Black Floridians ask: Will our votes count? Democrats are hoping old wounds will mobilize them.
Plan B: ‘October/November Surprise’
Let the fun and games begin. Without a verifiable comfortable lead, it appears that Republicans may be pulling out all of the stops in order to retain the White House. Clearly, given what happened in Florida in 2000, we should not assume that all Republican efforts will be above board. In fact, Republicans have proven themselves willing to take any step, no matter how anti-democratic it may seem. When it’s all about winning, everything is in play.
Remember the citizen revolt in Miami? That “spontaneous” outcry that ended up preventing 10,750 votes from being counted. There was nothing spontaneous about that “riot”. Each of the numbered persons in this picture were later identified as being on the GOP payroll. They were flown to Florida for the express purpose of doing whatever was necessary in order to ensure a Bush victory. That they esentially materially interfered with the democratic process somehow seems beside the point.
Four years later, the very same thing looks as if it may rear it’s ugly head once again. Think your vote actually counts? I wouldn’t be so certain.
Back in the sunnier days of September, George W. Bush’s political team was hoping that his lead would grow, as John Kerry was bedeviled by Swift boat ads questioning his Vietnam heroism and by taunting chants of “flip-flop.” But Bush’s clunky debate performances and weakening poll numbers mean it’s time for Plan B.
Bush’s Plan B looks to be a kind of “October/November Surprise,” a coordinated strategy to suppress the vote in battleground states like Ohio and especially in Democratic strongholds. The heart of the plan will be to swarm the polls with Republican activists who will use challenges against individual voters to tie up the process, lengthen voting lines and cause time-strapped voters to give up and go home.
To some political historians, the scheme has the offensive smell of Jim Crow tactics used during the days of the segregationist South to keep African-Americans from voting. But the strategy has a more recent precedent, the disruption of recounts in Florida in November 2000 as Bush was clinging to a tiny lead.
To make sure that the recounts didn’t change that result, the Bush campaign flew in Republican activists from Washington to stage noisy disruptions. One demonstration in Miami became known as “the Brooks Brothers riot,” for the preppie clothes the rioters wore. With Republican demonstrators roughing up Democrats and storming the doors of the Dade County canvassing board on Nov. 22, 2000, the vote counters hastily abandoned their recount plans, effectively throwing out 10,750 uncounted ballots.
After their storm-trooper-style victory, the rioters celebrated at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Crooner Wayne Newton sang “Danke Schoen,” German for “thank you very much.” Another highlight of the evening was a thank-you conference call from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who joked about the successful riot, according to the Wall Street Journal. [Nov. 27, 2000]
The tab for renting the hotel – $35,501.52 – was paid by the Bush-Cheney recount committee.
Florida in 2000 demonstrated what can happen when we assume that democracy is a self-sufficient process and that that the democratic process brings out the best in Americans. The sad reality is that there are those out there, primarily Republicans, who are so concerned with political power that they will stop at nothing to ensure that George W. Bush and other Republican candidates are “elected”. If this means actively working to disenfranchise voters who don’t plan to vote Republican, well, the means justifies the ends, no?
We need to admit to the reality that the quest for political power can and will corrupt those who care only for power. Those who are morally and ethically bankrupt enough to seek to disenfranchise voters who don’t vote as they do have a place waiting for them- it’s called prison, and they belong there. Given that many of these anti-democratic terrorists (a strong word, I know, but true in this case) are actually employees of the GOP, we should be under no illusions that the Republican Party cares a whit about democracy. It’s all about power- pure and simple. AND WE DESERVE BETTER.
