Did Kerry Win?

This is the current cover story on Rollingstone.com. It's by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it makes strong and incendiary accusations, and it's long. It's also a bit dry, because he examines, close up, the minutiae of how the 2004 presidential election played out in Ohio. He talks briefly about problems in other places, but his focus is Ohio, because that was the key state that won the election for Bush.

The thesis of the article is basically that there were massive, organized efforts by state GOP officials, as well as by people in the employ of the RNC, to swing the state to Bush by any means necessary. It's goal is not so much as to say that Bush was again elected illegally, but instead to shed light on the despicable tatics of the people involved and to provoke outcry at the fact that there has been no outcry before. The article is thoroughly researched, and includes footnotes on pretty much all of its claims. As I see it, there are four responses to reading this article:

1)Complete disbelief. The fact that the article was written by someone with the last name of Kennedy alone is enough to convince you that all the numbers and fixed, the facts are invented and the people mentioned should file lawsuits because of the lies printed about them. You also believe that Barry Bonds, bless his heart, has never used steriods and that democracy is blooming in Iraq.

2)Mild interest overwhelmed by apathy. You may think that something happened that shouldn't have, but it couldn't have affected the whole election, could it have? Anyway, the article was so damn long that it's not worth knowing, anyway. Someone else will take care of it.

3)Belief that it doesn't matter. You think that sure, the Republicans were clearly up to something sneaky, but the Democrats probably were too, you just don't hear about it because this article is clearly printed with a liberal bias. You believe there are two sides to every story and that numbers can be made to say anything. You also believe that global warming doesn't exist because there's still that one scientist with a degree from National American University that disagrees with every other scientist on the planet who actually know what they're talking about.

4)Belief that our electoral system is fucked up. Ultimately, this article and anything that happens because of it will not affect the outcome of the 2004 election. Bush will not be tossed out of office and Kerry will not be installed. It's only value, at this point, it to shed light on the events of the past so that we can learn from them in the future. Our electoral system is in desperate need of national reform, which you think would have happened after 2000. But no. Also, whether or not the actions of the people mentioned in the articles were enough to change the course of the election or not doesn't matter: it's clear that that's what they were trying to do. And that is amazingly disturbing.

I found this article to be very convincing, not because it had a smoking gun that proved there was fraud in Ohio in 2004. It doesn't, because if it did, all these people would be in jail right now. What it does present is a strong circumstantial case, supported by exit polling data and actual voter returns (could anybody disagree with idea that it makes no sense for Kerry toget less votes than a black liberal judge who supports gay marriage in 12 rural districts?). That lack of "hard" evidence is not because there isn't any: it's because people have tried very hard to cover it up. I would like to say that I'm shocked that I haven't heard about this before. But the truth is, the lack of media coverage on stories like this has become a recurring theme since Bush took office. Just one more disturbing thing to think about. As if we didn't have enough already.