Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Machiavellian liberals are stepping up their game and deciding that being the play-nice-party, while it may make you feel good, doesn't necessarily help win elections.
Ten months ago, Washington's governor's race was a dead heat. Theincumbent retired, and Dino Rossi (R) had made the best challenge tothe office in 20 years, and appeared to lead Christine Gregoire (D) bya few hundred votes. After one recount, the lead was down to 42 votes.On the second recount, Gregoire took the lead, saved by an 80 voteswing in King County, home of the city of Seattle. She won the electionby 10 votes, or 123 votes if you count a box full of ballots that werefound. Talk radio went ballistic. Right-leaning conspiracy types -- youknow, the ones who think FEMA is going to land black helicopters intheir Idaho ranch, confiscate their property, and turn it over to theUN -- channeled their rage at the appearance of botched ballot handlingin King County and made endless unfounded allegations of fraud in county,complete with the state Republican Party chair waving McCarthy-esquelists of felon voters, dead voters, and people who voted twice, all ofwhich turned out to be a lot of hot air. To anyone who's spent any timeeast of the Mississippi, I need to emphasize how squeaky clean our politicians are; we voted two city council members out of office because they took legal campaign contributions from a strip club owner who wanted zoning changes to give him more parking spaces, had off-the-record meetings with said owner, then returned money that was later discovered to have been laundered through family members, and held. That constitutes "scandal" out here. The idea that King County Executive Ron Sims (D) would have a Democratic leaning political machine is absurd; he'd be voted out of office by all of our state's good government advocates. But that didn't stop the unfounded fraud insinuations. First the GOP tried to demand a recount, and when that didn't work, they tried to prosecute their way into the Governor's Mansion. Frivolous lawsuit, you say? I hear you.
