breaking news…. local man finds fault with mark maynard

I was just popping around the internet to see what a few of the local bloggers had to say about the election, and I happened across this choice entry at the East Cross site.

There was a time when voting was fun. It was something to look forward to with excitement. Well, a bunch of imbeciles ruined that for me. I’ll be glad when I am no longer a prisoner in my own home, hiding from the throngs of misguided do-gooders knocking on my door every twenty minutes trying to register me to vote or some other nonsense. It got so bad that by the middle of the afternoon I was threatening these voting activists with violence. I guess it’s a good thing that Brian Mackie won’t prosecute me, or I could have really been in trouble….

So I slunk back home and have spent the past thirteen hours watching returns. If Kerry doesn’t pull this out, I put the blame squarely on MoveOn and it’s incompetent minions. Whether or not Kerry was going to carry Michigan has never been in question. Rather than hop in a van and drive down to Toledo and get out the vote in a true swing-state, these clowns knocked on my door asking us to vote, asking us if we had voted yet, or asking if they can drives us down to the polls. This is all your fault.

First off, Michigan was in question, and if you did your research you would know that. Less than a week before the election, Zogby was showing Bush with a two-point lead in the state. And, the day of the election many felt that Michigan would, in fact, be a closer race than Ohio. Believe me, if that hadn’t been the case, I would have been the first one in Toledo. Secondly, “these clowns” you refer to were at your house because (admittedly perhaps incorrectly) either you, or someone you live with, showed up on a list of new or unreliable voters. If your record had shown that you had voted consistently in past elections, you would not have been visited. Also, had you said, “I don’t want to talk” when we, the “misguided” MoveOn “imbeciles,” first visited, you wouldn’t have been contacted further. Apparently, however, you, or someone in your home, told one of these “clowns” that, in spite of your somewhat spotty voting record, you were interested in supporting John Kerry. Because of that, one, or several, of these “clowns” came to visit you on Election Day, after noticing that your name, or the name of a person in your home, did not appear on the register of voters. Thirdly, the people who came to your home did so because they felt very strongly about this election and what was at stake. They did so because they weren’t content just sitting home, watching television in thirteen-hour clips, and making anonymous comments on-line. Lastly, when you were running for office during the last election, and came to my door, did I blog about you? Did I call you names? Did I say that you annoyed me? No.

I can take criticism. What I can’t take is a guy passing judgment on good people who sacrificed a hell of a lot of time and effort to make sure that Michigan didn’t go red… I’m sorry if you found our techniques bothersome, but studies have shown that two-thirds of “unreliable” voters, even when they indicate that they plan to vote, don’t. So, yes, maybe we rang your doorbell two or three times on Election Day and asked if you needed a ride (how awful), but at least we were doing something… Speaking of which, what did you do to help the Kerry cause?

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16 Comments

  1. Posted November 4, 2004 at 4:11 am | Permalink

    Excellent rebuttal, Mark. Perhaps the writer could have gone to Toledo himself to help GOTV there, if that was so important to him.

  2. dorothy
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 4:37 am | Permalink

    you have everything to be proud of and nothing to regret. if everyone gave of themselves as you did, things might be different today. you are a kind and honerable man who did his very best against impossible odds. FUCK GEORGE BUSH!!!!

  3. Posted November 4, 2004 at 6:32 am | Permalink

    Damned if you do…damned if you don’t? I don’t think so. Mark you and the community you have built here did a great service to us all. While we all search for the silver lining (which is probably going to give us mercury poisoning…) your site is one of the first that I came to…to try and piece together the next steps.

    *ON THE VAPOROUS YOUTH VOTE*

    What do you think of the concept of putting a nationwide initiative together that raises the drinking age to 28?

    Combine it with a manditory 2 years of service in the military?

    Double the 2 years to 4 if you get a speeding ticket?

    I think that would ensure a higher turn out.

    Just my 2 cents

  4. Jim
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 8:11 am | Permalink

    If it hadn’t been for Democratic GOTV efforts, Karl Rove’s highly successful GOTV tactics would have produced not a narrow EV victory, but a landslide.

    At a time when the right uses Evangelical and Catholic churches to mobilize their supporters, not motivating our people to get to the polls is not an option.

    Thanks again, Mark, for your successful efforts to keep Michigan in the Kerry column!

    The following article on turnout is interesting, as are the accompanying maps:

    http://nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04reconstruct.html?hp&ex=1099630800&en=cded3dbcdf6d56a7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

  5. Talbert Cuddlevish
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 8:31 am | Permalink

    What was he running for, Head Douchebag?

  6. Brett
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    Kick his ass, dude. I know you must have a lot of steam to let off, and here’s your chance.
    Make sure you take clementine off your chest first, though.
    Also, if you need back-up, I’m sure anyone that wants to be a part of your ‘think tank’ would just as happilly join your ‘street gang’.

  7. Posted November 4, 2004 at 9:24 am | Permalink

    Absolutely nothin’ gets accomplished without following the Will of Him who sent us sinful mortals. That’s exactly WHY our Prez got a second term — You cannot receive Holy Communion, turn around N slaughter the unborn. Period. endOstory.

  8. Tony Buttons
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    Finally, a man of intellect, a worthy adversary!

    I’m very happy to make your acquaintance, sir.

  9. Brett
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 9:44 am | Permalink

    I much prefer following up my acts of ritualized cannabalism by slaughtering already-born iraqis.

    “thou shalt not kill”(Jehovah)
    “If you wanna make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs” (Cheney)

  10. Brett
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 12:03 pm | Permalink

    I’d also remind Catalyst4Christ that if he’s really Catholic, then there is a certain infallible ‘Holy See’ whom he’s supposed to obey without question, and El Popa did NOT endorse Bush.

  11. el Popa
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 12:21 pm | Permalink

    brett,

    g.w. bush is not catholic.

  12. Brett
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 1:15 pm | Permalink

    No, he isn’t Catholic, and he’s not even remotely Christian in my book.
    But the ‘Catholic vote’ was supposedly a big help for him, although the Pope has repeatedly spoken out against the Iraq war. It would seem to me if American Catholics want to go to church but don’t want to COMPLETELY agree with the pope, then the protestants offer plenty of options (and have for centuries).
    One of the major causes of this current situation are people who want to appear to be good christians, and as I’ve said here and elsewhere they don’t follow any of the very rules they supposedly agreed to in the first place. As Mr. Maynard pointed out, we’ve seen the whole language hijacked by them, so that now “Bigotry” is renamed “Values”.
    For years, I’ve been shrugging my shoulders and figuring “oh, those wacky fundamentalists”; Like many people I’ve seen the hypocrisy, but figured ‘each to his own’.
    Now it’s different. If someone wants to believe there’s a ghost in the sky, great. But when they use their fairy tales to derail an entire nation’s philosophical objective, and threaten the safety of the entire planet, then it’s our job to call ‘bullshit’ on them.

  13. mark
    Posted November 4, 2004 at 4:41 pm | Permalink

    Brett, I couldn’t agree with you more… When all the rapture shit was restricted to bumper-stickers and few insane cable TV stations, I didn’t give a shit. I thought, if that

  14. dennis barger
    Posted November 5, 2004 at 10:30 pm | Permalink

    not to throw salt on this wound, but actually i think moveon.org did not do their job, yes you held bush to 49% or whatever but Prop 2 passed by 61% statewide…these two numbers are directly connected seeing as how most of the moveon people (notice i didn’t call them clowns) were pushing “Vote Kerry” as much as they were “no on 2″…too late in the game to second guess this, but one issue was obviously an easier sell than the other…but i don’t put the credit for keep michigan blue with moveon.org if anything I would have to say it was the media, they covered the presidential election way more than the Prop 2 debate, and I hate to say it (snicker) but I thing alot of democrats were too stupid to read the prop and vote the right way on the prop (5%-10% in washtenaw had to hate bush and then crossed over to hate gays)…but they could read bush and kerry so that is why they voted the right way there…

    look at the http://www.ewashtenaw.org numbers…everything voted straight party lines here in ypsi/a2 except prop 2

    weird isn’t it

  15. Jim
    Posted November 6, 2004 at 6:06 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the link to ewashtenaw.org. Comparing the Presidential and Prop 2 numbers is fascinating. In some precincts, Bush and Prop 2 did equally well (in my blue precinct (AA 5-2), both got 11%). In some precincts, Bush actually did better than Prop 2. For example, in Saline City Bush won, but Prop 2 lost. On the other hand, in Ypsi 3-3, Prop 2 did significantly better than Bush (Yes 240, No 609; B 149, K 690). If anyone has the ability and interest to crunch these numbers, it would be interesting to try to isolate the factors that determined votes on Prop 2 relative to Presidential voting. It is probably mostly demographics, but it would be interesting to know whether there were other factors at play in places like Saline, such as anti-2 campaigning.

    Also, for a good and succinct argument that the anti-gay initiatives did not have a decisive effect on the Presidential vote, see:

    http://slate.msn.com/id/2109275/

    It was terror, stupid. A related point is made here:

    http://www.thehill.com/mellman/110204.aspx

    It’s damn hard to beat a wartime President, even if it’s a stupid, pointless war started by the President.

  16. mark
    Posted November 6, 2004 at 7:40 am | Permalink

    Dennis, you were standing right next to me for quite a few hours at the polls and I’m sure that not once in that time did you hear me, or any of the other MoveOn people, comment on Prop 2. We were there supporting John Kerry. Yes, I found the Prop 2 issue to be abhorent, and I voted against it, but I never mixed the two issues (other than having a Kerry sign in front of my house next to a “No on 2” sign). When we were going door with MoveOn, we didn’t bring up 2. We talked about Bush and Kerry and why we thought Kerry was a better choice for Ypsi, Michigan and the US. I would have gone door to door against 2 as well, but I didn’t think it served our purposes to discuss too much at once. My main objective in this election, as terrible as 2 was, was to get rid of Bush… So, I don’t think you can look at the passing of 2 as a sign that MoveOn didn’t do its job.

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