What About Voter Fraud?

I'm really curious. I'd like readers to pass along a bit of information and to take a poll of those who hear it.

This evening I heard a rebroadcast on the local Salem Broadcasting affiliate of a Bill Bennett segment from (I guess) Wednesday or Thursday morning.

The rebroadcast, on what is called Weekend Journal, at around 10 minutes in, went something like this:

Bill Bennett:  Could a good GOP candidate have won the senate seat from Nevada?
Byron York: Exit polls were taken asking just one question "do you approve or disapprove of Harry Reid's performance as senator?" Disapprove was the answer of 55%. 

For the record, I have transcribed this more completely. It can be found below the break.

Harry Reid won reelection with 50% of the vote to Sharon Angle's 45%. Yet Bennett steers the argument (and York complies) to agree with his opinion that the loss was due to Angle being a poor candidate.

I do not care that Bennett has written wonderful volumes about American values and decency. When he backs the established order of professional politicians from whom he receives some degree of respect, I have to wonder how much he panders for them and how much he lives by what he preaches. I've discussed the danger from antidisestablishmentarians before.

You would think that 

• there were no stories of voting irregularities during the multi-week voting period. 
• that there were no stories of Nevada voting machines malfunctioning. 
• that there were no power outages at some polls. 
• that it wasn't revealed that SEIU members were in charge of servicing them.
• that the Harry Reid, and the Dems, and the SEIU are all beyond reproach. 
• Oh, and that we are all Pollyannas (like Mr. Bennett played that Wednesday morning).

Bill Bennett, Byron York, Salem Broadcasting

You know what I'd love to have? I'd love to have an unedited recording of Bill Bennett's telephone screener. I'd like to know exactly how many of the callers to his show that asked "What about voter fraud from the Reid backers?" were hung up on.

That leads me to the unofficial poll I'd like my readers to ask their friends who they believe will give them a frank answer.

"When discussing the Angle loss, in the light of the wide margin of dislike for Reid by people who had just voted, do you think it out of order to be considering massive vote rigging as the cause for the discrepancy between the vote result and the sentiment?"

Who reading this commentary doubts that if the roles were reversed -- the Republicans and Angle and a belligerently non-union group were responsible for the voting machines -- that the Democrats and Reid and all of Minitrue would not be covering the "fraud" 24/7? That would be all the news all the time even without the multiple reports of machine errors and the like.

Do you know what it is like in Zimbabwe? Robert Mugabe has held onto power while his former breadbasket of a country has been driven into starvation under his rule. In 2002, his own interior minister said that 7 million of 14 million Zimbabweans would starve. What population VOTES for a regime that openly plans like that? Since then, reports of voting irregularities increased with every vote. The rest of the world has simply watched as voter fraud and intimidation and even the brutal murder of the wife of his opponent has even affected Mr Mugabe. When he offered to step-down, the strongmen of his Zanu-PF party would have none of it. Now there is a bipartisan "sharing" of power (believe that?), but the destruction of a once productive country continues, and the death toll still mounts. That is what ignoring voter fraud has reaped.

Is it possible that such a sorry state could be visited upon us? How are we different when we do not raise a stink? Well, as long as you accept the word of leaders who act like those three monkeys in the face of reports of voter fraud, you know you can expect more of it.

Wrong-doers unpunished see no down-side to their wrong-doing.

Just when did conservatives decide it was wise to behave towards political wrong-doing like liberals behave toward violent criminals? I'm guessing in was back in 1960 when Richard Nixon didn't fight the theft of the votes in Chicago which provided just enough electoral votes for JFK to win the presidency.

When will we Americans learn not to sit back and not say a word and simply accept such Republican spinelessness?

Oh, that reminds me. What is the answer to this question: "Why do some Republicans who never seem to get angry in the face of Democratic slanders of them always become fierce tigers when confronted by real principled conservatives in their own party?" Is there really only one party?


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Bennett: A good year for Republicans where there were good candidates. Unlike in Delaware and Nevada. You're in Nevada. Sue Lowden wins that race if she was the candidate?
York: Could Sue Lowden have won it? Not sure.... Look at the exit polls. "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Harry Reid handles his job as senator?" Now these are people who are voting. They're at the polls. Fifty-five percent disapprove of the job he has done and 44% approved, and yet he won reelection.
Bennett: Yeah; and that tells youuuuu?
York: It tells you a couple of things. Uh, uh, it certainly points up the deficiencies of Sharon Angle as a candidate. That the voters reelected somebody they didn't really like. And not only didn't like, didn't think was doing a good job. The other thing it tells you is about the extraordinary organizational strength that Reid brought to this. Uhhh, the the casino owners, the the union bosses, uh the activists just, just really had a huge get-out-the-vote operation.

Notice how this whole conversation is steered to emphasize the wisdom of choosing the right candidate. The right candidate in Delaware was a notorious RINO who could not be counted upon to do anything much but guaranty that when things didn't change "conservativism" would be blamed. In Nevada, the Incumbent was widely disliked, and won reelection by an margin that belies the "throw the bums out sentiment" that was recorded at the exit polls and which matches the TEA party sentiment just about everywhere else.

Conservative: it is unconscionable to let talk radio steer our opinions for very much longer. The danger is growing that we may not be permitted a differing opinion much longer. Today it's call-screeners, tomorrow it will be more than that.