Amidst a rising chorus of angry voices protesting the flawed results in the New Hampshire primary, Dennis Kucinich has called for a recount to restore, “public confidence in the election process.”
Recalling the traumatic collapse of the presidential election that led to the imposition of an unelected presidency on a nation that prides itself as, “the land of the free,” Kucinich explained his motivation for calling for a recount in New Hampshire, “Ever since the 2000 election . . . the American people have been losing faith in their belief that their votes were actually counted.”
Immediately after the New Hampshire results began to pour in, astute observers of presidential elections became troubled since the tabulations did not correspond to either the results of nine major polls or the exit polling compiled in statewide surveys on the day of the vote.
Although the count giving Hillary Clinton a slight majority over Barack Obama was described as an “upset” in the mainstream media, many Americans recalled their serious concerns over the deeply flawed presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 that cast a darkening shadow over the entire electoral process in the United States even today.
Pollsters have been at a loss to articulate a palatable explanation for Clinton’s apparent victory, and the suspicion that it was more apparent than real is gaining traction with the general populace.
A film revealing a trace of emotion in one of her conversations with voters on the day preceding the election was seized upon as an argument for a last minute surge for Senator Hillary Clinton. However, after viewing the tape many people remain unconvinced that such a trivial epiphany could transform the dynamics of an election that had placed Barack Obama in command of a formidable majority.
Several pundits have argued that racism undermined Obama’s campaign at the last minute, but this explanation failed to consider his victory in lilywhite Iowa less than one week earlier.
Over the past eight years when public concerns for electoral integrity have escalated, Karl Rove became the center of suspicion in a political milieu characterized by brazenly rigged presidential elections.
Prodded by public demands for transparency in the electoral process, legislation to guard against vote fraud became a hot topic in the halls of congress. Unfortunately, effective safeguards against computerized vote fraud remain obscure in the digital age.
A host of authors and investigators point to discrepancies between exit polls and recorded votes in New Hampshire. Others cite cases of votes being unrecorded. Backers of Ron Paul are particularly militant as they believe that his campaign was sabotaged by deliberate vote fraud.
Digital ballot counting machines are receiving the most intense scrutiny. Bev Harris, one of America’s most outspoken critics of digital voting, points to New Hampshire’s reliance on Diebold optical scanners – ballot tabulation devices offering virtually no serious form of electoral security.
In what many are interpreting as a gesture of solidarity from a sympathetic victim of electoral chicanery, John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama today. After apparently losing the election in 2004, Kerry eventually joined a lawsuit for a recount in Ohio, a state that many experts including Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. believe to be so riddled with electoral corruption that it cost the senator from Massachusetts the White House.
Remaining above the fray, Obama maintains his aggressive campaign schedule. Obama’s moment of glory as the victor in Iowa was defused by the anomalous results in New Hampshire.
A close colleague of Karl Rove, the notorious Republican political consultant, Dick Morris has released a memo dissecting Hillary Clinton that presents a blueprint for a campaign to demolish her credibility should she eventually become the Democratic nominee.
Ironically, Morris worked for the Clintons both while they were still in the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas and later when they had moved to the White House.
In a bizarre episode recorded in the un-put-downable political biography of the dean of American political consultants, Raymond Strother, the Clintons became so disillusioned with Morris that the governor literally beat him to a pulp late one night at their mansion in Little Rock. From that ignominious denouement, Morris would return to advise Clinton on his re-election campaign in 1995 and 1996 – until he became embroiled in a prostitution scandal that precipitated his resignation.
Morris has written books and a myriad articles defining the weaknesses of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy making it clear to those interested that he longs for her to become the Democratic nominee. In his interview with Fox, Rove expressed his opinion-desire for Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic nominee when he predicted that she would be defeated by the Republican nominee.
Given their past record of what are perceived by experts to have been a lengthening string of egregious electoral interventions, one wonders whether either Rove or Morris will ever be held to account for vote fraud – or not.
One thing is abundantly clear – Kucinich’s call for a recount in New Hampshire will not make either man happy nor allow them to sleep any more comfortably.
