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Will Fimian defend self-defense?

Tess

Tess

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"I won't" doesn't mean what you think it means

Fimian concedes election

But now, I suspect Connolly's mindset is "I won" and not "I'd better listen to all my constituents, not just 49% of them."
 
Repeater

Repeater

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Thanks, Tess -- but read this ...

Tess said:
Fimian concedes election

But now, I suspect Connolly's mindset is "I won" and not "I'd better listen to all my constituents, not just 49% of them."
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link -- it inspired me to look into this mess; perhaps someone has preformed an autopsy.

Much to my surprise, I came across this from Mason Conservative, who writes of his Fiance and why she voted as she did. Read her reasoning ...

Want to know what happened on Nov 2 and why, apparently, the GOP didn't wash away Gerry Connolly. Look no further than my beautiful bride-to-be, who lives in Fairfax City. She's not a political person at all. She works in Tysons, goes to graduate school at Mason, and spends her free time dealing with me and planning our wedding. She loves Tech football, hates MMA, and for some reason loves me. But she's an average American, worried about the real world and only gets into a campaign near the end. She's a nominal Democrat but has voted Republican in the past. She's liberal on most social issues, but likes our taxes low and does not support illegal immigration. Some time in October, she usually starts paying attention through conventional outlets like CNN, Washington Post, and Fox News (and me, of course). She stacks their positions together and makes a decision.

For the last few weeks I've been on her about this. She insisted she wasn't going to vote this year. I asked her why, and she said she just didn't want to support either Connolly or Fimian. I asked her why, and she just shrugged and said netiher of them have given her a reason to support them. Fimian had succeeded in turning off Connolly to her. She was angry when she heard about Connolly's hit and run, but was equally angry when she heard about Fimian's support of guns on the Tech campus (she's a Tech grad and very sensitive to what happened down there). She didn't think Democrats listened to the regular folks, but she distrusted Fimian's past social views. She just didn't know what to do. I think at the end she was waiting for one of them to explain exactly why she should vote for them in a positive way. Neither did, instead they slung mud till the end. So she went and voted for Chris DeCarlo. I asked her why, and she said she just couldn't vote for either person and decided to protest by voting third party.

I think Jess's story here matches that of many independent voters in the 11th. Fimian did a good job in really damaging Gerry Connolly's reputation with independents, perhaps fatally so in the future, but he never was able to close the deal for himself. I think Keith ran a great campaign, one that went from a ten point loss two years ago to within 900 votes of victory. His negative attacks on Connolly worked in damaging Gerry, but at the end of the campaign he gave no closing argument to explain his vision in positive terms.
Click to expand...

What do you think of his analysis?
 
ed

ed

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Postcard Sent

gerry.jpg
 
The Donkey

The Donkey

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TFred said:
Oh, those poor, poor, over-worked, tired poll volunteers... Of course they're bound to make just a few mistakes here and there...

TFred
Click to expand...

So what are you implying here Fred?

That in those precincts where there was an "over-vote" the poll workers conspired to cast fraudulent democratic votes?

I just want to make sure that is what you mean before I bother to de-bunk it.
 
TFred

TFred

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The Donkey said:
So what are you implying here Fred?

That in those precincts where there was an "over-vote" the poll workers conspired to cast fraudulent democratic votes?

I just want to make sure that is what you mean before I bother to de-bunk it.
Click to expand...
Merely that in reading that blog, it seemed that many of the irregularities were at least partially explained away by those poor, poor, over-worked, tired poll volunteers. Maybe they should get more poll volunteers, so they can do their job without being so tired and over-worked that they make mistakes.

I know that there is bias among poll volunteers. I've witnessed it myself. I'm not saying this election was fraudulent, but it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge that these folks vote for only one of the candidates themselves.

TFred
 
The Donkey

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TFred said:
Merely that in reading that blog, it seemed that many of the irregularities were at least partially explained away by those poor, poor, over-worked, tired poll volunteers. Maybe they should get more poll volunteers, so they can do their job without being so tired and over-worked that they make mistakes.

I know that there is bias among poll volunteers. I've witnessed it myself. I'm not saying this election was fraudulent, but it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge that these folks vote for only one of the candidates themselves.

TFred
Click to expand...

In Fairfax, poll-workers make about $100 to work at the polls from 5 AM to about 8 PM on election day.

As a rule, there is an even number of democratic and republican poll workers hired to staff each precinct. This year, almost all precinct chiefs were republicans, because McDonnell is governor. On the County Board of Elections, republicans out-number democrats 2 to 1.

For the most part, the reason that these people do this is out of love for our democratic civil ceremony.

Do you really think thatthese people -- aside from the occasional wierdo -- would risk so much in that environment for one or two extra votes for their preferred candidate?
 
TFred

TFred

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The Donkey said:
In Fairfax, poll-workers make about $100 to work at the polls from 5 AM to about 8 PM on election day.

As a rule, there is an even number of democratic and republican poll workers hired to staff each precinct. This year, almost all precinct chiefs were republicans, because McDonnell is governor. On the County Board of Elections, republicans out-number democrats 2 to 1.

For the most part, the reason that these people do this is out of love for our democratic civil ceremony.

Do you really think thatthese people -- aside from the occasional wierdo -- would risk so much in that environment for one or two extra votes for their preferred candidate?
Click to expand...
Not only did I say nothing of the sort, I explicitly said that these workers vote for one of the candidates themselves.

Are you just trying to pick a fight? Wow. I know you had a bad week, but sheesh, take a nap or something.

TFred
 
The Donkey

The Donkey

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TFred said:
Not only did I say nothing of the sort, I explicitly said that these workers vote for one of the candidates themselves. 1

Are you just trying to pick a fight? Wow. I know you had a bad week, but sheesh, take a nap or something.

TFred
Click to expand...

I re-read your post, Fred.

Then I took a long nap.

Yeah, sorry. After spending last tuesday at the Office of Elections listening to republican lawyers argue that absentee votes should be excluded for asinine technical reasons, I spent much of the past week dealing with republicans bitching that the democrats had stolen the 11th District election. Fairfax election workers briefly became an Acorn front or just like Chicago or something.

In his final e-mail, Fimian wrote this:

. . . perhaps most importantly, we have determined that, in Fairfax and Prince William counties, voting machines failed to register votes on over 1,000 ballots that were cast in the congressional election. This year, when the congressional race was the only office on the ballot, it seems odd that so many voters would turn out to vote only to cast a blank ballot. So I believe .that there are in fact as many as 1,000 votes that have not been counted in this election, and that a recount would uncover those votes.
Click to expand...

I wrote him back:

. . .I am hoping that I can call on you at the appropriate time join me in pushing the County Boards of Elections to take measures to ensure that all DREs create a paper trail so that all votes on these machines can be verified.

Can I call on you for that in the next few months? Would this be a good e-mail address to reach you then?
Click to expand...

I have not heard back from sad Mr. Fimian, and I doubt I ever will. The fact is that "protecting the vote" is now a democratic party value, and "blocking the vote" is the prevailing republican one.

Next time this issue comes up, I will again be the lone voice bitching about it to a room full of stone faced republicans who will thank me for my input and then ignore me again.
 
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