Yeah, But Democrats Stole the Election For Kennedy 47 Years Ago (So Anything Done by the G.O.P. is OK)

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

It’s urban legend. The father of Chicago’s current Mayor allegedly added more Cook County votes to Illinois totals than Republicans could make up down state, delivering his state’s electoral votes and the Presidency to Jack Kennedy.

Forget the fact that there is no, I repeat, NO historical evidence to back that assertion. It must be true, because it was Dick Nixon’s justification for Watergate and all the other dirty tricks pulled off by the GOP that year (including Nixon’s use of surrogates to preclude the opening of Vietnam Peace talks).

Spies used to talk about meeting being held under “Moscow Rules” – which meant without trust. Or, to misquote Butch Cassidy, “there can’t be rules in a knife fight”! That’s how Republicans view campaigns and elections.

“Cheaters never prosper” was a schoolyard taunt when I was young. I’m sure children today don’t use it because it is so obviously false. The President cheated in Florida to win office. Republicans in Congress and members of the Bush Administration have used the government for purely political ends. Yesterday the former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania and high-ranking Justice Department official asserted his belief that Democratic officials were targeted in corruption cases while Republicans were not.

The latest Republican move is to change the allocation of California’s electoral votes to give the Republican candidate for President a better chance to win. Currently all our votes are given to the winner of the majority of votes cast for President. The Republicans want to divide California’s votes, giving all of them to the winner by Congressional District.

In context, this would award electoral votes from safe Republican Congressional seats to the GOP candidate they can’t hope to win under the current rules.

But the votes of (mostly African-American) votes in the 11 states of the old Confederacy would still be awarded – on a 100% basis) to the winner of the majority Republican vote in that area. So this isn’t about the fairness of a winner-take-all electoral system. The Republicans are perfectly content to keep that system in the South where it benefits them. They only want to change them in California – where a change helps them win.

After all, there are no rules in a knife fight….!