GOP Official Faces Sentence in Phone-Jamming

In October 2002, Charles McGee, executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, was mailed a Democratic flier that offered Election Day rides to the polls. The circular listed telephone numbers of party offices in five cities and towns.

"I paused and thought to myself, I might find out -- I might think of an idea of disrupting those operations," McGee later testified. A Marine Corps veteran, McGee approached the situation like a combat operation: "Eventually the idea coalesced into disrupting their phone lines . . . [it's] military common sense that if you can't communicate, you can't plan and organize."

When voting began Nov. 5, McGee's plan worked like a charm. For two crucial hours, an Idaho telecommunications firm tied up Democratic and union phone lines, bringing their get-out-the-vote plans to a halt. The effort helped John E. Sununu (R) win his Senate seat by 51 to 47 percent, a 19,151-vote margin.

Well before Election Day ended, however, the scheme began to implode -- in ways that still echo nearly four years later.

McGee and two other participants -- Republican National Committee regional political director James Tobin and GOP consultant Allen Raymond-- have been found guilty of criminally violating federal communications law. Tobin will be sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Concord, N.H.

The New Hampshire Republican Party, burden by legal bills, is virtually broke, with $733.60 in its federal and state accounts.

The Republican National Committee, in turn, has paid $3 million in legal fees in criminal and civil cases growing out of the controversy. The RNC has paid at least $2.8 million to Williams & Connolly and other firms for Tobin's defense, and about $150,000 to Covington & Burling to defend the RNC in...

That's incorrect. The Milwaukee tire slashers received 4-6 months after the judge rejected a plea-bargain deal that would have let them go without jail time. Some lefties were appalled that these upstanding citizens would have to do any jail time (after all, we all know Republicans can drive themselves to the polls in their SUVs and don't need vans to bring them there, said one idiotic leftist columnist. I guess he's never heard of senior citizens.)

The Milwaukee slashers got what they deserved. And I think these New Hampshire hooligans should face jail time, too. Don't mess with people's right to vote. The left's attempt to tie this to Ken Melhman and KKKarl Rove are laughable.

I disagree because I think the Milwaukee slashers should have deserved much stiffer sentences.

We have had a series of voter fraud problems here that have been brushed under the rug by the Dem DA. It was "Smokes for Votes" 6 years ago, and "Pastries and Bingo for votes from the retarded" 4 years ago. Add to that our outrageously lax voter registration laws (same day registration using a utility bill as an ID) and it all adds up to a bunch of Democrats thumbing their noses at our constitutuionally protected right to vote. Illinois plates are all over the streets on election day with people registering at several precincts. It is a scandal, but the DA always says he doesn't have the evidence needed to prosecute.

Smokes for votes was prosecuted ONLY because a local TV station recorded it on video and interviewed some of the homeless men who registered and voted to get cigarettes. That perp (a New York socialite) who left town on the next plane got off with a small fine.

The Milwaukee DA took more than a year to bring the tire slasher case to trial and at least one of the perps off who had been caught red handed (an organizer from Virginia brought in for the purpose). All of the perps were seasoned campaigners and knew better, but thought they could get away with it. They were all on the DNC payroll.

A former State Representative (Democrat, of course) and current Poli Sci prof at the local University had the audacity to argue in a local rag last week that the sentence was too stiff because if you "divided the cost of replacing the tires by the number of perps, the average monetary loss would fall below the level of a felony per perp".

Have you ever heard of such a ridiculous argument regarding a property crime? The damages to the tires were between $2000 and $4000 and put the rental vans out of commission for about a week which added to the loss for the owner of the vans! This same prof quibbled about the use of the term "slash" regarding the crime. He argued that it really was a "stab" or a "prick".

I'm hoping the the federal prosecuter will take this case up and pursue federal voting rights charges against these jerks (one of them the son of a US Representive and one of them the son of the former mayor of Milwaukee.)

The plea bargain was another Democrat scam and I'm glad the judge rejected it. However, the prosecuter had already plea bargained this case down to the bare minimum before they ever started.

Now our State Elections commission is going against the Federal law mandating voter ID at federal elections. This state is as crooked as they come.

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