There is a little article in the current issue of the Economist on this book. I haven’t read it yet, but for those of you interested and don’t get the Economist, check your local magazine rack. It is only a 2 or 3 min read, unless you are at the Quickie Mart and you hear, This isn’t a lending Library.

I also had a wonderful time talking to the people I met at the Fiddler’s Elbow, but have a different opinion of Markos’s presentation. I wrote this about it.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the very successful blog, The Daily KOS was in town today promoting his book about democratic grassroots and the internet called “Crashing The Gate” This book claims to be the route to a new “people-powered politics” to replace an “ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated” Democratic party. The book accurately discribes many of the issues we face.

As a big supporter of Howard Dean in the last election, I was very interested in seeing what ideas were being espoused by an active member of the Democratic internet movement. I stood in line with the book I had just purchased and when it was my turn to talk to Mr. Moulitsas, I told him congratulations on the tremendous success of his web site.

We shook hands as I asked him to be sure and cover the voting machine issue on his website this year. He seemed to want to downplay the danger of the machines saying that they didn’t really need Diebold because they had other ways of causing problems. Since he has a law degree, I think he only wanted to touch on the problems that have already been widely proven. I don’t know if he had heard of the Diebold lawsuits, but sensing his discomfort with the topic, I had my book signed and moved on. I knew I would still probably have a chance to ask him something in front of the audience.

Because Mr. Moulitsas is such a hot topic these days, it was good of him to show up in our red Utah neighborhood. Other then outwardly chastising Senator Leiberman (a big crowd pleaser), and a couple of profanities during the speech, his demeanor seemed to please the crowd for the most part, but for me things went downhill pretty fast!

I don’t think Karl Rove could have done a better job of making the Republican party look strong, by repeatedly saying that Republicans have the ability to motivate, inspire, “hit them in the heart” and get them out to the polls, while Democrats are ineffective, uninterested, unlikely to vote, and for lack of a better word in the body of this message, doomed! He even said that he didn’t sense there was any way Democrats could win in 2006, or even 2008. Apparently we’re going to “Crash The Gate” VERY SLOWLY!

Early in the presentation, Moulitsas repeatedly said that despite the fact that people did not like George Bush and did not think the country was headed in the right direction, Democrats still lost. Finally, an audience member said “Kerry won” to which Moulitsas rolled his eyes and exaggeratedly and said “yeah right!” The chuckling died down quickley and I added my terse and unlawyerly “he did”. Agreement from this audience to either position could not be discerned.

I don’t know about you other Democrats out there, but I have to try, real hard, not to RAPTURE whenever somebody says the Democrats are going to have to work a lot harder if we ever want to WIN an election!

Calm down Larry.

The Democrats haven’t lost a presidential election since 1992. There, I said it!
The Democrats haven’t lost a presidential election since 1992. There, I said it again!

Mark Crispen Miller, (author of “Fooled Again”) is right. It’s not that you can’t prove the election WAS stolen, It’s that you can’t prove it WASN’T stolen. According to Miller, someone of stature will shortly come to the rescue of my credibility!

Of course it’s impossible to prove that an election has been stolen on a machine that only has to be unplugged to destroy the evidence. What CAN be proven though is that almost every election official in the United States is actively working to make sure that evidence will not be available. That’s the story here! Get on it journalists, I’m just an Optician!

When it was my turn to ask a question I offered “Why do you think the exit polls in Keiv Russia work so much better then they do in the United States?” His ready answer was “it’s a methodology issue”

Pause……

Gee, Edison/Mitofsky, that was some shoddy work there in 2004! I wouldn’t take that if I were you! Stand up and fight!

Mr. Moulitsas, for the sake of argument, lets agree that not one vote was stolen using a voting machine programmed to do that. It’s obvious that just about every method imaginable WAS used. If you are going to place your movement at the forefront of Democratic election success, you have got to place election fraud information at the center of your strategy. I categorically disagree with your pronouncement that Democrats aren’t working hard enough! I do agree that they are becoming less motivated!

As for myself, excuse me, but I have to drive an ice pick into my thigh (Comic relief imagery courtesy Mike Malloy (Air America Radio) who also coined this word that I hope the Democrats never have to use again!)

Anticipointment.

Thank you for promoting this event. Many of us just can’t do/attend everything but enjoy hearing about it all!

Bob,

Then why issue the statement at all?

IMO, the statement reflects increasing nervousness with the Bush administration and is somewhat analogous to the increasing number of high-ranking defections. The Mormon church simply doesn’t want to be the last to defect.

There is more to the statement than merely reciting old, well-understood policy.

It was so fine to see and feel all the energy at the Fiddler’s Elbow during the Markos Crashing the Gates event. Tension in the ranks does exist, as in any group or family structure. Rob Miller lives the old “W” adage: “Bring us together”, he talks about Human Values, not “Republican” or “Democrat” values. That’s the way to go. People like him will win over the fearful and “in the closet” Democrats. No shame, if you see a man like Rob who is proud to be a Mormon AND a Democrat..