Bush v. Kerry: The Final Round

[admin]

With Election Day upon us, the nation's top contest is moving into its last inning. We've debated, defended, and deconstructed the presidential race all over the place, and for the most part - gluttons that we are - enjoyed it.

Now, from tracking polls and pundits to final vote counts (and perhaps ultimately, more court battles), let's make this thread the final, definitive rhetorical mosh pit on HawaiiThreads.com. Other Bush and Kerry threads will be closed, and stray presidential posts will be merged here.

Have at it! See you on the other side.

[pzarquon]

I've been carefully watching and appreciating the work of Andrew Tanenbaum, the guy behind the Electoral Vote Predictor (http://www.electoral-vote.com) (see also electoral-vote2.com (http://www.electoral-vote2.com), electoral-vote3.com (http://www.electoral-vote2.com), and so on, since his servers are being hammered) and undoubtedly the hardest working webmaster in the world right now. Things have swung back and forth from day to day, even more than once in one day. If the polls are to be trusted (and, of course, they're really not), a lot of folks will be up late tomorrow night... and perhaps for the next week if lawyers get the order to charge.
We have another bumper crop of polls today, 50 in all. Since Sept. 1, the total number of polls in the Polling data file is 937. Toss in another 252 polls from May 24 to Aug. 31 and we have the most studied election in the history of the world. And what's the conclusion? Nobody knows.
Honestly, though... with the way the nation has been polarized and divided, with the way even conversations among friends and coworkers become strained or awkward when politics comes up, with the way elected officials on boths ides are being forced to spend their time posturing and preening rather than working... whoever wins the White House, there's a part of me that'll be relieved no matter what.

[Miulang]

Here is the "X-Factor" that everyone is having problems nailing down: the young people who have cellphones but no land lines so they can't be called by traditional methods to be asked who they're voting for.

This poll was published earlier this morning and if accurate (it's certainly got the lowest margin of error I've ever seen claimed by any of the polls), then it's pretty apparent who the young people prefer. If they turn out and actually vote, maybe the election won't be as tight as everything thinks it will be.

http://news.com.com/Young+cell+phone+users+behind+Kerry/2100-1039_3-5435106.html

And here's something from columnist Jimmy Breslin on Oct. 21 that will make anybody who puts their blind faith on the conventional polls to be able to predict tomorrow's winner look like an ostrich with his head in the sand! Go kids go! Rock the Vote!

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres214013687oct21,0,6406517.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

Miulang

[pzarquon]

Oh, were only it that easy. :) Sure, the slacker class skews heavily democratic... but it also skews heavily toward shopping, surfing, or doing anything but voting on election day.

In other news, reports are surfacing now that Karen might not have been so far off, after all, in her interpretation (http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showthread.php?t=3334&page=2&pp=20) of Osama Bin Laden's latest videotape. While analysts agree that Osama's message amounts to a wash as far as the election is concerned (merely polarizing people in either camp to support their candidate with even more fervor), a more nuanced translation of his message (http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SA1404) seems to suggest, indirectly, that he favors John Kerry... insofar as he vehemently opposes George Bush.

Most curiously, it implies a surprisingly keen interest in the outcome of our election, and (if some translators are to believed) threatening individual states, depending on which way they go tomorrow.

[VoxPop2004]

This is quite a long posting, and we know you're probably very busy with the matter of living your life, but this is a matter of life, or death. It concerns not only your life, but the lives of every man, woman and child in this country, and perhaps the world. Please read on.

George W. Bush for president (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0410170332oct17,1,3673281.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed)
Chicago Tribune, October 17, 2004
There is much the current president could have done differently over the last four years. There are lessons he needs to have learned. And there are reasons--apart from the global perils likely to dominate the next presidency--to recommend either of these two good candidates. But for his resoluteness on the defining challenge of our age--a resoluteness John Kerry has not been able to demonstrate--the Chicago Tribune urges the re-election of George W. Bush as president of the United States.
So when you step into the voting booth on Tuesday, think and think very seriously: which man will, without question, be able to ensure the security of not only your life, but your children's lives, and their children's lives? Think of what the children in those two airplanes and those two towers would say.
There can only be one resounding answer: President George W. Bush.

God bless you, and may God bless America.

--CITIZENS FOR A STRONG AMERICA

[Linkmeister]

Political spam from a group which doesn't show up in Google. Hmm.

[pzarquon]

I get a few (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22CITIZENS+FOR+A+STRONG+AMERICA%22) references, actually, for a CFSA. Their website is long gone, though archived (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cfsa-bmd.org/) at the Wayback Machine. That CFSA is an advocacy group for missile defense... and seems unrelated to the hit-and-run poster above. Sounds more like an organization name made up off the cuff for the purposes of plagiarizing a newspaper editorial. :p

Signed,

Ryan
President, United Geographers for the Liberation of Yellow-Haired Acrobatic Teetotalers (UGLYHAT)

[Linkmeister]

I get a few (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22CITIZENS+FOR+A+STRONG+AMERICA%22) references, actually, for a CFSA. Their website is long gone, though archived (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cfsa-bmd.org/) at the Wayback Machine. That CFSA is an advocacy group for missile defense... and seems unrelated to the hit-and-run poster above. Sounds more like an organization name made up off the cuff for the purposes of plagiarizing a newspaper editorial. :p

Signed,

Ryan
President, United Geographers for the Liberation of Yellow-Haired Acrobatic Teetotalers (UGLYHAT)

Damn. Since my hair is turning gray and since the knee was operated on so I'm not very acrobatic, I guess I'm not eligible for membership, huh?

[Karen]

LOL, this is good stuff! am looking for the interview in its entirety, online.

"Brokaw: Someone has analyzed the president's military aptitude tests and yours, and concluded that he has a higher IQ than you do.

Kerry: That's great. More power. I don't know how they've done it, because my record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from."

********************

Can't leave this out! Just found it..and it is NOT funny, but quite serious & yet another indictment of Kerry & his lack in becoming a good leader.

COUNTDOWN TO ELECTION DAY
Iran's threats discredit Kerry nuke policy
Parliament shouts 'Death to America' in vote to enrich unranium

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 2, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Art Moore
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

On the eve of the U.S. presidential election, Sen. John Kerry's campaign continues to advocate normalizing relations and providing nuclear fuel to Tehran's radical mullah-led regime despite the Iranian parliament's defiant, anti-American vote to proceed with uranium enrichment, a key process in development of atomic weapons.

Shouting "Death to America," and "Death to Israel," Iranian lawmakers decided unanimously Sunday to back the outline of a bill that would require the Islamic government to resume uranium enrichment.

An activist in the Iranian democracy movement believes the American mainstream media is ignoring the impact the parliament's message has on today's U.S. presidential election."

[pzarquon]

So where's the best place online to follow the (not inconceivably unreliable) exit polls and state-by-state results?

Andrew Tanenbaum has promised to update his Electoral Vote (http://www.electoral-vote.com/) sites as results come in, whereas a lot of the other projection sites stopped with the last polls yesterday. But one guy probably doesn't have the resources for broad national commentary. CNN has a pretty nice presentation (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/) (Fox News has a more basic 'pick your own' tracker widget)... with a page just for Hawaii (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/HI/). Who's doing the exit polling out here?

And I didn't know Alaska's polls close two hours later than ours do! We close at 11 p.m. EST, Alaska's at 1 a.m. EST tomorrow!

Or, make your own red-blue map with the Electoral College Calculator (http://grayraven.com/ec/) or compare polls with your predictions with a snazzier version (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/election-test-fl,0,1851284.flash) from the L.A. Times.

Early reports are of unprecedented lines at polling places. Good news for America, whichever side wins.

[waioli kai]

Posted on: Monday, November 1, 2004 10:01 AM HST Vice President Richard Cheney roared into Honolulu fed several thousand hollering and cheering Republicans a red meat, Democrat-bashing 30-minute speech and then flew out. Republican Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle called the 11 p.m. (Sunday,Oct 31, Halloween) one hour last minute BushCheney campaign stop a big success. ttp://starbulletin.com/2004/11/01/news/index2.html

Posted on: Monday, November 1, 2004 12:02 PM HST Six Kaneohe Marines killed in Iraq Six Kaneohe Marines were killed in Iraq during intense fighting in Fallujah on Saturday. ttp://starbulletin.com/breaking/breaking.php?id=3028

Let's see...Cheney gets to Honolulu after the Hawaii based marines are killed in Iraq, does his campaign duty and comforts the marines' surviving families in Hawaii? Or, did Cheney just campaign for Freedumb, while the marines just happened to die for Cheney's freedom to campaign for Freedumb? And die for the oil to feed Cheney's freedom?

Let's see... ' "Now in the final days of this campaign, John Kerry is running around talking tough. He's trying every which way to cover up his record of weakness on national defense. But he can't do it. It won't work." Cheney told the cheering crowd in Honolulu.'

Meanwhile tough-guy Cheney could not even publicly honor marines whom he knew were last stationed in Honolulu. Cheney knew the news of the Kaneohe soldiers' deaths was being held until after he had shown face in Hawaii; ironically, it was his arse speeding away that was probably showing the most! Such a brave man should live in a bunker...the remainder of his life!!

[Linkmeister]

So where's the best place online to follow the (not inconceivably unreliable) exit polls and state-by-state results?

Andrew Tanenbaum has promised to update his Electoral Vote (http://www.electoral-vote.com/) sites as results come in, whereas a lot of the other projection sites stopped with the last polls yesterday. But one guy probably doesn't have the resources for broad national commentary. CNN has a pretty nice presentation (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/) (Fox News has a more basic 'pick your own' tracker widget)... with a page just for Hawaii (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/HI/). Who's doing the exit polling out here?

And I didn't know Alaska's polls close two hours later than ours do! We close at 11 p.m. EST, Alaska's at 1 a.m. EST tomorrow!

Or, make your own red-blue map with the Electoral College Calculator (http://grayraven.com/ec/) or compare polls with your predictions with a snazzier version (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/election-test-fl,0,1851284.flash) from the L.A. Times.

Early reports are of unprecedented lines at polling places. Good news for America, whichever side wins.


There's also The Command Post (http://www.command-post.org/2004/index.html) (click on the Election 2004 link). It's got amateur observers in nearly every state, and it's trying to be non-partisan. (Full disclosure: I clicked on the Hawai'i link yesterday, found nothing, said so, and got roped into doing it for the Aloha State).

[pzarquon]

Good stuff. I was wondering if anyone would be liveblogging the local election. That collaboration (I see there are others on the Hawaii team (http://www.command-post.org/2004/2_archives/cat_hawaii.html) now) is a good place to start.

On the national level, the ever-predictable blogosphere is erupting (http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/corner.asp) over the inevitable release of early NEP (formerly VNS) exit poll numbers:

From Slate.com (http://www.slate.com)
AZ CO LA PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH NV NC
Kerry -- 46 -- 54 50 50 51 50 58 51 -- -- 48 49
Bush -- 53 -- 45 49 49 47 48 40 46 -- -- 50 51


From Jerome Armstrong (http://www.mydd.com/)
AZ CO LA PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH NV NC
Kerry 45 48 42 60 52 51 51 50 58 52 49 57 -- --
Bush 55 51 57 40 48 48 47 48 40 43 49 41 -- --


Better than expected battleground numbers for Kerry overall (what's up with Pennsylvania?), but being early numbers they will be skewed by voters who really wanted to vote, rather than the more broad sample later polls will review. And, of course, exit polls are not actual votes. Just polls. They're what got us into that early-calls mess in 2000, and need to be taken with a giant grain of salt (http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_what.html).

[Karen]

PRESIDENTIAL RACE
• George W. Bush 17,264
• John Kerry 9,540
• Ralph Nader 153
• Campagna Badnarik 53
Of course Guam has no electoral votes, but since to so many the popular vote matters MORE, this is very cool. Gonna be a very interesting night!

Go, BUSH, Go & God bless him for it, faults & all.

[pzarquon]

There are all kinds of weird superstitions and omens (http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/33073.htm) that people turn to in trying to predict the winner of an election. You cite The Guam Poll (http://www.guampdn.com/news/stories/20041103/localnews/1523587.html) (although, following a Supreme Court battle, residents there can't vote): "Historically, the results of the poll on the ballot have mirrored the nation's choice for president... [T]he last time Guam residents chose a candidate that did not win the presidency was in 1980, when Guam chose incumbent President Jimmy Carter over challenger Ronald Reagan."

Okay. Advantage Bush. What else is out there? Whoever you support, here's some "research" you might enjoy.

The Washington Redskins (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=qw1099262701712U213): "Since 1936, when the Redskins' franchise moved from Boston to Washington, the American football team's pre-election performance at home has predicted the presidential winner." Redskins lost to Green Bay, advantage Kerry.

Kids via Kids Vote (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/20/campaign.kids.reut/): "Nickelodeon, a unit of Viacom Inc., has organized its poll every election since 1988, and has a 100 percent record of picking the winner." Advantage Kerry.

Kids via the Weekly Reader (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041025/nym136_1.html): "Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president making the Weekly Reader poll one of the most accurate predictors of presidential outcomes in history." Advantage Bush.

The Stock Market (http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/29/markets/election_dow/): "[I]f the Dow loses more than 0.5 percent of its value in the month of October before Election Day, then an incumbent president is going to lose his job... This predictor has been true without exception from 1904 to the present..." The Dow fell 0.52 percent in October, advantage Kerry.

Halloween Mask Sales (http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/21/news/funny/prez_masks/): "It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween." Bush outsells Kerry 57 to 43 percent, advantage Bush.

Presidential Height (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/116hhfif.asp): "According to the "Presidential Height Index," an admittedly unscientific comparison of the heights of all presidential aspirants since the advent of television, the tallest candidate in a presidential race usually wins." Advantage Kerry.

Skirt lengths, cookie sales, unemployment numbers, all have been seized upon as predictors of the future, and yes, some of them have been more reliable than people paid to make such predictions. But what does it, in the end, is the actual numbers of votes cast. Well, most of the time. :)

[pzarquon]

Bush leads Kerry in projected EVs, 237-188 at ABC, 197-188 CNN, 192-153 L.A. Times. Florida is in Bush's column, and it doesn't look half as close as last time. So far, though, no states have changed color from 2000.

Ohio will be key. If Bush gets Ohio, he needs, say, only Colorado and he's done. If Kerry gets Ohio, he needs only Wisconsin. Or two out of three from Nevada, New Mexico, or Iowa.

Whoever wins, I just hope we'll know for sure in under than three weeks.

[Linkmeister]

C-Span has an awesome map (http://network.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/election_night_2004/us_map_govsenhouse/index.html?SITE=CSPANELN&SECTION=POLITICS). Roll over states to see Presidential and Congressional races.

In those upper Midwest states (Mich., Wisc., Minn., Iowa) Kerry has 1% leads in each with about 75% precincts voting. Lawsuits coming (in fact, already there) in Ohio. See here (http://www.command-post.org/2004/index.html) and search for the Ohio category for contemporaneous posts from the ground.

[craigwatanabe]

What's up with that? MSNBC had Bush ahead in the electorial college votes 269 for Bush vs 211 for Kerry, yet virtually all other news and websites had it at 254 for Bush vs 242 for Kerry.

CNN with their election coverage had it even lower until just after 11pm HST when they updated to everyone else (254 to 242). It's 11:30pm November 2nd and as I type this MSNBC still has the EC count at 269 to 211 while CNN has it at 254 to 242.

Mind you it takes 270 EC votes to declare a victory and with Bush at 1 vote away according to MSNBC, the people there pretty much are calling it a Bush victory! CNN on the other hand isn't saying much.

Net surfing before posting this message finds most websites reflecting CNN's numbers.

Either way it's in Iowa's hands now as Wisconson's votes won't matter much with only 10 EC votes, it won't be enough to put Kerry ahead. Iowa's saying they will wait until the absentee and military votes are compiled sometime November 13th? We gotta wait another 2-weeks? Something's messed up there. And with Edwards saying that every vote will be counted, you can pretty much believe if they lose, they will demand a recount.

[mel]

I've been on Fox off and on most of the night and they're going with that 269 to 242 count, though it is based on projection. I hate projection. They should use the actual numbers.

I need to go to sleep....

[pzarquon]

We went to bed fairly certain that the presidency would not be decided for a few days, with over 100,000 "provisional ballots" yet to be individually verified and counted in Ohio. But literally as I was typing a blasphemous "I wanted Bush to win bad but I think Kerry should just bow out and spare us another 2000 debacle," the word is breaking this instant that Kerry is indeed doing so, calling Bush to concede.

Record voter turnout across the country, with numerous but not critical "irregularities" reported. Bush won the symbolically important popular vote, and quite conceivably would've come out on top even after the final Ohio tally. I don't like the outcome, but like I said before, I just wanted a relatively clear winner... the people's will is the people's will.

I won't bellyache about stolen elections. I will continue to hold Bush accountable for the messes he's created, and hope for a candidate considerably more appealing than Kerry in 2008.

[Miulang]

John Kerry has conceded the election as of a few minutes ago. I hope now the deep chasms that divide the people of the United States can start to be healed so we move forward as a country united again.

If not, I am sure there were will be serious backlash for the Republicans in the mid-term elections in 2006, when the composition of Congress could change radically.

Miulang

[Glen Miyashiro]

Eric Alterman over at MSNBC summed it up (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/) best for me:

Let’s face it. It’s not Kerry’s fault. It’s not Nader’s fault (this time). It’s not the media’s fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It’s not “our” fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything.
They won, because they had more votes than we did. That's how the system works.

I wonder if citizens of Germany felt this way in the early 1930s? They had a working democracy there, too. For a while.

[Miulang]

Actually, I think the Democrats are a class act for not wanting to contest any of the many elections that they could have. They at least have enough sense to know that to prolong the agony would be to say they had not learned from the mistakes of 2000.

I think if the outcome were in favor of the Democrats, though, the hue and cry from the Republicans would have taken this thing into 2005 with all the lawsuits. The Republicans appear to be (as a Party) more mean spirited and vindictive.

I have mentioned the cyclical theory of history a few times here. Again, I think in 2006 there is going to be huge backlash against the Republicans who have the misfortune of having to run for office in that year unless the Party really reaches out to those they have alienated and proves that they can work with compromise, too.

Miulang

[pzarquon]

I agree, even if Kerry could have won Ohio, the odds were impossible. I hear Edwards and crew wanted to fight to the bitter end, just as the Republicans would have, but Kerry and his team wanted to keep their word and not subject the country to another 2000 fiasco. Good call.

Of course, when the Ohio ballots are all counted, it would sure beat all if Kerry could have won (http://www.slate.com/id/2109127/).

I'm a firm believer in balance and cycles, and can only chalk up this notable nationwide majority win - from the White House to the houses of congress and state houses across the country - as the inevitable conservative swing following a (broadly speaking) pretty good run on the liberal side. A former coworker, a diehard Republican, e-mailed this morning to say, "Welcome to the minority. Want my notes?" :) At least now I know I'm not imagining things when I feel my values and principles are beset upon from all sides... not unlike the way conservatives felt years ago.

I think predicting a tide-turning backlash in 2006 or 2008 is pretty optimistic, though... historically, I imagine we're looking at a considerably longer interval. My wife's ready to move to Canada.

But as I lick my wounds and stock up on laughing gas for the next four years, I realize that one thing that really worries me about a second Bush term - besides the reckless policy abandon that'll be unavoidable in a final term with majorities in both the House and Senate - is the Supreme Court. I always took comfort in the fact that decisions were often split... half pissed me off, half I cheered, as it should be. If Bush gets to appoint as many new justices as people are predicting, the last check in our checks-and-balances system could go right out the window.

[Albert]

A sad day for the United States of America.

[craigwatanabe]

at least for 49% of it.

[craigwatanabe]

Actually, I think the Democrats are a class act for not wanting to contest any of the many elections that they could have. They at least have enough sense to know that to prolong the agony would be to say they had not learned from the mistakes of 2000.

I think if the outcome were in favor of the Democrats, though, the hue and cry from the Republicans would have taken this thing into 2005 with all the lawsuits. The Republicans appear to be (as a Party) more mean spirited and vindictive.

I have mentioned the cyclical theory of history a few times here. Again, I think in 2006 there is going to be huge backlash against the Republicans who have the misfortune of having to run for office in that year unless the Party really reaches out to those they have alienated and proves that they can work with compromise, too.

Miulang

Kerry was a class act for conceding without the count. Edwards on the other hand...well he was a trial lawyer and as one trial lawyer said: It's not about ethics it's all about about winning.

Let's hope Bush will at least allow Kerry to voice the plans he would have utilized to end the Iraq war.

[Miulang]

I feel really really badly for the people of Manhattan and the neighboring boroughs. They suffered the worst ravages of terrorism while most of us could only watch, aghast, at the sight on the evening news.

This past election, the people of NYC voted overwhelmingly against the President--the man who they should have been grateful to for helping bring their city back together again. They should have given him such a strong mandate to continue his efforts against terrorism because that would have indicated that they had faith in his ability to keep what happened on Sept. 11 from happening to them again.

And yet, they voted against him. What do the people of NYC know about this man and his Administration that the vast middle America and South don't get?

Here's part of a story from today's NY Times that really really makes me sad for NYC and for the midwest.

"Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

More here:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/nyregion/04york.html

Miulang

[Kalihiboy]

First off the President did not receive a mandate. A mandate is Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon winning 49 states. Bush wins yet another election by mysteriously winning ONE state that is GOP controlled. How can you declare a mandate if you only won by one state?? On a local level if you won by over 3 million votes then you have a clear cut winner, but on a national level its not close to a landslide.

Bush won the closest election for a incumbent in history, more people voted against a incumbent in history as well.

You know I literally had nightmares for the past two weeks that the voting machines would be hacked and rigged to default all Kerry votes to Bush. I am a firm believer that was the case. Kerry might have conceded but myself and others will not put up with this. There will be an investigation into this and Kerry will be sorry in the end of pulling out early.

http://stolenelection2004.com/

Kalihi Boy

[Miulang]

Stumbled across this website dedicated to the people who voted against Bush and who are very very sorry. Cute pix. Makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time: http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/

Miulang

[Miulang]

The Democratic National Committee is now officially requesting an inquiry into the complaints of voting irregularities in Ohio. I wonder what happens if the recount overturns the certified results? Would that mean Bush actually lost the Electoral College votes? The Dems claim that they aren't contesting the results, they just want to investigate the complaints. Yeah right. And Oahu doesn't have an opala problem, too. :eek:

Funny thing is the same thing is happening in the State of Washington. We went "blue" in the Presidential election, but we're purple in the gubenatorial race because we're now about to embark on the SECOND recount of votes for governor. The Dems here want "every vote counted" and the Republicans are saying they want every "legal" vote counted. Most people here think the Dems should just give it up because the Legislature is Democratic leaning anyway, which means a Republican governor isn't going to get very far.

Miulang

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/a/2004/12/06/national1252EST0550.DTL&type=printable