FUN WITH A HYPOTHESIS
Snave's notes: I have to wonder if what is described in the following article is something that is going on all over our country, i.e. a kind of "trickle-down" effect from the 2000 presidential elections... or if it's an isolated thing?
Since the GOP succeeded in taking their troubles, which I think were based largely on their anger at having been defeated twice by Bill Clinton, all the way to impeachment proceedings, we have seen a Democrat governor recalled in California, and I have seen several recall elections in the red-state-oriented area in which I live... All have been by conservatives targeting elected officials they don't like, whether those officials are Republicans or Democrats. If a tendency for conservatives to mount "recall" efforts against those duly elected officials (usually Democrats) with whom they disagree has become an acceptable way of doing business after they have seen it done that way at the top, is this a "trickle-down" effect?
If GOP officials at local levels have seen certain election "strategeries" work at the top, are such methods now accepted and used more frequently by that party at the state, county and city levels?
It's easy to make judgments when there isn't solid evidence or data. Of course the conservatives out there would likely respond to my questions by saying things like "Bush won both times, isn't that enough data for you?" or maybe something as clever as "Get over it." I can understand those sentiments to a point, because they might view us lefties as sore losers (like I viewed them after the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996).
My hypothesis: Bad behavior at the top that goes unquestioned or unpunished is seen as "o.k." by those who see the displayed behavior as a means to achieving an end, leading to a corresponding increase in the bad behaviors at all levels.
But I would still like to see some data on whether or not the frequency of recall elections has increased nationwide since the Clinton impeachment proceedings, who is tending to do the recalling, and if vote-tampering has happened more frequently in the United States during the last five years. If I find anything to those effects, I will post them here.
The GOP Payoff Begins
By John Solomon
San Francisco Chronicle
08-10-05
Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.
James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.
A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator.
At the time, Tobin was the RNC's New England regional director, before moving to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Tobin's indictment accuses him of specifically calling the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in the scheme.
"The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters.... of their federally secured right to vote," states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.
Since charges were first filed in December, the RNC has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from the high-powered Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly. The firm's other clients include Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.
The GOP's filings with the FEC list the payments to Williams & Connolly without specifying they were for Tobin's defense. Political parties have wide latitude on how they spend their money, including on lawyers.
Republican Party officials said they don't ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.
"Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC," a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing."
The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.
Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a "zero-tolerance policy" for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.
"The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position," Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.
Dennis Black and Dane Butswinkas, two Williams & Connolly lawyers for Tobin, did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment. Brian Tucker, a New Hampshire lawyer on the team, declined comment.
Tobin's lawyers have attacked the prosecution, suggesting evidence was improperly introduced to the grand jury, that their client originally had been promised he wouldn't be indicted and that he was improperly charged under one of the statutes.
Tobin stepped down from his Bush-Cheney post a couple of weeks before the November 2004 election after Democrats suggested he was involved in the phone bank scheme. He was charged a month after the election.
Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin's legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.
"It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote," Twomey said.
"But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin's defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this," Twomey said.
Federal prosecutors have secured testimony from the two convicted conspirators in the scheme directly implicating Tobin.
Charles McGee, the New Hampshire GOP official who pleaded guilty, told prosecutors he informed Tobin of the plan and asked for Tobin's help in finding a vendor who could make the calls that would flood the phone banks.
Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin who operated a Virginia-based telephone services firm, told prosecutors Tobin called him in October 2002, explained the telephone plan and asked Raymond's company to help McGee implement it.
Raymond's lawyer told the court that Tobin made the request for help in his official capacity as the top RNC official for New England and his client believed the RNC had sanctioned the activity.
Since the GOP succeeded in taking their troubles, which I think were based largely on their anger at having been defeated twice by Bill Clinton, all the way to impeachment proceedings, we have seen a Democrat governor recalled in California, and I have seen several recall elections in the red-state-oriented area in which I live... All have been by conservatives targeting elected officials they don't like, whether those officials are Republicans or Democrats. If a tendency for conservatives to mount "recall" efforts against those duly elected officials (usually Democrats) with whom they disagree has become an acceptable way of doing business after they have seen it done that way at the top, is this a "trickle-down" effect?
If GOP officials at local levels have seen certain election "strategeries" work at the top, are such methods now accepted and used more frequently by that party at the state, county and city levels?
It's easy to make judgments when there isn't solid evidence or data. Of course the conservatives out there would likely respond to my questions by saying things like "Bush won both times, isn't that enough data for you?" or maybe something as clever as "Get over it." I can understand those sentiments to a point, because they might view us lefties as sore losers (like I viewed them after the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996).
My hypothesis: Bad behavior at the top that goes unquestioned or unpunished is seen as "o.k." by those who see the displayed behavior as a means to achieving an end, leading to a corresponding increase in the bad behaviors at all levels.
But I would still like to see some data on whether or not the frequency of recall elections has increased nationwide since the Clinton impeachment proceedings, who is tending to do the recalling, and if vote-tampering has happened more frequently in the United States during the last five years. If I find anything to those effects, I will post them here.
The GOP Payoff Begins
By John Solomon
San Francisco Chronicle
08-10-05
Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.
James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.
A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator.
At the time, Tobin was the RNC's New England regional director, before moving to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Tobin's indictment accuses him of specifically calling the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in the scheme.
"The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters.... of their federally secured right to vote," states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.
Since charges were first filed in December, the RNC has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from the high-powered Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly. The firm's other clients include Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.
The GOP's filings with the FEC list the payments to Williams & Connolly without specifying they were for Tobin's defense. Political parties have wide latitude on how they spend their money, including on lawyers.
Republican Party officials said they don't ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.
"Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC," a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing."
The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.
Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a "zero-tolerance policy" for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.
"The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position," Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.
Dennis Black and Dane Butswinkas, two Williams & Connolly lawyers for Tobin, did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment. Brian Tucker, a New Hampshire lawyer on the team, declined comment.
Tobin's lawyers have attacked the prosecution, suggesting evidence was improperly introduced to the grand jury, that their client originally had been promised he wouldn't be indicted and that he was improperly charged under one of the statutes.
Tobin stepped down from his Bush-Cheney post a couple of weeks before the November 2004 election after Democrats suggested he was involved in the phone bank scheme. He was charged a month after the election.
Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin's legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.
"It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote," Twomey said.
"But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin's defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this," Twomey said.
Federal prosecutors have secured testimony from the two convicted conspirators in the scheme directly implicating Tobin.
Charles McGee, the New Hampshire GOP official who pleaded guilty, told prosecutors he informed Tobin of the plan and asked for Tobin's help in finding a vendor who could make the calls that would flood the phone banks.
Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin who operated a Virginia-based telephone services firm, told prosecutors Tobin called him in October 2002, explained the telephone plan and asked Raymond's company to help McGee implement it.
Raymond's lawyer told the court that Tobin made the request for help in his official capacity as the top RNC official for New England and his client believed the RNC had sanctioned the activity.
2 Comments:
Oh great, now we have to deal with blog spam!
Seriously, though, I think we will eventually find out lots and lots of dirty tricks helped the GOP win in 2000 and 2004.
If you were around for the 70's you know that it's the party of dirty tricks.
How does someone like Liddy run free, much less get the platform he has?
On the other hand for the kind of 'person' he is, he is fairly 'honest'.
Snave - Blogger has added a rather anoying captcha option that shuts down spammers like the one above (that will be back and drive you insane).
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