Former President Jimmy Carter called former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman an "attractive" candidate for president in 2012.Cross-posted.
Although the one-term president said President Obama will be his choice in the next election, he said Huntsman, who formed a federal political action committee on Tuesday, is "very attractive to me personally." But he added that his "intention is to vote for the Democratic candidate."
In a lot of the post-election analysis of the midterm elections a sizable amount of attention has been paid to what sort of influence Sarah Palin had on the various races, with stories ranging from not much to you couldn't win without her."Take Back the 20," Palin's political action committee, targeted 20 congressional districts across the country that John McCain carried in 2008 but had Democratic representatives in Congress.So while critics try to blame the Tea Party for costing the Republicans the Senate, which was always a long shot to begin with, to saying that anybody who Sarah endorses is probably riding on the crazy train, the results speak for themselves.
The results, listed below, are eye-opening. Palin succeeded in 18 of 20 districts, losing in West Virginia's 3rd House District. At this time, the race in Arizona's 8th House District is too close to call.
Deal becomes the second member of the state’s 13-seat congressional delegation to announce his retirement in the past few days. U.S. Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) announced on Saturday he won’t seek re-election in November.Deal is running for governor so this resignation is not totally unexpected, but he is not polling that well in the gubernatorial race.
GOOOH stands for "Get Out Of Our House" and is pronounced like the word GO. Our mission is to replace the 435 career politicians who have taken over our House of Representatives with everyday Americans just like you, perhaps even you. GOOOH is a non-partisan process that:This organization is no Johnny Come Lately, in fact it was originally started in 2007, before the Tea Party was even thought of. While the Tea Party has a decidedly conservative lean to it, GOOOH is not about parties, but rather an effort to oust career politicians. They do endorse some stances that are considered conservative, like term limits, but for the most part they just wish to get a different breed of American citizen involved in politics and rather than continue to rail against the entrenched Beltway Mafia, which is having limited effect, throw the bums out.
1. Allows you and your peers to actively participate in the selection of your representative.
2. Allows you and your peers to determine, among yourselves, who can best represent your District.
3. Replaces career politicians with true representatives.
4. Ends the influence of special interest groups.
5. Holds representatives accountable.
While most of the attention has been given to the governors races in VA and NJ, and the upstate congressional race in New York, down here in the merry old south we have our own little election going on for the mayor of Atlanta that is now headed for a runoff.
Prodi Coalition on the Brink of Collapse
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government seems on the brink of collapse after a tiny party withdrew from his shaky center-left ruling coalition on Monday. The beleagured prime minister said Tuesday he will now try to maintain continuity by seeking a confidence vote in both houses of parliament.
The crisis comes in the wake of the resignation of Justice Minister Clemente Mastella last week and his decision on Monday to pull his small UDEUR party out of the coalition.
Prodi still has a majority in the lower house, but the loss of UDEUR's three senators means that his already precarious one-seat majority in the Senate is now gone.
Mastella had initially indicated that he would support the government from outside after his involvement in a corruption scandal prompted his resignation. He and his wife Sandra Lonardo, a senior official in the Campania region, have been placed under investigation, though both deny any wrongdoing. Mastella insists that he has been targeted due to his attempts to reform the judiciary. On Monday, Mastella complained that his fellow ministers had failed to back him up and that he would now vote against the government, adding: "This center-left experience is over."
The center-right opposition, led by former Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi, is chomping at the bit to profit from the Prodi government's disarray. "We should have elections straight away," Berlusconi insisted on Monday. But one ally, Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, who faces a confidence vote himself over the Naples garbage crisis (more...), urged his fellow politicians to back Prodi: "It would be masochism to hand Italy back to Berlusconi," he said Tuesday.
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See the rest at der Spiegel Online
Heh. With sixty-one governments under their belts since 1945, you never know, the Italians just might get it right . . . this time.
He's a mass-murderer but why let facts get in the way of a good story?Cuba Parliament Must Decide on Castro
HAVANA (AP) - Preliminary results are expected this afternoon in Cuba's parliamentary elections. Cubans are being asked to back 614 top Communists, career politicians, musicians and athletes for posts in the legislature, known as the National Assembly.
Only one choice appeared for each post in districts across the country and there was no campaigning. The Communist Party is the only party allowed, but the government says membership is not a prerequisite for the parliament that rubber stamps official party policy.
Fidel Castro, the ailing 81-year-old leader who has not been seen in public for nearly 18 months, was among the candidates.
The U.S. government and opposition leaders have dismissed the election as a sham and say reported turnouts lead to a false sense of unanimity.
There was no doubt that voters in Castro's home district would re-elect him to the National Assembly, where he must hold a seat to be eligible to stay on as chief of the island's governing body, the Council of State. The 614 candidates in Sunday's legislative election ran unopposed.
Still unknown, however, is whether the assembly will choose Castro as council president when it convenes for the first time on Feb. 24, or whether the bearded revolutionary will step down after nearly 50 years at Cuba's helm.
Cuban officials say they support Castro's continued presidency, but Castro himself has hinted at retirement, without making his intentions clear. In December, he wrote that he has no intention of clinging to power or standing in the way of a new generation of leaders. Last week, he said he was not well enough to speak to the voters in his district of Santiago.Election officials in the Florida counties of Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Volusia were unavailable for comment.
"I do what I can: I write," he added in an essay published in official media, seeming frustrated. "Writing is not the same as speaking."
On Sunday, Castro cast his ballot as he convalesced at an undisclosed location. He provisionally ceded power to his younger brother Raul in July 2006 following emergency intestinal surgeries, but remained head of the Council of State.
Election officials picked up Castro's sealed ballot and ceremoniously delivered it to a polling place near the Plaza of the Revolution, the seat of government power in Havana. During previous elections, Castro traveled to Santiago on the other end of the island to cast his ballot, trailed by reporters, photographers and cameramen.
But officials insist his health is good enough for him to continue as Cuba's leader.
"You should have no doubt that he's ready," National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon told reporters after casting his ballot. "He is in a position to continue that job, and the vast majority of Cuba will be more than happy (about that), myself included."
About 8.4 million voters on Sunday backed 614 candidates who ran for the rubber-stamp parliament. Electoral officials said an estimated 95 percent of registered voters had cast ballots an hour before polling stations closed Sunday evening.
Cuba maintains that its balloting is more democratic than most because those running are chosen by municipal leaders nominated at neighborhood gatherings. But U.S. officials and other critics counter that the elections do not represent a real opportunity for Cubans to decide for themselves how and by whom they will be governed. Only one candidate appears on the ballot for each district post.
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Read it all at MyWay/AP
WASHINGTON - They love using their iPods, laptops and cell phones for political information, yet many young adults say they aren't quite sure how to get a ballot in the first place.C'mon people, are you that clueless? Every candidate has an official website and countless other spinoff sites that can easily be accessed.
On top of that, information overload from all the tech toys gets in the way of finding news sources they can trust. Confusing absentee ballots and a lack of faith in the system also may turn young voters into no-shows at the polls.
Andy Weisman, a 23-year-old research analyst from Arlington, Va., simply looks up information in a newspaper about the candidates. Still, he says, plenty of people his age are turned off voting by "not knowing enough about the candidates and not knowing how to find out about the candidates."
Once they connect with a candidate, what can young voters do to prepare to cast their ballots? Some common questions and answers for taking that next step:Someone please help poor Mary out. Does she know how to find the phone number so she can make the call?
How do I register to vote?
Mary Krulia, a 22-year-old Washington legal assistant from Lancaster, Ohio, plans to cast her primary election vote from Washington in March. "But I need to re-register somehow," she said. "I need to call the board of elections and see what I need to do."
How do I learn when an election is being held?OK, now if you're so completely braindead that you don't know when elections are being held, quite frankly I'd rather you stay home. Chances are strong you're a Democrat, so you're better off not canceling out my vote.
What can I expect when I go to my polling place?
Does voting really matter to me at this time in my life?
Read it all at The Guardian.
Intimidation and dirty tricks help Putin to massive landslide
President Vladimir Putin appeared to be heading for a landslide victory in Russia's parliamentary elections last night amid widespread reports that millions of citizens were coerced into voting for his party, United Russia.
Early results from the Central Election Commission indicated the party was leading with 63% of votes, with the Communist party trailing a distant second on 11.5%. Two other partners looked set to scrape into the State Duma: the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, with 10.6%, and Fair Russia, another Kremlin-linked party, with 7.1%. Exit polls indicated similar figures.
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Don't be surprised if Livejournal develops a severe case of technical difficulties in the not too distant future.Fraud, intimidation and bribery as Putin prepares for victory State workers forced to vote in effort to rig result
The Kremlin is planning to rig the results of Russia's parliamentary elections on Sunday by forcing millions of public sector workers across the country to vote, the Guardian has learned.
Local administration officials have called in thousands of staff on their day off in an attempt to engineer a massive and inflated victory for President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Voters are being pressured to vote for United Russia or risk losing their jobs, their accommodation or bonuses, the Guardian has been told in numerous interviews with byudzhetniki (public sector workers), students and ordinary citizens.
Doctors, teachers, university deans, students and even workers at psychiatric clinics have been warned they have to vote. Failure to do so will entail serious consequences, they have been told.
Analysts say the pressure is designed to ensure a resounding win for the United Russia party and for Putin, who heads its party list. The victory would give him a public mandate to maintain ultimate power in the country as "National Leader" despite being unable to stand for a third term as president in March.
In a televised speech yesterday Putin implored the nation to turn out and vote for United Russia, saying: "I count on your support." The president enjoys genuine popular backing but a spokeswoman for Golos, an independent organisation monitoring the elections, said "big pressure on voters across the country" was being used to balloon the result for United Russia.
"We are seeing a new phenomenon where voters are forced to get absentee ballots under threat of being sacked or being denied bonuses," she said. "People are then instructed to vote at their workplace where everything is tightly controlled." The spokesman said the pressure applied to private businesses as well as state-run enterprises.
Students have been told they risk the prospect of failing exams or being removed from courses if they do not vote for United Russia. Alexander, a journalism student at Oryol State University, said: "It's been made very clear that students who don't get absentee ballots and vote the right way could lose their place in the dormitory."
Anna, 31, a schoolteacher in Ulan Ude, said: "We were called to the staff room in my school about a month ago and asked to sign a formal declaration promising that we would vote for United Russia. I told them that I wanted to vote for another party, but they told me to sign it in such a manner that there was no way to refuse. They hinted I could lose my job."
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Bloggers on Russia's most popular social networking site, Livejournal, have posted numerous accounts of intimidation. One in Murmansk wrote that he was told that if he didn't vote for United Russia "the management would get it in the neck".
Another in Yekaterinburg wrote: "Today my wife came home in shock. As the boss of a state company she has been told that all her workers living in different parts of town must take absentee ballots and go to vote in Kirovsky district. She has to go and sit all day on December 2 and call round everyone in her collective. Then she has to provide a list of who has voted." She then received a directive warning her to add anybody who didn't vote for United Russia to a list, and later those people would be "called to the office" of the local administration.This schmuck wouldn't know voter fraud if it came up and kicked him in the ass. Or, he's on Putie's payroll.
The Kremlin has cast Sunday's State Duma vote as a referendum on Putin. Although Putin is obliged to step down as president next May, a landslide victory may be used to legitimise his return to power, possibly as early as the summer.
The president's personal popularity remains high. But support for United Russia is less solid. Independent experts say the party's true ratings are around 35% - well below the 55% figure suggested by state-controlled opinion polls.
In a leak to Russian media this week, one senior election official said that regional governors had been told to deliver at least 65% of the vote for Putin's party, an "unrealistically high" total that could be achieved only through electoral fraud and by compelling people to vote.
"The elections are going to be falsified," said Mikhail Delyagin, an economist and the director of Moscow's Institute on Globalisation Problems. "The elections that took place in the Soviet Union were less falsified than this one."
He added: "All those who depend on state salaries have been forced to go and vote. This means workers on all levels of state power working for local government, all the military, and those who are in prison or psychiatric hospitals. Of course people have the possibility to lie. But there is enormous psychological pressure."
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Putin's decision to associate himself with United Russia's election campaign - and to stand as a candidate at the top of the party's federal list - has contributed to the scale of the fraud, analysts said.
"The scale of pressure is due to nervousness within the Kremlin administration since it announced that this is no longer a parliamentary election but a referendum on Putin," Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, said. Lukyanov said he believed the amount of fraud on polling day would be small.
"This is normal in contemporary advanced authoritarian systems. They are smart enough to organise the vote in quite a proper and correct way," he said.Furiously taking notes, spokesthingys from the Kooky Kult of Koslam were unavailable for comment.
Coercing people in advance was a more effective tactic, he added. "The consequences [of not voting for Putin] are not perhaps as bad as they promise. But there is psychological pressure, of course. I had thought Russian authoritarianism was much softer. We will see."
[....]
There's more
ATLANTA (Map, News) - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a challenge to Georgia's voter identification law, saying the statute does not impose a significant burden on the right to vote.
Barring an appeal, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy's decision removes the last obstacle to enforcing the voter ID law for local special elections in 22 counties on Sept. 18. Early voting begins Monday.
Murphy praised the state's "exceptional efforts to contact voters who potentially lacked a valid form of Photo ID." He said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit because they have been unable to locate voters harmed by the law.
Reeling from Segolene Royal's defeat in the presidential race, France's Socialist Party (PS) faces the prospect of a humiliating wipe-out in this weekend's legislative elections which look set to deliver a huge majority for President Nicolas Sarkozy.Can you smell the Citroen and Peugot bonfires, yet?
A month after Sarkozy's victory, France returns to the polls Sunday for the multi-candidate round of a two-stage election to choose the 577 members of the National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament. The second round takes place on June 17.Anyone seen Karl Rove?Already in a minority in the Assembly, the PS appears bound for another five years in opposition -- with the latest opinion poll showing that it can expect no more than 29 percent of the first round vote compared to 41.5 percent for Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
The only question is likely to be the size of the party's defeat. In the worst case scenario it will lose many of its existing 149 members and sink to depths last plumbed in 1993, when in a dramatic electoral collapse it returned just 67 law-makers.As French historian and intellectual Max Gallo said, "Sarkozy's victory [was] that of reality over utopia."Even with their members leaving the fold, the Left still doesn't get it.
