Posted on 11/04/2002 6:43:44 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
John McCaslin
Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.
Flocking to Florida
We told you last week that an international democratic delegation that usually monitors political elections in Third World countries has arrived to observe the ballot-challenged masses in sunny Florida.
Now Rep. Mark Foley, Florida Republican, has handed us a letter from House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney, Ohio Republican, outlining his committee's efforts to observe "certain problematic precincts" in Florida on Election Day tomorrow.
Two months ago, as this column reported, Mr. Foley requested that Mr. Ney dispatch a bipartisan team to the Sunshine State. The chairman promised his support, and details were finalized last week.
"On primary day, there were an alarming number of poll workers who either didn't show up for work or didn't perform their paid duties properly," observes Mr. Foley, who requested legal and nonlegal experts be sent to Broward and Miami-Dade counties to be the "eyes and ears" of Congress.
"I refuse to sit on my hands while the same counties continually botch election after election," the congressman adds.
In his letter, Mr. Foley said staff from the House Administration Committee would be in place in both Miami/Dade and Broward counties, from Friday until the final vote is tabulated, whenever and wherever that might be.
Let's hope they packed plenty of underwear.
Read a newspaper
Americans who prefer getting their news from local television stations ought to be grateful for political advertising, or else they might not know it was Election Day tomorrow.
"Many station managers feel that putting political news on their airwaves would be ratings poison for their news broadcasts," explains Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and director of the Norman Lear Center Local News Archive. "It looks like that fear doesn't apply to airing paid political ads during those same shows."
In fact, TV stations in this country's top 50 markets air more than four times as many political ads as campaign stories, devoting almost twice as much time to the one-sided advertising as to balanced, nonpartisan election news stories.
Nationally, of the 4,850 half-hour local news broadcasts analyzed in a Lear Center study, just over one in three carried any campaign coverage. In contrast, almost three out of four of the same broadcasts aired at least one paid political ad, and over half aired at least two ads.
On average, four campaign ads were aired for every one election-related story during local news broadcasts.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
"On primary day, there were an alarming number of poll workers who either didn't show up for work or didn't perform their paid duties properly," observes Mr. Foley, who requested legal and nonlegal experts be sent to Broward and Miami-Dade counties to be the "eyes and ears" of Congress.
FYI.(^:
Please let me know if you want on or off my "'til election day" Fla. ping list.
A lot also left early after getting orders to stay late for late voters. Wanted to leave so they could score crack or some such. The black racist dummy who runs Broward elections fired this every nice, crippled, elderly woman who was a poll worker nearby me. Fired her and put her own mother in the ~$130/day job. The woman who was fired was heart broken. It meant so much to her.
Sun-Sentinel: News Local
In the months before September's primary debacle, Broward County Elections Supervisor
Miriam Oliphant filled her office's top jobs with friends and political associates who had virtually no experience running an election.
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/ sfl-cvote09oct09,0,6567794.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines - 35k - Cached - Similar pages
I vote for #1. (^:
...but we're preparing for #2.
Did you see what xxx42 was telling Dem. voters in Arkansas last weekend? :
They were told that there would be attorneys posted at every precinct to prevent poll watchers from challenging ANY ballots.
Link
Clinton and Dem. leaders are telling voters across the country that any attempts to question a questionable voter will be stopped by their lawyers. Let them try.
Our Side Found Heart, Barry Farber's awesome election 2000 tribute to political activists (Freepers (^:).
And still no answer in sight to the question on all of our minds: How low can they go?
The elderly woman in a wheelchair is welcome to join us. (^:
Kim Moore came to the event waving a large ``Jeb!'' sign. She worked for McBride in the 1980s and criticized his ``arrogance.''
``He had no time for the secretaries, the little people,'' Moore said. ``I would support [Bush] anyway. After watching the debates, I wanted to get involved.''
Link.
``I don't want anybody here to take anything for granted. I expect every single one of you will be out there voting,'' - Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Then there's the Freep factor:
Our Side Found Heart, Barry Farber's awesome election 2000 tribute to political activists. (^:
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