Posted on 01/20/2004 9:05:55 AM PST by VU4G10
Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is a thorn in Karl Rove’s side, to say the least. Tancredo favors border controls; the president and many in Congress do not. Rove, the president’s senior advisor, is attempting to find someone to run against Cong. Tancredo in this year’s election. So far, he has no takers. After all, Tancredo won re-election in 2002 with a 70-percent majority, and no mentally-balanced person would want to challenge such a formidable foe. It would be a waste of time and money.
Many Arizona conservatives are urging State Rep. Russell Pearce to run against Cong. Jeff Flake in District 6 this year. Pearce is a senior advisor to the popular Protect Arizona Now (PAN) initiative. If placed on the 2004 ballot, and if voters support it as expected, PAN would actually require proof of citizenship for things of some importance, such as voting. The White House, state and national GOP leadership favor the president’s Temporary Worker Program and the Flake-McCain-Kolbe guest worker bill, which amount to nothing more than amnesty for millions of foreign invaders.
Now the stage is set: two diametrically-opposed sides with sharply-contrasting views on the border invasion. Tancredo and Pearce are advocating tighter controls of the borders and a stoppage of the drain on American taxpayers caused by the border invasion. The corporate appeasers want to dissolve the borders.
The worst thing in Rove’s world would be to lose Flake and have Pearce replace him through the election process. Rove wants to subtract Tancredo and isn’t going to succeed in that aim. He sure doesn’t want Pearce -- another Tancredo -- going to Washington, D.C., a year from now. Two Tancredo’s are two too many, in the view of the Bush Administration. However, most Republicans would love to see Tancredo and Pearce representing them in Congress.
How motivated are those who oppose Tancredo and Pearce? Let's put things into proper perspective and look at some very recent history.
Some influential and well-connected people have recently suggest that Barnes may be a set-up, a plant to dilute a potential Pearce candidacy by splitting votes between Flake's would-be challengers. Barnes is a moderate who's totally with President Bush.
On Dec. 31, Rep. Pearce was getting ready to appear as a guest on Salt Lake City Radio Station KSL's “Born on the 4th of July" program, hosted by Barbara Jean. It appeared that this would be just another of the many state/regional/national media appearances Pearce would make on the border controversy. As it turned out, this was no ordinary day.
Arizona people listening on the Internet reported that the Salt Lake City station's power went down and the show’s producers were having trouble with outgoing broadcasting and incoming calls. Just bad luck? Tampering? Sun spots? Possibly any of the above, but we're just getting warmed up. There's more to the story.
Fast forward to last week when Pearce was getting ready to guest-host two hours of Ernie Hancock's show on KFNX Radio in Phoenix. Guess what? The station reported losing power and similar problems as the Utah station had experienced. Pearce claims a car accident damaged a nearby power source. But wait: we're still not done.
Rusty Childress, co-chairman of PAN, was a guest on KJZZ Radio, of Mesa, last week ... and guess what happened? The call-in lines went dead.
On Saturday night, Kathy McKee, the other co-chair of PAN, tried to call KFNX Radio to be the guest on the "Mad as Hell" program. ''To make a long story short, I couldn't get in .. . . because the phone lines went down at 10:45 p.m.,'' McKee said. ''They had to call me and patch me in, but then callers couldn't call in.'' Hmmm ... mighty, mighty interesting series of events.
Also, last week GOPUSA/Arizona posted two separate Internet polls on the Congressional District 6 race. The first poll appeared on the Internet for three days and queried readers as to their choice between Barnes and the incumbent Flake. This was a poll that did not get much traction or generate much excitement. Barnes received 22 of the 40 total votes cast, with Flake garnering 13 votes and the third option: “other” getting five votes.
In mid-week, the poll changed to add Pearce to the mix. Almost as quickly as the poll went up, some unknown person(s) with great technical expertise -- possibly some of it legal -- developed a very keen interest in the poll. It became readily apparent that the insertion of Pearce’s name had tripped the sensor of someone very interested in one Arizona congressional seat.
Within 12 hours, 188 votes showed up on the poll screen. Flake and Barnes were neck and neck; Pearce did not show up on the radar. A short time later, the vote tally reached 240 and Flake began to pull away from Barnes. Pearce barely registered a heartbeat with a 3-percent showing.
Then a remarkable thing happened for the first time in the 20-month history of GOPUSA/Arizona polls: The numbers actually went down -- from 240 total votes to 75. And Pearce’s numbers dropped to zero.
Then the vote tally started racing wildly upward. In the next few hours, the vote total pushed toward 2,000. Flake was winning big and Pearce was staying at zero percent, even though his supporters informed me they were starting to vote for him -- and starting to wonder why their tallies were not showing up. In one 10-minute period, 100 new votes went up on the board.
The next morning, the vote total continued to balloon, reaching nearly 4,800. It had been less than 36 hours since the poll was posted on the Internet. Flake had a lead of 2-1 over Barnes, and Pearce registered a faint glimmer with one percent of the vote.
As emails started coming in from bewildered people watching the poll, GOPUSA’s CEO, Bobby Eberle, was alerted about the dubious nature of the poll. Whoever was tampering with this poll had all the guile of a Pampalona bull on its way to Barcelona.
A short time later, Eberle confirmed that someone had indeed hacked into the system. He advised that the poll be removed to get the hacker out of the system. A new poll was quickly posted. Over the next several hours, only a trickle of new votes came in on the new poll. Someone no longer had any interest in GOPUSA/Arizona polls.
Looking again at the bogus poll results, one more strange occurrence was discovered. The poll totals now sat at 4,514 votes, a decline of nearly 300 votes in the last few minutes. Flake had 2,880 “votes,” Barnes had 1,560, Pearce 66 and the “other” option had four votes. Whomever tampered with Flake’s vote total obviously took Barnes’ total up in an effort to make it look like a second contestant was registering believable vote totals. Nice try, but it didn’t work. Nice, illegal try.
The 4,514 votes represented a higher number than the total number of votes cast in all the GOPUSA/Arizona poll votes for the entire year of 2003.
Now the big questions: Who has an interest in the re-election of Cong. Flake? Who has an interest in undermining Rep. Pearce? Is the hacker just some kid down the street who likes to play games with other people’s websites? Was it a political organization or a political operative acting on someone’s orders? Who would care enough about this particular poll to risk a visit from the FBI for hacking?
The answers, as of this moment, are unknown, but the questions are legitimate.
As of Sunday night, Eberle had not responded to queries about whether or not he was able to discern the identity of the hacker, or if he had reported the crime to authorities.
One footnote: Just as Cong. Tom Tancredo concluded his address to the Arizona Republican Assembly in Scottsdale Saturday morning, the power went out in the auditorium. Russell Pearce was in that room; he had introduced Tancredo. Two Tancredo’s is two too many for some people.
And as you can see there are some amongst us who refuse to believe that... and they don't even live there.
You really should seek professional help. All that anger isn't healthy.
And Politicians NEVER go to another State for political issues and gain?
Dude, you and your flock are SO in need of a...
"Non-Descript Instant Powdered Drink" break, it isn't funny! So...
"DRINK UP...ALL THE COOL REPUBLICANS ARE DOING IT!"
( Unless you look at the polls, in which case the public OPPOSES the proposal! )
Ah, the classics! Now, let's see if there is any "objection" now...
Arnold was going to be California's next governor before Davis signed that measure, and obviously after he signed the measure. Interestingly, Schwarzenegger was fought tooth and nail here on FR by the same trogolodytes who are currently fighting Bush tooth and nail here on FR. To the same eventual outcome, I might add.
FreeRepublic no more represented a realistic view of what was happening in California, where Arnold beat McClintock over 3 to 1, than FR is a representative sample of the sentiment and support of George W. Bush. This place is becoming the mirror image of DU. We're becoming as whackjob right as they are whackjob left. Irrelevant both.
Congrats on that.
I think most everything I've read or heard (from the left and the right) of Rove's actions has been more like gossip than actual fact-based news.
That said, we know Rove is President Bush's chief political strategist and to some extent influences political action taken by the White House.
However, when it comes down to the wire, it is President Bush and *not* Karl Rove who makes the final decision on policy issues.
Some folks may be upset at Rove over the proposed amnesty for illegals, but I think their concern is misplaced. Ultimately, it was President Bush who decided to push the proposal. At some level our President actually believes in it.
Tom Tancredo was invited to come to Arizona by the Arizona Republican Assembly. Hearing that he was in Arizona, the Cochise County Republican Committee invited Tom Tancredo to speak at a dinner fundraiser.
As I was quoted saying in the paper and as nearly EVERY Republican I've spoken to in this district will tell you - Rep. Kolbe does not represent us. He specifically ignores the desires of the people of Cochise County (both Republican and Democrat) as to what should be done about the border. He has some other agenda, but it definitly is NOT representing the people of Cochise County. Tancredo is the only one in Congress who seems to be representing us. We have brought him down here several times over that past few years. He is a hero down here by the border and we send our campaign contributions to him, not Kolbe and not McCain.
But, I have no illusions that you and your pals are every bit my political ememy as are the Democrats scrambling toward Concord and Manchester right now. I am a staunch George W. Bush supporter. I support EVERY GOP candidate for Senate and the House of Representatives to win in in November. You people don't, therefore you're going to need to be FIGURATIVELY steamrolled. That's Karl Rove's job, and I think he's doing it exceptionally well.
I'm not a nice guy about this crap. We're at War with an enemy we cannot allow to prevail. Victor Hanson called this the most important election since 1864 for the future of this country. And you people are jacking around. Let's see what happens.
You really need to talk to someone who lives in the state and went through the election process if you don't believe what I'm saying.
It doesn't take the whole electorate to put a recall vote on the ballot, just 25% I believe, though I could be wrong. Whatever it is, probably the bulk of those supporting the recall initially were conservatives and maybe some indepedents. Davis might still have won the recall but he pushed many supporters over the edge when he pandered to illegals.
My advise to you is to get out more and to talk to people other than FR. You'll find the views expressed here mirror what others are saying across the country. The only ones on the fringe are you and your friends at the Democratic headquarters and Wall St. Journal who support open borders. As well as sad to say, George Bush.
Kolbe backstabbed us. I will not rest until that RINO is out of office. The anti-Kolbe sentiment in this county and his district is palpable. The only thing that keeps him re-elected is a.)no serious challengers and b.)the leeches on Social Security and Medicare love him because that's all he talks about. All you have to do is attend a single Kolbe Town Hall meeting to see how hostile the community is to him. And it is coming mostly from Republicans who want him to actually start acting like a Republican.
Last election, Kolbe was afraid to ever set foot in the Cochise County Republican Party Headquarters. We had a regular parade of every other Republican candidate - but never Kolbe. Why? Because he knows he not welcome down here in Cochise County because he refuses to represent us and constantly betrays us.
So do you. I'm in L.A. and Arne is right.
Davis was out, regardless of the last minute Hail Maria.
Funny, I feel the same way about you and your socialist, globalist, compassionate, tolerant, politically correct neo- con ilk.
As far as VDARE, could you elaborate because I really have no idea what you speak of. Though, if it is something you are so vehemently against, it may be something I should look into.
And you go ahead and vote for every GOP candidate you can pull the lever for. The results won't vary much. A billion here, a billion there.
Yer gonna be in tough shape if Bushco. is sent back to the ranch in November. I am thinking some sort of opiate...
Worse, they consider independent thinkers "fringe".
VDARE is a website that publishes columns by some writers who have been branded as racists, or some such. I've yet to find any racist material on VDARE, but I'm not a regular reader of that website.
By commenting the way he did, Fufkin was smearing immigration reformers as closet racists. Lacking anything better than ad hominems, spittle-ridden ranting, and brow-beating Fufkin had to resort to playing the race card.
It is apparent that Fufkin has not read the new guidelines about immigration threads and may want to acquaint himself with them.
Additionally, just today in another thread Jim Robinson stated that he too opposes Bush's amnesty proposal. I wonder if Fufkin is going to smear him as a racist too.
You're absolutely right. It has. You probably need to find another website to frequent.
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