Greens, Libertarians Demand Ohio Recount

Minor Candidates Claim Impropriety

TallahasseeJoe

The Green and Libertarian parties are jointly demanding a recount of Ohio's presidential vote, claiming a number of irregularties.

According to a November 19 posting on the Ohio Green Party web site, "Attorneys for Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik have sent letters to each Ohio county election director asking them to begin preparations immediately for the recount of the presidential vote.

Although a demand for a recount is usually not made until after the vote has been certified, there are concerns that waiting that long would not allow enough time for the recount to be completed before the Ohio presidential electors meet on December 13 in Columbus.

The Ohio Secretary of State's office has told the press that certification of the vote would occur around December 6, allowing only a handful of days for a full recount prior to the December 13 meeting."

The posting links to an investigative report published on the political web site TomPaine.com claiming that Senator John Kerry was the legitimate winner in Ohio. A reversal of the Ohio outcome would give Mr. Kerry the presidency.

A statement on the web site of the Libertarian Party of Ohio, dated November 16, also notes the recount demand and suggests that Mr. Badnarik's campaign in particular was a target of impropriety, alleging that his name was inappropriately removed from the ballot in at least one Ohio precinct.

The statement acknowledges that the Libertarian Party does not expect to change the election result but hopes to draw attention to problems in Ohio election law.

Citing exit poll data that suggested a lead for Mr. Kerry, the TomPaine.com report attributes President George W. Bush's victory to "spoilage", the rejection of ballots by election officials - properly or improperly - on the basis of problems such as the "hanging" or "pregnant" chads that provoked controversy in the 2000 election. Spoilage routinely excludes about 3% of votes nationwide, according to the report.

Greg Palast, author of the report, suggests that Ohio election officials such as Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, may have used spoilage as a pretext for improperly excluding ballots cast for Mr. Kerry, thus pushing Mr. Bush to a narrow win.

The recount demand seems to have largely eluded the attention of mainstream newspapers. Searches of the online archives of The New York Times and The Washington Post for articles containing the word "Ohio" failed to reveal any headlines that mention the Green and Libertarian parties' claims.

Florida to Punish Kids for Schools' Failure

Failing Schools May Lose Funds

TallahasseeJoe

"Until now, schools that didn't do well enough on the FCAT had to watch as the state handed reward money to schools that did. But under a new state law that kicks in next year, schools could lose money if their students don't meet a range of goals, including higher test scores and improved graduation rates.", the St. Petersburg Times reported.

"By Dec. 1, the Florida Department of Education must submit a plan to the state Legislature that explains how it will tie funding to student performance. Under the new state law, at least 10 percent of state education dollars will hinge on how well students do. . . "

"But it's not clear what will happen to districts that fall short. The statute does not say whether funding will be cut or transferred, and who will make those decisions."

So if a school is failing - possibly because it is already underfunded - Florida's solution might be to cut that school's budget.

I do understand the need for accountability, and I'm not at all happy with our current system of public education. But cutting a school's budget ultimately punishes the kids - not the administrators.

TIME FOR REAL REFORM - SCHOOL CHOICE

There's a very simple way to make schools accountable. It's called school choice.

Let all parents decide what school to send their kids to (as long as the schools meet very basic minimum requirements), and let the state provide a voucher for the tuition. Students with special needs such as learning disabilities would get larger voucher amounts.

Local districts could still operate public schools the way they do now, but they'd have to compete with privately run schools for students and therefore for state funding. Schools - public or private - that couldn't attract enough students would go out of business. Meanwhile, educators with innovative ideas could appeal directly to parents instead of trying to sway politicians and bureaucrats.

The result would be highly customized schools for students with different learning styles and interests. One student would go to an arts-centered school, another to a school with a science theme. We do have such opportunities in Florida's public schools -but only for a small percentage of kids.

Of course, all kids should be required to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the states could still set these basic standards in a school choice framework.

CHOICE IN FLORIDA

A very limited form of choice is already part of Florida's education policy. Currently, if a Florida public school receives two grades of "F" from the state within a four year period, then the school is considered chronically failing and students are entitled to a voucher that can be used at other public or private schools.

A study by the Manhattan Institute shows that the more directly Florida schools were threatened with this competition from vouchers, the more their students improved on FCAT scores. Schools where students were already eligible for vouchers improved the most.

So competition does lead to improvement. Why not extend the same incentive to all Florida schools, instead of waiting till they hit rock bottom?

In the mean time, the worst of all possible worlds would be what Florida's threatening now - to cut funding to failing schools while leaving disadvantaged students stuck in them.

LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES BOTH HAVE IT WRONG

Old-fashioned left liberals often dislike the idea of school choice. They've even turned "vouchers" into a dirty word. Even the center-left progressives at the Democratic Leadership Council disparage "conservative choiceniks" while pushing to "expand choice and innovation within public [read: government-controlled] education".

Why should government have a monopoly on education? Why should local districts get to decide how many and what type of charter schools to allow? Are bureaucrats in Washington, in Tallahassee, or even at the local school district really in a better position to decide what's good for kids than the kids' own parents are?

Ironically, the Republicans, who used to talk about abolishing the federal Department of Education and leaving schooling up to the states, are responsible for the No Child Left Behind Act, a wasteful invasion of Washington bureaucracy into every public school in America.

Senator John Kerry could have pointed out this irony during his presidential campaign and called for repealing No Child Left Behind. Kerry could have proposed bold reforms to empower states, local communities, and families - generous federal funding with virtually no strings attached.

Mr. Kerry might also have brought up the the education funding gap that hurts America's poor communities. Despite the rhetoric of "compassionate conservatism" and the inaptly named No Child Left Behind Act, schools in high-poverty districts get an average of $1,348 less per student per year than those in low-poverty districts.

This funding gap takes into account all federal, state, and local funds. The idea that federal funds make up for local disparities is a myth. The federal government could help fix this by fine-tuning the formula it uses to distribute education dollars to the states.

But instead of bringing up these issues, Mr. Kerry simply proposed "fully funding" Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, apparently without otherwise changing it. In other words, he fell into the old liberal trap of trying to fix a mistake by funding it better.

BIG BROTHER KNOWS BEST?

The current push by "conservative" Republicans for federally mandated testing and "accountability" seems to me a natural outgrowth of the liberal big government philosophy. If government is going to run schools then government has to have some bureaucratic system to decide how well schools are doing. Enter the FCAT and similar tests.

The research shows that if schools have to compete for funds on the basis of the FCAT test, then students improve their FCAT scores. No surprise there. But that raises a deeper question: Does a standardized test like the FCAT really measure what's important about education? That's hard to say, especially since the questions that have appeared on past FCATs are kept secret.

But in any case the answer depends on what you think kids should be learning. And I think that should be left mainly up to parents - not to politicians and bureaucrats.

It's time for progressives to offer a real alternative to the old conservative-liberal paradigm. America's schools deserve generous public funding - but parents should call the shots on how the money gets spent.

A Day to Honor our Heroes - and Remember our Responsibility to Them

Veterans Day

TallahasseeJoe

November 11 is Veterans Day, a day to remember the heroism of the men and women who have made our freedom possible.

As President George W. Bush reminded us in his Veterans Day proclamation, "Americans live in freedom because of our veterans' courage, dedication to duty, and love of country."

Today, all Americans, regardless of their political perspective, should take a moment to reflect on the brave dedication of the soldiers who have lost their lives, or are currently risking their lives, in military service. Without noble sacrifices of this kind, our open discussion could never take place.

This very day, many Americans died in our nation's effort to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. If this effort succeeds, as we all hope it will, it will be our soldiers and the Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside them who deserve the credit for victory, as it is they who are paying the price for it.

If, on the other hand, any aspect of our nation's policy is misguided or poorly planned, our soldiers cannot be blamed in any way. Instead it will be the rest of us Americans, those who remain behind in peace and comfort, who will bear the full responsibility of our nation's errors. For it is we who have had the opportunity to consider and debate our course of action, and we who have elected the leaders that determine that course.

All Americans, and especially those (such as myself) who have been critical of the President's policy on Iraq, should ask themselves:

Have we done our best to educate ourselves and each other about the situation in Iraq?

Have we done all we could to understand the arguments both for and against the war?

Have we made a point of reaching out to those we disagree with and engaging them in genuine discussions on U.S. policy?

In a democracy, where our votes can determine our future, such discussions are a matter of war and peace, of freedom and oppression, of life and death.

I hope you might consider a contribution to Disabled American Veterans (DAV), which provides free professional assistance to veterans and their families in securing earned government benefits. This organization meets Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability. (View BBB report on DAV.)

Think America's shifting to the right? Think again.

Drifting Right? Wrong!

"The United States is a moderate to conservative country," one journalist firmly concluded in the wake of the recent election, noting President George W. Bush's narrow win as evidence of a national "drift to the right".

Whoa. Hold on.

Didn't the Democratic Party just run John Kerry, a Massachussets liberal who protested the Vietnam War, against an incumbent war president?

Doesn't John Kerry have the most liberal voting record in the Senate?

Didn't John Kerry promise to raise taxes on the rich, increase federal funding of education and health care, and end the expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal?

And didn't John Kerry get 48% of the popular vote?

And didn't another 1% go to Ralph Nader, an even more liberal candidate?

So let me get this straight - 49% of the vote went to blatant liberals and all of a sudden we live in a "moderate to conservative country" drifting inevitably to the right? Help me out here - I don't get it.

Of course, Mr. Bush is claiming a "mandate" and many in the media are parroting that claim - even though Mr. Bush's margin of victory was the slimmest for an incumbent since 1916.

Fortunately, Americans know better. In a Gallup poll Wednesday night, only 30 percent agreed with the statement that Mr. Bush "has a mandate to advance the Republican Party's agenda." Nearly two-thirds - 63 percent - said he should "emphasize programs that both parties support."

What I think is that the priorities of Mr. Bush and the neoconservatives are totally out of line with the priorities of most Americans.

I think the Democrats lost because they still haven't done a good enough job of getting our message across to Middle America.

Don't believe me? Before you throw in the towel and move to Canada, consider the following:

In April of these year, 63% of Americans thought that high-income individuals were paying too little in taxes. In 2003, in a FOX poll (yes, FOX!) 61% said the Bush tax cuts had not helped their family.

Just this month (November 2004!), an Associated Press poll found 66% of Americans would rather balance the budget than cut taxes. And in the same poll, 55% said they would rather spend more on "education, health care, and economic development" than balance the budget.

So most Americans feel education and health care programs are important, tax cuts are a low priority, and the rich should pay more.

Wait - wasn't it John Kerry who wanted to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, extend health insurance to 95% of Americans, and repeal the tax cut on the highest income bracket?

Mr. Bush, on the other hand, has made it a top priority to make his tax cuts permanent. Meanwhile he's run up the biggest deficit in real dollars since - well, since Ronald Reagan.

So how did Mr. Bush hold on to the White House? Was it the guns issue? We sure love our guns, don't we?

Well, remember that assault rifle ban that Mr. Bush quietly let expire under pressure from the National Rifle Association? 71% of Americans favored continuing the ban, in a Harriss poll taken just before the expiration.

The same month, 60% favored "stricter gun control". Gallup polls each year from 2001-2004 consistently found that 15% or less of Americans wanted "less strict" gun laws.

What about abortion? It is true that Americans are deeply divided on this issue, with 44% saying they are "more pro-choice" and 47% "more pro-life", with fairly similar splits for various other ways of framing the issue. But these numbers haven't changed much in polls going back several years - there is no clear trend in either direction.

And, 66% of Americans support a woman's right to have an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, according to a 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. An Associated Press poll just after the recent election showed that 61% support upholding the Roe v. Wade decision.

I wonder how many of these people are aware that the Republican Party Platform (p. 84) calls for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion nationwide, with no exceptions. And Mr. Bush, who is very much in debt to the Religious Right for his re-election, has defended that part of the Republican platform.

So why did George W. Bush take the White House? And what can Democrats do better?

Click here for some ideas about what went wrong.

Click here for some proposals for how Democrats can go on the offensive even as the minority party.

Please post your comments.

Organizing Means Being Organized

Democrats Need to Build a Stronger Grassroots

TallahasseeJoe

You might assume that the Republicans would just rely on big corporate money to run their campaigns. That's only half the story. The other key to Republican success is getting the Religious Right to the polls through grassroots volunteer effort.

These extremists are not the majority in America - they're just well organized and fanatical. And if we progressives don't get it together, "President Bush "absolutely" will use his second term to push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, his top political strategist said Sunday." The Religious Right also wants a constitutional amendment banning abortion with no exceptions. In fact, this is in the Republican Party Platform (p. 84)! The extreme right-wing has paid Bush their dues in volunteer time, and now they want their payoff.

Now you might assume that Democrats, the party of the people, would have the grassroots thing down - WRONG!

I volunteered for the Kerry campaign at the Florida Democratic Party headquarters in Tallahassee, Florida's capitol. Florida of course is a vital swing state and the immediate Tallahassee area is actually blue country - a prime opportunity to "get out the base". You would think that the Democrats would have the Tallahassee operation running like a well-oiled machine. Nope.

Don't get me wrong - Democrats are not lazy. There were plenty of committed, hard-working volunteers coming in - some 10, 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week. BUT THE TALLAHASSEE KERRY CAMPAIGN WAS COMPLETELY DISORGANIZED. So a lot of that hard work went into running around in circles trying to figure out what you were supposed to be doing and how.

On most occassions that I went in to volunteer, I had to wait at least ten minutes to be told what to do. On more than one occassion, I had to wait over half an hour. Volunteers would walk in the door and have no clue who they were supposed to talk to. The guy in charge was often working in the back room somewhere, or else he was busy with someone else, and either way you had no way of knowing who was in charge if you had not come in before.

This is a huge waste of resources and it is also very discouraging to volunteers. People are not going to come back if they feel like they are wasting their time.

During an election campaign, one person needs to be in charge of greeting volunteers as they come in the door and assigning them to tasks. That person needs to be clearly identifiable by wearing a hat or teeshirt. This is just one of many problems I observed while volunteering.

If we progressives want to start winning elections, somehow we are going to have to build a functional grassroots organization (at least in Tallahassee), with or without the help of the Florida Democratic Party.

Any suggestions?


Please post your comments.

Reaching across the Great Divide

Dear Fellow Democrats:

We fought hard this year for the White House. We lost.

I know a lot of you are feeling kind of down.

But this is no time to despair, no time to give up, and no time to stop fighting.

We came damn close to winning the presidency. We lost by just a few thousand votes in Ohio, the state that decided the outcome. And remember, this was against an incumbent president in the middle of a war. Our opponent had massive backing from wealthy special interests, and he had four years in the media spotlight to spread misconceptions about his failed policies at home and abroad.

Example: Polls showed that most Americans continued to believe that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and ties to Al-Qaeda, even after the evidence said otherwise.

Why? The truth is, most Americans just don't have time to investigate the details of foreign policy. And we'd like to think we can trust our President. So when the President says something, Americans tend to believe it. When he told America about the threat of a nuclear attack by Saddam Hussein, people took him seriously.

This means we Democrats have got to do a better job of reaching out to the other side - not just during election season, but all the time. If people disagree with us based on the truth, fine. But I believe many Americans voted Republican this year because they were hoodwinked by a sophisticated political machine that knows how to work the media. We can't afford to let that happen again.

What I'm saying is - the 2008 campaign for the White House starts NOW!

But this campaign must be much more than bumper stickers, sign waving, rallies, 'getting out the base', and meetings with fellow Democrats.

It's time for us to stand up for our values and explain our beliefs to people on the other side.

It's time for us to stop letting the right demonize us and make 'liberal' a bad word.

It's time for progressives and liberals to stop preaching to the choir and start reaching across the Great Divide that is polarizing our country.

Hint: If you find yourself in a conversation about politics where you agree with the other person about everything, YOU ARE PROBABLY WASTING YOUR TIME.

I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in conversations like that.

I can't tell you how many times I heard a Democrat this election season saying "I just don't understand what Bush supporters are thinking!"

Well, frankly, I don't really understand what they're thinking either. But I think it's about time we find out!

Of course, yelling at someone who disagrees with you is just as much of a waste of time as patting someone on the back who does agree with you.

The key to improving our democracy is respectful, critical dialogue.

But this isn't easy. It means listening, not just talking - and listening to a lot of things you really don't want to hear. And it also means being open to changing your own mind - not just trying to change the other person's.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating compromising our basic principles. Democrats must continue to stand against discrimination - whether it is on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. And we must continue to stand for the active use of government to protect society's most vulnerable members and to improve quality of life for all. See Paul Krugman's post-election column, "No surrender".

We can't afford to forget abandon our base. But we can't afford to close off communication with those we disagree with, either. Attitudes can and do change in America. Consider gay rights:

"According to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll last May, the public is evenly split on civil unions, which provide homosexuals the same state rights and benefits as those for heterosexuals. Four years ago, when Vermont became the only state to permit civil unions, 42% favored them. Plus, the public strongly opposes discrimination: 89% of Americans say homosexuals should have equal rights for job opportunities, up from 59% in 1982, the poll found."

I think there's quite a bit that we can learn from conservatives - and I think there's quite a bit that they can learn from us. But to learn from each other, we're going to have to start talking to each other. Research on persuasion tells us that one of the best ways to change people's attitudes is through positive social relationships.

So here's your homework: Make friends with a Bush supporter!

Sincerely,

TallahasseeJoe

Please post your comments.