USATODAY.com – Electoral math

offers number of nightmares

Divided government?

The Constitution outlines what follows in case of a tie, though that’s

happened only once, in 1800. The newly elected House of Representatives chooses the president from the top three finishers; each state

has one vote. The newly elected Senate chooses the vice president; each senator has a vote.

(In 1800, running mates Thomas Jefferson

and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes. Four years later, the 12th Amendment was ratified to clarify that parties could nominate

tickets rather than having candidates for president and vice president in effect compete with one another.)

This time, the process

presumably would favor Bush. Republicans control 30 of the 50 state delegations in the House; the GOP almost certainly will keep control

in the November elections. Republicans now have 51 Senate seats. But if Democrats regain an edge in the Senate — which is conceivable

— the choice for vice president could get interesting.

A George W. Bush-John Edwards administration? …

For a tie: Every state

votes the way it did four years ago, except for two. New Hampshire and West Virginia, which voted for Bush last time, go Democratic this

time. Kerry is competitive in both states.

Text of Zell Miller’s Speech at RNC

[O]ur nation is being

torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat’s manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief. …

For it has been said

so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who

has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who

salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn

that flag.

Richard Reeves had the best response to this BUllSHit months ago. mjh

So, the attorney general of the United

States tells me: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid

terrorists.”

Well, screw you, buddy! What are you trying to say? Are you saying that anyone who talks about civil rights, civil

liberties and the freedom that makes us Americans is a traitor in this undeclared but loudly proclaimed war?

Christian Science Monitor Blog |

Notebook: At the Conventions
Police cross a line
By Tom Regan

For a few scary moments, it looked like the situation would turn

out very badly indeed. …

The mostly young crowd was afraid. You could sense it. But to their credit they did not yell obscenities at

the police, or strike out in any way. In fact, all the aggression was coming from the other side, especially from the officer in charge.

He pushed at the protesters two or three times, each time without any visible provocation.

I just have to pause here for a moment to

make an observation. How many times have I seen an interview with an arrested protester who claimed he or she had done nothing to provoke

the police. Almost always my reaction has been, “Yeah, sure.” Only now I was seeing this very situation unfold in front of my eyes. These

protesters, while certainly noisy, had obeyed police instructions down the entire length of the street. Now they were being treated as if

they had gotten wildly out of control, but they hadn’t. I know, because I was there.

I saw scenes like this repeated throughout

Tuesday night. There would be an uneasy equilibrium between the police and the protesters, and then for some reason, the police would

start arresting people. I saw it happen at Herald Square, and near 6th Ave and 29th St. In each case, the police seemed to lose control

of the situation, often in ways that they were responsible for themselves.

The Village Voice: Hot Girls, Frisky Delegates: RNC Diary of a

Strip-Club Waitress
Lap-dancing for equal opportunity

Aside from the guy who held a lollipop up to a dancer’s breast and sucked

on it, the Republicans were generally well-behaved tonight. …

They were equal opportunity employers, sampling every race and body

type, giving the dancers–many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants–the very shot at fortune Arnold spoke of in his speech.

The Village Voice: Cartoons: Sutton

Impact: RNC: Day One by Ward Sutton

The Republican Games 9/1/04 (www.markfiore.com)

“One of my movies was called True Lies. That’s what the Democrats should have called their

convention.” – Ahnold Schwarzenegger

Let us remember that Arnie represents the minor so-called ‘moderates’ of the

Republican Party. His primetime appearance was meant to soften the impression of the Radical Right as rapacious ogres, a view one might

get from paying the slightest attention to anything they say or do. This dim brute is the nice face of the Republican Party.

mjh

Christian Science Monitor Blog | Notebook: At

the Conventions Archive August, 2004

How many is ‘a lot’?
By Tom Regan

When I turned on the TV this morning to catch the

news, I confess I was a bit stunned when I heard the “official count” of Sunday’s march in New York.

The local CBS station was

quoting police officials and the Associated Press, who said that around 110,000 people were a part of the process that streamed past

Madison Square Gardens for four and one-half hours.

What! I’m sorry, but that figure is way, way, way too small. I’ve seen several

large marches in Washington, where the official count was 250,000 or more and this march was every bit the equal of those earlier

demonstrations.

So I asked a few of the people covering the convention here in New York their thoughts on the size of the rowd. To a

person, they scoffed at the lower figure. Monitor photographer Andy Nelson, who was in the thick of the crowd, said it was easily

200,000. One police officer outside the hall said he has heard as many as 400,000.

Organizers put the total at half a million. Well,

I’m not sure of that figure either. But I will tell you one thing — it was A LOT of people.

As I write this, there are about 65 days left until the election. Between now

and then, find some way to make your opinion known. Wear a button, plaster your car with bumper stickers, put signs in your window and on

your roof. You don’t have to be rude, but you don’t have to be sweet, either. Let everyone know there is a groundswell against Duhbya.

NO MORE YEARS! mjh

size PDF available at www.RooftopRevolt.com

Duhbya came to town again.

Rooftop Revolt – By the People (photo by

MRudd)

Postscript: I actually DID flip off Air Force One. There had been no air traffic for a while, except for fighter jets, when

suddenly a plane flew directly over my house. I flipped the middle of the ‘W’ digits skyward. Then I thought, damn, that’s not Air

Force One. Until this AM, when I read Duhbya was on a smaller version of AF1.

[jf: thanks for the link.]