Only Bill's hairdresser knows for sure, and maybe Wesley Clark http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/can_detail/P00003392/ Curious, no?
it may be, although i haven't seen it- she's probably just covering her bases. still interesting that it hasn't made any news reports.
Impossible, as Bush will have just finished his second term, and Clark will have become Gore's running mate on the Obscure Lecture Circuit Train... I like that Condi V. Hillary idea. That would be very interesting... Condi would instantly steal much of two of Hillary's bedrocks: the female vote and the black vote. And Condi would still get 100% of Repub/conservatives' votes, since no self-respecting person... er, I mean self-respecting Republican could bring themselves to vote for a Clinton. Unfortunately, I think she's more interested in serving, and not leading. I still think Powell might chance it. On another note, I'm thinking of registering as a Republican. Just something I've been toying with.
Me too actually, although since i live in Berkely East, aka NYC's upper west side, i've been somewhat leary of doing so. on several occasions I've noted poll workers making disparaging comments about republican candidates on election day, and have witnessed even more extreme shennanigans, one of which is described in the article below: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=110002604 -- 'Only for Democrats' New York's election wasn't close--but it sure was sloppy. BY BRENDAN MINITER Monday, November 11, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST BROOKLYN, N.Y.--This is one of the handful of jurisdictions where federal agents were on the lookout for voter fraud last week. There's no word whether they uncovered anything improper. But after casting my ballot on Tuesday, I can see why they'd come to Kings County. I knew something was amiss almost immediately upon entering the Municipal Building in Brooklyn Heights. The woman ahead of me in line was filling out a paper ballot. Behind the table, lounging in a chair, sat a heavy-set woman. When I approached she looked up at me and growled: "What do you want?" "To vote," I said, staring at her. She said nothing, only staring back with a look of utter confusion. Her coworker, a man to my left, broke the awkward silence. He found my name on his list and, while I was signing in, remarked that the voting machine was broken. Then, spotting my party affiliation clearly marked next to my name, said: "Oh, you're Republican." "Why does that matter?" No one answered my question. The man simply stood up and turned on a light on the voting machine. "Is the machine broken?" I asked. "Only for Democrats." I moved toward the machine, and then hesitated when another poll worker started to say something about the machine. But the man who signed me in quieted all objections by pronouncing, "He's a Republican." "Why does that matter?" I asked. "Is the machine broken or not?" No one would answer. So after a long pause, I stepped into the voting booth, made my selections and left. It was hard to escape the thought that my vote may not have been recorded. They may have allowed me to vote on a defective machine because of my party affiliation. I have no way of knowing, of course, because anonymous voting makes it impossible to verify which votes counted and which did not. I do know, however, that I am not the only one in New York City this year to witness potential misdeeds at the polls. Stephen Dupont tried to vote for Gov. George Pataki on Tuesday, but found that the lever was frozen in place. "I was finally able to twist it down by struggling with it for several minutes," he wrote in an Election Day e-mail to this Web site. "When I exited the booth, I told a poll worker about it and was told, 'Oh yeah, we're aware of the problem--we rigged it that way.' " Mr. Dupont "was fairly horrified," although he assumes the poll worker "probably meant it as a joke." Sarah Maserati recounts her story on National Review Online: "There was a little snafu with my registration, so I had to fill out an 'affidavit' ballot. When the woman handed it to me, she explained that one votes down the columns, and, pointing to the Democrat column, explained, 'The last woman I helped just filled this column down the line,' It was a pathetic attempt, and it made me feel kinda dirty." None of this is conclusive proof of voter fraud, of course. Each anecdote is most likely the result of a lazy and sloppy bureaucracy that is comfortably Democratic. This is the city where enrolled Democrats outnumber Republicans by 5 to 1, so it's hard to imagine why anyone would risk manipulating votes. That's not to say, however, that these occurrences should be tolerated or come without a price for the republic. The biggest price comes in a lack of political competition. A look at the numbers the day after Election Day in this city always leaves grass-roots Republicans disheartened. It would seem that electoral victory is hopeless, so the party finds it difficult to recruit good candidates. That aggravates two other serious problems: bitter infighting and the failure to field candidates in precincts won overwhelmingly by Rudy Giuliani. It's no surprise then that many would be GOP voters simply don't bother to vote or even register--or coyly register as Democrats. It doesn't have to be this way. The GOP has plenty of strengths to build on in New York City. It was a two-term Republican mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who first saved the city from crime and then led the metropolis and the country up from Sept. 11. The city repaid his party by electing as his successor Michael Bloomberg, who ran as a Republican. And Mr. Pataki has managed to do well enough in the five boroughs to win three straight gubernatorial races. In 2000, the city elected Hillary Clinton to the Senate (she lost the rest of the state by 170,000 votes) and favored Al Gore over George W. Bush by 1.2 million votes. But Mr. Bush found plenty of New Yorkers who opened their wallets to fund his election. A look at individual donors by ZIP code shows that Manhattan's 10021 was the second most lucrative in the nation for Mr. Bush, where he out-raised Mr. Gore by more than $100,000. Instead of abandoning the city, New York Republicans should insist on electoral reforms. The first and easiest way to cut down on fraud is to require a photo ID to vote. It shouldn't be easier to cast a ballot than it is to cash a check. Republicans should also insist that the state stop recording party affiliation on voter lists. That would make it impossible for poll workers to discriminate against voters on the basis of party affiliation. Virginia already runs elections this way. Political parties have to allow every registered voter to vote in their primaries. The result is that all voters have a say in choosing political leaders, even in "safe" districts. The state must also do more to preserve the integrity of voter lists. This means purging the lists of those who've died or have moved out of state. It also means updating the registration lists for people who move within the state. Too many would-be voters are turned away at the polls or asked to fill out lengthy paperwork because they've moved. Many others simply return to their old polling places and cast a ballot there, as if they haven't moved. This opens the door for people to vote twice. It's also a big problem in urban areas, where moving even a short distance can place a voter in a different district. The biggest thing that has to change is the attitude of the city's poll workers. They are, after all, custodians of one of our most cherished rights. It's time they started acting like it.
