Free Republic

Dream on! That explanation will fly like a lead balloon.

This is going to be Obama’s swift boat — many well meaning citizens of all races and creeds who felt good about supporting Obama will be staggered by the outbursts of Wright, a hate-mongering, American-hating racist, who was Obama’s pastor for 20 YEARS, who married him and who baptized his children.

At the very minimum his judgement (temperment and inclinations too) of sticking with such a despicable man such Wright is called into serious question — this is a future commander-in-chief?

Does Barrack also believe that the USA created the AIDS virus to kill minorities? Wright does.

"Remember -- it's always important to sympathize with, and understand the root motivations of, the guy burning your car. At least in France."

Love it! Yes to take a page out of the democ_RATS play book: Gee what France needs is an exit strategy!!! Poetic Justice I say.

hey you make some excellent points -- I was speaking from a careful observation of how the votes came in last night and nearly 30 years experience in this district.

The Jean Schmidt campaign was one of the two or three worst for a Repub I have seen. Totally ineffective and bland. She refused to mix it up and the GOP machine that more or less anointed her to be the candidate -- in preference to several better and more effective conservatives sat on their behinds until the last minute.

Rob Portman got 220,000 votes in 2004 -- that's how many GOP voters can be turned out here.

This result was strictly a weak candidate and a poor campaign -- even so in the end it was not all that close.

Yes 52% is a lot less than Portman's 72% win in 2004. But that was all about turnout. A 4% margin is good today.

And the only reason it even looked close was that about 1/5 of Schmidt's votes got lock up until nearly 11:00 pm because the high heat and humidity caused a computer crash in Clermont County.

Had that not happened it would have been a ho hum night with Schmidt maintaining about a 2,000 to 4,000 vote lead all night. I'd guess the analysis you requested will be done but I can tell you what it will show -- lousy turnout by the GOP and better than ususal by the D-rats.

"As you say: the word bellwether comes from the 13th century and first meant a wether (that is, a castrated male sheep) that wore a bell. Wether is an Old English word from the 9th century. Bellwethers were noted for their docile nature and were used to lead flocks - especially to the slaughter house"

This election was NOT a Bellwether of anything.
I voted yesterday morning for Jean Schmidt but I was hardly excited about her as my representative. She is a very nice women and her heart is in the right place but as for her public image and speaking presence? -- my goodness -- its awful. But she is effective on the ground and will represent this area well I think.

This election means nothing in my view. In 2nd OH in 2004 Portman won with 72% of the votes (about 227,000 verus the Dem 98,000). In this election the total votes were about 100,000 -- split 52 vs 48%.

In this election about 1/4 of the Repubs voted and about 1/2 of the Dems came out.

Bottom line this election means NOTHING nationally. The GOP ran an insipid candidate with a very poor campaign versus a strong Dem with a good campaign and still won decisively.

Bottom line in this District, short of buying each vote personally, there is not possibility of a Dem win unless they hold on a day when all the Reps are on vacation.

"Organizations who support the Freedom Winter bus ride are encouraged to mobilize their members as quickly as possible to join in the caravan. Volunteers are welcome along every step of this history journey. Media inquires, please contact Zack Kaldveer.....www.donotconcede.com. "

The best part is that Elvis will be givng a special benefit concert! -- TBA

Fargo44

"According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the margin of victory was off by 18,000 votes."

Not true. You are confusing the counting of provisional ballots with the recount effort.

The 17,900 some votes mentioned in the CPD were the Kerry gains from the official count of the 155,000 provisional ballots.

Kerry got 17,900 more than Bush out of a total of some 120,000 valid provisional ballots -- because the provisionals were mostly from democratic city wards -- everyone knows that democrats cannot seem to vote correctly.

The 318 votes is the difference between the first official certified vote total and the official recount total that was just completed.

Kerry gained only 318 votes on the official recount -- that is less than 0.001% (i.e., a meaningless change).

Highlighting what a disgraceful waste of time, money and voter confidence the recount was. But what do you expect from liberals?!

Fargo44

Re-Ohio Decount

Cliff Arnebeck, esq. is totally biased and completely illogical. His "case" has no chance. The reason democratic Supreme Court candidate, C. Ellen Connally (a black) won more votes than Kerry in some rural southern Ohio counties is easy to understand. The Connally over Kerry vote advantage correlates nicely with he total percentage of Kerry votes in each Ohio county -- i.e., the smaller the Kerry total precentage (vs. Bush) the bigger the Connally margin over Kerry. The democrats in those conservative counties just did not like Kerry (imagine that!) and they "split their ticket" -- end of story. Kerry lost, Bush won --which part of that don't the left wing goof balls understand?

No one in Ohio is paying any attention to this nonsense.
fargo44
Cincinnati, Ohio

This is one "investigation" I am 100% in favor of.

Rest assured it will show about 90%++ of the dead voters will turn out to be democrats!

Go for it Jesse you moron!

Fargo44

"Because the law permits a hand count"

I realize that a hand count is premissible but can't it be legally challenged on the grounds that it is an inferior estimate?

Those studies have been done -- no way humans can produce a better result than the machines.

fargo44

Sorry about double post!! Browser locked and I thought it didn't go!

Fargo44

Can someone answer this?

There have been two machine counts and the Rep candidate won them both.

I think it has been statistically shown that a hand count of 3 million cards will be LESS accurate than a machine count.

Why can't the Reps make a legal case that the uncertainty would be less with a machine count and therefore that one of the two machine counts should trump the hand count?

Fargo44

Can someone answer this?

There have been two machine counts and the Rep candidate won them both.

I think it has been statistically shown that a hand count of 3 million cards will be LESS accurate than a machine count.

Why can't the Reps make a legal case that the uncertainty would be less with a machine count and therefore that one of the two machine counts should trump the hand count?

Fargo44

Thanks for the correction. I forgot to email my county by county Excel file to work so I'm sitting "high&dry" here. I would have liked to see it stay at +120,000 but a win is a win!

No doubt in my mind that the dems did some embellishing in their big precincts in Cuyahoga and Franklin but this election proved that we can turn out the vote here in Ohio when we need to.

Take away the "I Hate Bush" factor and you lose a lot of p.o'd college students etc.

Iraq was a tuff nut for the President 'cause it turned real sour at the wrong time (I wonder why - lol)

If things had been going a bit more smoothly over there and the UN oil for food scandal had been more developed we are looking at a republican landslide.

Could have been a margin much closer to the 10 point split for GWB that the Columbus Dispatch poll was showing before the first debate.
But hey I'll take it and I love it!
Fargo44

Yah!

118,506 is GLOWING on my spread sheet too!

But I'm pi-sed! I had Bush winning by just over 120K --I do not know where I lost the 1500 votes?

The ohiovotersuppression bog has the 17,977 number -- does that include any machine errors as well? Probably except for the Franklin Co error these other machine glitchs are not yet in the mix?

Fargo44

I do not have the missing 6 counties but with Franklin in (finally) I am guessing the the certfied results will look something like this:

.............................Bush................... Kerry
Totals...............2,850,552..................2,727,270
Percent.................50.0..........................47.9
Margin for GWB................123,283
Total Votes Cast............5,696,487

How sweet it is!

I tried to find some missing county totals on local newspapers on line but -- no go.

Fargo44

Thanks BigEDLB! For Allen & Franklin Cos. Not much left to count. Here is my final guess at the certified totals from for Ohio from the SOS:
....................................................Bush..................Kerry
SOS Unofficial totals (11/03).........2,796,147.....2,659,664
Provisionals Counted (82/88)..................52,737......65,103
Outstanding Provisionals...........................1,668........2,503
Certified Totals.............................2,850,552......2,727,270
Percent of Total Vote...........................50.1.................47.9
Margin for GWB.....123,283
Total Ohio Vote for President ...........................5,696,487
If I were Blackwell I'd sit on these results until Friday as that would allow no time for the recount being done before the safe harbor deadline.
Ann't it Grand!

Fargo44

Hell! I might have to do my work then! Let's keep this going! Here is my latest "projection" with 80/88 counties reporting:

Item................................Bush..............Kerry
SOS unofficial (11/04)........2,796,147......2,659,664
Current Provotes (80/88).........48,747.......54,278
Outstanding Provotes.................9167.......13750
Projected Final Totals.........2,854,061.....2,727,692
% of Vote................51.1...........48.9
Margin Victory..........126,369

Asumptions: 78% of outstanding provotes will be valid and they will fall 60:40 to Kerry. As note Franklin county could stink up my projections but not the final result!

Its in the bank.

Fargo 44

"Is that assumption 60% of remaining Provisionals, or 60% of remaining Provisionals after the invalid portion of that Provisional total has been tossed?"

I make a correction for valid provotes (I assume 78% will bw accepted).

Then I assign 60% of those to Kerry.

Ohio is now at 80/88 counties and I will recalc. But as Go Bucks and Bush as noted earlier the only big block of outstanding provotes is Franklin Co. (Columbus).

If Franklin goes very heavily to Kerry then I will be off a bit. It might because there were big lines in the minority precints there -- but keep in mind this county is under dumbocrate control.

But like most have noted this thing is over -- it was over on the morning of November 3, 2004!

Fargo44

If they were taken by force across a State line does it not become them a Federal crime?

Or is it just a case of FBI jurisdiction in the matter?

(I'm not an attorney)

Fargo44

"One final BIG Point is the so called UNDERVOTES! THESE ARE NOT VOTES!"

I agree 100% -- but have you heard anyone but the "conspiracy theorists" on the Wacko-Lib sites talking about doing anything with undervotes?

I am assuming that any recount that happens (I doubt Ohio will actually be recounted) will be another machine vote right?

And even if another machine count is run it should be within 1 - 2% of the final talley certified later this week by Blackwell. I am assuming that all the counties are doing a final count before they send in finals for SOS certification. Yes?

BTY Ohio is at 79/88 counties reporting. Only Athens, Lucas, Stark and Franklin have significant numbers of provotes left. Here is my latest "prediction":

Item..........Bush..........Kerry
SOS unofficial (11/04).....2,796,147......2,659,664
Current Provotes (79/88)......48,307.....53,749
Outstanding Provotes.............9,664.....14,495
Projeted Final Totals.......2,854,118.....2,727,908
% of Vote..........................51.1..........48.9
Margin Victory for Bush.......126,209

(I'm assuming that Kerry gets 60% of remaining provotes)