Mahmood Elahi of Ottawa, Canada, wrote recently:
President Bush’s exit from the political scene is replete with irony. In 2000, many thought he won an election by disenfranchising thousands of African-American voters in Florida through the intervention of the partisan U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the outgoing president is handing over power to the nation’s first African-American president (”The Obamas check out future home,” News, Last Tuesday).
(Greeting the future: President Bush hosts last Monday’s visit to the White House by President-elect Barack Obama)
The 2000 Florida race had a distinct Third World aura about it, featuring nepotism, biased officials, questionable counting of ballots and transparent voter intimidation. Allegations abounded of police barricades near polling places to intimidate voters, refusal to accept voter registrations from blacks and a disproportionate number of faulty voting machines in predominantly black areas. Also, a highly confusing ballot was used in a predominantly Democratic county.
The race also saw an unprecedented mobilization among African-American voters who supported then-vice president Al Gore over Bush by more than 90% to 9%.
With the election of Barack Obama, history has given its final verdict on Bush, who will remain a permanent scar on American democracy.
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NOTE 1: GOP back to square one with Hispanics — John McCain won just 31 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2004, Bush won 54 percent of Latino Protestants. This year, Obama won 67 percent. While the economic crisis eclipsed cultural values among all voters, the shift in the Hispanic vote was especially pronounced. McCain’s reputation among Hispanics was damaged when he backed away from his failed 2007 immigration reform bill in this year’s Republican primary, as anger among the party faithful about illegal immigration led to a competition among the candidates to offer the most aggressively enforcement-oriented immigration plans. McCain said he would not vote for his own bill if it were to be reintroduced. — [MORE]
NOTE 2: The Republicans are in serious denial. — The post-election Republican soul searching has featured a convenient amnesia about the party’s race-based ‘Southern strategy.‘
A few heretics excepted, they hope to blame all their woes on their unpopular president, the inept McCain campaign and their party’s latent greed for budget-busting earmarks. The trouble is far more fundamental than that. The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like ‘guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,‘ he was the first to correctly call the election.
The icing on this rancid cake was the race-baiting of Obama and the immigrant bashing by G.O.P. hopefuls who tried to outdo the nativist fringe candidate Tom Tancredo. — [READ MORE -- THE MOOSE STOPS HERE]
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How Bush Stole Florida
How Bush Stole Florida - Part 1 of 2
Special Read: The systematic efforts to suppress the minority vote (especially black), and Republican election rigging is legendary.
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Let The Celebrations Begin:
| View The Barack Obama Photo Album |
References:
1. 5 Myths About an Election of Mythic Proportions
2. Obama’s New Liberal Order
3. First-time voters look to Obama to restore American dream
4. Obama and McCain set to meet in Chicago
5. Obama says thanks on last day as Illinois senator
6. Getting inside Obama’s ‘brain’
Popularity: 10% [?]
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