are all sorts of suspicions surrounding her conversion to Christianity. Palin had some credibility from taking on her own party – Haley has embraced its most toxic elements.

  43. 43.

    tamiedjr

    January 15, 2012 at 5:41 pm

    @General Stuck: I was thinking how beautifully eloquent that was.

  44. 44.

    Emerald

    January 15, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    @kay: Freakin’ wow. That site indeed is rather chilling. I note an entry that says the VRA could well come up to the Roberts court, which would strike it down before the 2012 election.

    Epic. Battle. Looming.

  45. 45.

    General Stuck

    January 15, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    @tamiedjr:

    awwe, thank you!

  46. 46.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:51 pm

    @Emerald:

    It’s a good election law site. Reliable in terms of law, accurate, and they track everything. The VRA battle is weird, because it seems to be under the radar. It hasn’t “broken through” in national media, but I agree with you, it’s heating up. I just think AG Holder is going to fight that battle.

  47. 47.

    suzanne

    January 15, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    This is also one of the things that Samara has been going on about. Perhaps you could publicly agree with her?

    Don’t worry. This one’s as obvious as “water is wet”.

    Although I agreed with her in regard to the Cole/ABL dust-up. I was on vacation and away from the www, so I didn’t get to tell her.

    In regard to the demographics issue, my very racist grandparents, had they been alive three weeks ago, would have been there for the birth of their first biracial great-grandchild. I wonder what they would have thought of that.

  48. 48.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    @Emerald:

    I’m wondering if that’s why he took on SC. Because of this:

    either because it is no longer necessary to stop intentional discrimination by covered states and/or because there is no evidence the covered states present a greater danger of intentional discrimination by race than other states

    “South Carolina presents a greater danger of intentional discrimination by race, and that’s why we need the VRA preclearance, because look at this crazy law they passed!”

    Their own data said it would impact minority voters to a greater extent than other voters. This is what they submitted to the DOJ. Evidence of disparate impact. They passed it anyway.

    I think we (still) need the VRA.

  49. 49.

    pat

    January 15, 2012 at 6:02 pm

    I would submit that this is the most important issue today, and I hope Holder isn’t coming at it too late or with too little. First, all these “voter ID” laws come from the same place, as far as I know, and that is ALEC.

    Second, they saw who came out in record numbers to elect Obama, and they are determined to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

    OK, maybe it’s hypberbole, but I’m beginning to feel like the Germans must have felt in the 30’s. Like something bad is happening over which we have no control, and we will not like it one bit when we find out what it is. And that will happen when the ignorant masses decide to go for the really really white guy, regardless of his past as a vulture capitalist.

    Sorry for the Hitler reference. I’m feeling a bit depressed about the whole thing, and it’s only January.

  50. 50.

    Linda Featheringill

    January 15, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    @suzanne:

    In regard to the demographics issue, my very racist grandparents, had they been alive three weeks ago, would have been there for the birth of their first biracial great-grandchild. I wonder what they would have thought of that.

    I’ve seen that play out [not in your family, of course]. Sometimes the old folks surrender and let the little one into their hearts. In other cases, gramma loves the child but gramps does not. Very dramatic, either way.

  51. 51.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    January 15, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    @pat:

    I think this is the darkest, grimmest time that I’ve seen in the last twenty years. I feel as if the national mood is getting steadily bleaker and more nihilistic, with all sorts of haters and snake-oil salesman slithering out of the shadows to try and fuck over what’s left of decency and hope and honesty in the US of A.

  52. 52.

    pat

    January 15, 2012 at 6:14 pm

    @MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    Thanks for trying to cheer me up. ;-)

  53. 53.

    suzanne

    January 15, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    @Linda Featheringill: I don’t know how they would have felt. But I DO know that knowing different kinds of people is the only real way minds change. Urban areas tend to be bluer than rural areas, and I believe that it’s the closer contact with different races/classes/viewpoints that is the underlying cause of that. Since we are also an increasingly urban society as well as an increasingly racially mixed society, I believe the GOP has another hurdle ahead of them that I don’t think they’ve anticipated.

    I also heard the word “substrate” a few times recently. I cracked up each time and thought of our little pet weirdo.

  54. 54.

    stickler

    January 15, 2012 at 6:17 pm

    @slightly-peeved: You can be more specific than this:

    I think some Republicans did try and reach out to Hispanics as a long-term strategy.

    Those Republicans were named George W. Bush and Karl Rove. They both saw the importance of Hispanic outreach. And since 2008 the wingnut fail parade has immolated most of the outreach work they did. Watch Tea Party politicians calmly discuss illegal immigration for a primer on how that works in 2012.

  55. 55.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    January 15, 2012 at 6:18 pm

    @pat:

    Well, I was trying to be supportive. I could do an interpretative happy dance expressing the joy of Real Americans at the Fall of House Tebow, if that would help.

  56. 56.

    Lojasmo

    January 15, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    @Woodrowfan:

    Huh. Did not know. I know many Asian Indians, and only one is an obvious repuke…the rest I could not imagine voting R.

    /doctors

  57. 57.

    pat

    January 15, 2012 at 6:56 pm

    @MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    That would be fun, I suppose, but what is this Tebow of which you speak?

  58. 58.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    January 15, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    @pat:

    Known as the Bronco Prophet, St Timothy of Tebow was a Christian martyr in the Late American period. He testified to his faith by receiving millions of dollars in return for engaging in ritual pig-skin tossing contests, known at the time as the En-Eff-El.

  59. 59.

    Chuck Butcher

    January 15, 2012 at 7:09 pm

    The GOP counts on the ignorance of voters, absolutely counts on it. The ACORN mess started with “mickey mouse” registrations. This was supposedly ACORN’s fault and an example of their illegal behavior.

    Actual fact of the matter is that all filled out registrations must be turned in, by law. The person collecting registrations does not get to judge the validity, the government does. Once you have solicited or accepted a registration you have to turn it in, no matter how “goofy”.

    Knowing the law and making it clear is the only defense against the GOPers in the election process.

  60. 60.

    TOP123

    January 15, 2012 at 7:11 pm

    @Linda Featheringill: I have directly experienced the tension in a family that I created as a grandchild… as the son of a white, top-university educated, partly-Irish-American, non-practicing Catholic father. I was born in the mid-seventies. Mostly, I was ignored, as my mother’s parents avoided her ever after. When necessary, I was generally referred to, when not actually physically present, by my mother’s parents as ‘his son’. For real, in the late eighties.

    What is interesting is how quickly this all can change; or not. I tell the above story because anyone born a shade later than me or in non-WASPy parts of the country would probably find it implausible. On the other hand, when previously ‘non-white’ groups get assimilated, their allegiance to our party of the downtrodden* can slip, as well. Many and many of my Italian, Irish, etc., acquaintances are fierce Chris Christie style Republicans.

    *as far as it goes in a binary system.

  61. 61.

    pat

    January 15, 2012 at 7:24 pm

    I see this is a pretty slow thread, so I’m going to comment again.

    I grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota. I think the first black family moved in after I left high school. Our “minority” was a Jewish kid.

    That said, I recently read The Warmth of Other Suns, and The Immortal Life of Henreitta Lacks. I heartily recommend these two books to anyone who wants to know more about what the African Americans have faced in the way of overt and covert discrimination in this country, as recently as the second half of the 20th century. Shameful, absolutely shameful, and it’s about time that it was acknowledged for the shame it brought on our country.

  62. 62.

    Lojasmo

    January 15, 2012 at 7:28 pm

    My previously entirely white, Finnish/German family recently has had two biracial prodigy from the eldest two of the last three generations. Both were Asian/white. Lovely children, and well accepted. Of course, my family is largely liberal….even the racists were.

  63. 63.

    TOP123

    January 15, 2012 at 7:37 pm

    It actually just occurred to me that I had one of those moments of white privilege, when I realized that I had neglected to specify, as if assuming it was obvious, that my mother’s side of the family were all white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Hmm.

    Point remains, even inter-white families were a no-no in much of American society only a few decades ago. A point which is hopefully already almost implausible to present teenagers, as much so as the issue over interracial families will hopefully be quite soon.

  64. 64.

    pat

    January 15, 2012 at 7:40 pm

    My sister and her stubbornly Republican husband have a son who married a woman from Mexico, and she has a daughter from a previous relationship who is half black.. Totally accepted all around, as far as I know, but my brother-in-law is still a Repub. He leaves the room when my sister and I get going. Smart fellow, in some ways. Ha.

  65. 65.

    Willard

    January 15, 2012 at 7:42 pm

    This last election I was nearly disenfranchised. I have 3 valid forms of government issued photo identification, but only one has my address. Unfortunately, I opted not to pay the $24 for a new drivers license when I updated my vehicle registration after moving, so it was not my current address. I had to run home and find a utility bill with my current address. Had parts of the law not been struck down, I would’ve been denied the right to vote.

    The previous election, before the voter id law was enacted, my photo identification was sufficient.

  66. 66.

    Joseph Nobles

    January 15, 2012 at 7:45 pm

    C-SPAN this weekend: Tim Scott, the African-American Republican from South Carolina, has been holding town meetings. One of his red meat lines is that “91 people rose from the grave to vote for Barack Obama in 2008.”

    Yes, 91 whole, entire people. Setting aside the need for documentation, the President’s victory margin was 10 million people. If it weren’t for those 91 people, it would all have been for naught, people!

  67. 67.

    dww44

    January 15, 2012 at 8:03 pm

    @kay: Thank you for the insightfullness. I too have never thought that Hailey was a hard right conservative. But I hadn’t been following her fortunes as governor. Gee, she’s only been in office for about a year. And, whether they have R’s or D’s after their names, I do agree the bar is a bit higher for a female. Imagine, if an outgoing female governor had pardoned 200 criminals, including some guilty of violent crimes, I daresay she might not even have survived the hue and cry. Still am curious about what Haley Barbour was thinking. Did he have an end-of-term epiphany and turn all soft hearted on crime and punishment?

  68. 68.

    gaz

    January 15, 2012 at 8:14 pm

    I’m pretty darned white.

    My wife is too. Although apparently nobody believes her.

    My wife gets complimented on her english all the time. And it kind of annoys her. OTOH, she likes to tell people she is (i forget which it is this month) Argentinean, i think?

    (Actually now she’s saying that the reason she decided on Argentinean is because everyone seems to have decided it for her)

    She’s also been one of “us mixed-girls” – when she said she wasn’t the other woman was like “sure you are!”

    She’s had an employer (well a boss but from a different office) argue with her that she “can’t be white”.

    Sometimes, I just call her Fez.

    I’m not sure – some of it seems racist, but OTOH she complains about white folks all the time. heh.

  69. 69.

    dww44

    January 15, 2012 at 8:23 pm

    @Woodrowfan: This was the situation here in my state,

    Mail every voter a free voter card, and allow utility bills, school IDs, workplace IDs, library cards, etc. How many people have NO ids at all?

    till our GOP controlled legislature hired them a Mr. Von Spakovsky, to create our states voter-id law along about 2006. My state senator actually introduced the bill. Till then, people took all sorts of those forms of id’s to the polls with them and were allowed to vote. I have never read of a vote fraud case,at least any that gained any notoriety in this state. Yet we were out of the gate along about the same time as the law in Indiana.

  70. 70.

    gaz

    January 15, 2012 at 8:26 pm

    Most of the shady activity I’ve noticed around voting had to do with that O’Keefe guy, and I’m thinking he may go away this time.

    =) heh.

    Other than that, our voting systems works fine. 91 dead people voting for Obama or not. <– actually a pretty damned good merit badge.

  71. 71.

    slag

    January 15, 2012 at 8:27 pm

    @Joseph Nobles:

    Yes, 91 whole, entire people. Setting aside the need for documentation, the President’s victory margin was 10 million people. If it weren’t for those 91 people, it would all have been for naught, people!

    I’m assuming those 91 votes were eventually tossed out. So, I doubt they contributed to the 10 million.

    And besides, dead people would probably have seen John McCain as one of their own anyway. I’d be surprised if he didn’t lock up the zombie vote.

  72. 72.

    Monala

    January 15, 2012 at 8:46 pm

    @kay:

    This has the unfortunate side effect of bringing out the immigrant-bashing in me. When an anchor-baby like Haley or an immigrant like Orly Taitz start trying to take away rights from those of us who’ve been here for generations, whose blood and sweat built this country, I want to tell them, “Get on a plane and go back to where you came from.”

  73. 73.

    karen marie

    January 15, 2012 at 9:08 pm

    Who is the idiot that wrote this piece for Reuters? Does Reuters no longer employ editorial staff? It reads as though it were written by a fifth-grader.

  74. 74.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 15, 2012 at 10:33 pm

    @kay:

    What’s interesting is how quickly they’ve abandoned her. I saw a Tea Party site where they’re referring to her as “Tricky Nikki”.

    A lot of opposition comes from the good ol’ boy GOP establishment in SC, which distrusts her as it distrusted Appalachian Trail Sanford. SC isn’t a one-party state, but state politics are sufficiently lopsided that the GOP has multiple factions.

  75. 75.

    kay

    January 15, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    Joseph Nobles, I’m checking out that 91 dead voters claim.

    I bet they voted absentee and THEN died.

    These people lie constantly. All voter fraud claims should be verified.

  76. 76.

    Gustopher

    January 16, 2012 at 5:29 am

    I’m kind of hoping that these laws backfire badly, with massive numbers of provisional ballots that cost a fortune for the states to verify and count.

    And a whole swath of people who the Republicans tried to disenfranchise never, ever voting Republican again.

  77. 77.

    Enlightened Liberal

    January 16, 2012 at 7:45 am

    @Ruckus: Good on you. I found out a little secret though when I was denied a ballot- Democratic precincts have lots of lawyers on staff ready to go election day. I was denied a ballot because, I believe, some registrar never turned in my voter registration form. So I called Democratic headquarters in my town, and they directed me to County Court, where there were (Dem) lawyers and judges ready just for Election Day. I told them what happened, and the judge gave me a court order to allow me to vote.

    When I got back to the polling place, the officials didn’t quite know what to do, at first they offered me a provisional ballot. I refused it, and called a lawyer, who argued that since I had a court order, there was nothing “provisional” about my ballot. So I voted on the machine.

    Of course, 99% of people don’t know this and even more people can’t spend the time to make sure their vote is counted. That’s where Republicans win, they know that a slight derailment is all needed to disenfranchise.

  78. 78.

    Enlightened Liberal

    January 16, 2012 at 7:47 am

    I think what we need for 2012 is a massive absentee ballot drive. One should be in the hand of every elderly voter in Dem areas. Beat them at their own game, because of course, absentee ballots don’t require photo ID (yet).

  79. 79.

    Enlightened Liberal

    January 16, 2012 at 7:48 am

    @Gustopher: In that case they don’t backfire. Provisional ballots are as good as no ballot. I refuse to cast a provisional ballot.

  80. 80.

    kay

    January 16, 2012 at 8:05 am

    @Enlightened Liberal:

    I wish people would turn it around. Phrase the question this way, to the poll worker:

    “What can I do, today, to get a first class ballot instead of a provisional ballot?”

    Make them work to shunt you off into the second class ballot. Make them think it through. Don’t just accept it. See if there’s anything they (or you) can do to get you the first class ballot. There are way too many provisionals being handed out in Ohio. It’s too easy.

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