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July 01, 2004

Rove bemoans loss of Michigan and Florida

With Pennsylvania in good shape, the Russert triangle of Michigan, Florida, and Pennsylvania seem to be looking like winners for the Dems in November, especially in light of recent events. Activists are moving on, to states like Ohio.

First, this story out of Detroit:

Lee Iacocca's Remarks Endorsing John Kerry for President

Mayor Gonzales, thank you for that kind introduction, and thank all of you for this very warm welcome. Nice to be back in San Jose, by the way – I used to have a Ford plant here in Milpitas. We built a lot of Mustangs up there. This place is really – you know, I am supposed to be retired, but I sort of flunked it, I think, a little. In the past 10 years, I haven’t been playing much golf at all.

What have I been doing? I’ve been out making speeches, and I’m not running for anything, by the way. I’ve been talking to lots of CEOs of companies and of countries all over the world, and I’ve talked always about one subject: change. Economic change, technological change and political change. And how you adapt to all that change, because if you don’t, you sort of die.

I’m here today because our country needs a change in leadership.

We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying jobs all across the country. The bottom line is simple: We need a new CEO and President.

And I gotta tell you, I say this not as a partisan but as an unabashed patriot: I’m here today for the same reason I spent 22 years leading the campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I love this country. I came from a family of poor immigrants. We revered Franklin Roosevelt for what he did to help struggling families during the Depression.

My very first Presidential ballot – that’s how old I am – was cast for Harry Truman – unsurprisingly, an idol of mine. Why? Because he told it like it was. And he was a doer. With Harry, the buck really did stop here.

I’ve been friendly with every President since Lyndon Johnson, and over time I became less and less partisan – I guess that goes with age, I’m not sure. But in each election, I voted my conscience and supported who I thought was the best man for the job.

I never actively campaigned for anybody, except in 1980 and 1984 for Ronald Reagan and in 2000 for George W. Bush. I was deeply involved in the Bush campaign, stumping for him in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where I spent most of my life. I hate to tell you this now, I even appeared in a couple of Bush campaign ads.

But this year I’m supporting John Kerry to be the next President of the United States.

All of my best friends are Republicans, and they ask me, “Are you crazy or something? Why are you doing this?” Well, it’s simple. I tell them the world is changing. Our country is changing. And we need a leader who understands that change that’s taking place. And most important, we need a leader who will level with us about how we can adapt to that change and make things change for the better.

Then this one which affects Michigan's large Muslim population:

Muslim voters turn away from Bush, survey finds

Four years ago, presidential candidate George W. Bush reached out to American Muslim voters, gathering several key endorsements from U.S. Islamic leaders.

That, of course, was before the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of thousands of Muslims, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

"People in our mosque voted overwhelmingly for Bush,'' said Souleiman Ghali, the president of the Islamic Society of San Francisco. "I don't know anyone who is voting for him this time.''

If that sounds like an overstatement, consider the results of an admittedly unscientific survey released Tuesday from the Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization sent out questionnaires by fax and e-mail to thousands of American Muslims, mosques and other Islamic organizations.

Out of the 1,161 responses it received from eligible voters, 54 percent said they were voting for Democrat John Kerry, 26 percent backed Ralph Nader, and only 2 percent said they were voting for President Bush. The rest were undecided.

Fifty-five percent of those same Muslim American voters said they had cast ballots for Bush in 2000.

Last but not least, Jeb finally lost one in his crusade to bar minority voters:

Florida Must Release List of Ineligible Voters

Florida must release a list of suspected felons it wants purged from voter registration rolls so the names can be checked to avoid errors that wrongly disenfranchised voters in the state's disputed 2000 election, a state judge ruled on Thursday.

CNN, ABC and other news and civil rights groups sued to get copies of the list in order to check its accuracy before November's presidential election.

A similar purge list used in 2000 contained hundreds and possibly thousands of errors, barring some eligible Florida voters from the state's presidential balloting. Republican George W. Bush gained the White House after winning Florida by 537 votes after a recount battle.

"This is good news for voters because now these records will be open and available for public inspection to help protect the right of every eligible voter in Florida," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the plaintiffs.

In 2000, many of the barred voters were blacks, who skew Democratic, and who charged they were deliberately disenfranchised to influence the outcome. The errors also enabled some ineligible voters such as felons to obtain ballots.

Posted by Mike at July 1, 2004 10:31 PM

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