|
Fail Their Constituencies Post Election Shocks and Calls for More Aggressive Strategies James Carville: Americans Don't Have a Clue What's Coming!
Nowhere has the national abandonment of both ammunition and principles among Democratic party hacks been more obvious than here in Florida. A no-nonsense openly-gay gubernatorial candidate, Bob Kunst, had tirelessly traversed the state during a two-year period, calling attention to the stolen presidential election in 2000, a theft that timid Democratic strategists insisted on ignoring. Kunst's was a voice in the wilderness, warning far in advance of the September 10, 2002 primary that the shameless Bush machine would again disenfranchise Florida's voters. GayToday's incisive post-election essay by John Kaminski, one exposing voting irregularities http://www.gaytoday.com/events/110602ev.asp gave advance notice of Republican tampering both in Florida and across the nation. Mr. Kaminski's alarming findings were immediately certified by revelations of massive voter fraud and manipulation from coast to coast.
A statewide recount in Alabama's disputed gubernatorial election was demanded by Democratic Governor Don Siegelman after Baldwin County election officials released results showing he had received 19,070 votes -- enough for a narrow victory statewide: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/11/07/politics1919EST0782.DTL Problems in Texas arose as well, followed by moronic promises to introduce the suspect touchscreen voting machinery that had been derided by both Bob Kunst and John Kaminski: http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=51022&SecID=2 In Kansas, provisional ballots caused problems: http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/1771656/detail.html South Carolina's voting equipment created difficulties in several counties: http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/4459621.htm Nebraska's election fiasco surfaced in Adams County: http://www.theindependent.com/stories/110602/new_electionglitches06.shtml New Jersey's Atlantic County tally was delayed by "computer problems": http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--votingglitches1106nov06,0,808514.story?coll=ny-ap-regional wire Michigan experienced ballot shortages and polling problems: http://www.tv7-4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1002309&nav=1vrjCEZ7 Even in San Francisco there were, apparently, ballot shortages: http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1002487&nav=5D7lCElH Writing in theWilderness Publications, Michael C. Ruppert noted: "On Wednesday morning I watched a crawl on the bottom of the CNN news screen. It said, 'Proprietary software may make inspection of electronic voting systems impossible.' It was the final and absolute coronation of corporate rights over democracy; of money over truth; and of man's self-destructive fears over the best parts of the human heart." http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110602_elections.html Neither the Human Rights Campaign nor the New York Times had expressed sufficient alarm about the sorry state of America's untrustworthy voting machinery itself. Nor did other gay political organizations such as the Victory Fund take notice. Instead they celebrated the victories of openly gay candidates such as the newly-elected Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.
The indefatigable Kunst persevered on principle, however, which is more than can be said of his now-discredited bourgeois critics. Nor were these same Florida Democratic operatives to prove fair-minded following their September primary, one marked again by voter fraud and manipulation. Although Janet Reno appeared to notice obvious irregularities when the ineffectual primary winner, Bill McBride, emerged from nowhere as a contender, she kept her unhappy doubts to herself. Bob Poe, the Democratic state chair presided over the Democrats' most humiliating and massive statewide defeat by refusing honest debates on vital issues such as Kunst had offered. When it became apparent that Florida's Democratic Party would continue to be hostile to anyone that its leaders hadn't hand-picked in advance, Bob Kunst paid $4,000+ and, with Linda Miklowitz, NOW's Tallahassee chapter president, placed himself as an independent on the ballot. A corporate-controlled press, with only one or two noble exceptions, still refused to tell their readers of Kunst's existence. Black-listed by a media that purports to be "free" Kunst, nevertheless, managed to get 42,053 voters to side with him and his running mate. "Bob Poe must go," Kunst told GayToday on Thursday. Although he was ignored by The Victory Fund, the NGLTF and the Human Rights Campaign, Kunst's most pointed criticisms were reserved for The Miami Herald which, he said, sets the tone for the rest of the media in the state, refusing all mention of him even when it became clear his name would be one of only three choices on the gubernatorial ballot "In the 1970's, the Herald supported Anita Bryant," he told GayToday, "and it shamelessly took the Republicans' side in the theft of Election 2000. This year the Herald refused to let anyone know that I was on the ballot, and thus it seems nearly miraculous I got nearly 3,000 voters to side with me in Miami-Dade County."
In Washington, D.C. Frank Kameny, the father of gay activist militancy, reflected optimism about the state of gay civil rights even in the face of Democratic losses in the U.S. Senate and Congress. His optimism is based, Kameny explained, not on the political parties but on major changes that have already transpired in America's culture and that, he believes, cannot be erased. He told GayToday: "For those of us enormously heartened by our political progress on gay issues in recent years, Tuesday's election returns came as a shock. While there has been some softening of the entrenched homophobic Republican Party attitudes, which peaked in 1992, our hopes for real progress remained with the Democrats, collectively, and still do. Thus we saw a marginally Democratic Senate, and the possibility of a Democratic House, as both a defense against gay-negative federal government actions, and a source of gay-positive ones, even with a Republican White House. Much of that has now gone, at least for the present, and the agents of reaction seem to be marshalling their forces. "However, it must not be overlooked or forgotten that in the last analysis, the politics of the moment ultimately reflect the longer-range tides of the culture. And those tides are clearly with us to an extent unthinkable as little as a decade ago and are likely to remain so. And so it is up to gays as gays to take advantage of that. While the road is going to become a little more uphill, and a little more littered with obstacles, and we will encounter a few more defeats and losses than we otherwise would have, if we plan our strategies and tactics with care, and continue with even more energy and determination, to confront and to push with increased aggressiveness, I predict that not only will we successfully ride out these next two years, but will be better off at the end than at the beginning." Bob Kunst, however, who bases his views on his own experiences in the political arena, said that he does not believe that the Democratic Party to which he once belonged, "is either democratic nor is it a viable political force. On the one hand they refused me my democratic right to be heard," he said, "while Florida's befuddled gay Democratic party leaders who so vigorously supported McBride, got justly rewarded for their Soviet-like censorship of me when, on the day before the election, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Bill McBride came out against gay marriage." Kunst says he sees an America, both gay and straight, facing great dangers under the Bush regime. He reflects on what he heard CNN's James Carville say on election night: "The American people haven't got a clue what's coming!" |
Rep. Dick Gephardt has 'led' the Democrats to five-straight defeats for control of the U.S. House of Representatives 
Independent Florida gubernatorial candidate Bob
Kunst created waves about the 2000 stolen election
that were too high for timid Democrats and
the corporate media to handle 
Political newcomer Bill McBride was no match for the seasoned political Bush machine in Florida 
The media may have played into Jeb Bush's hand by warning Florida voters about long lines at polling places