The more I read about the GOP tactics in the Washington state primary on Saturday the farther my jaw drops. How can something like this be happening in this day and age? We all know the GOP has a pretty good track record of voter suppression but that’s usually aimed at competing parties and not at one of their own. Let’s see if I can make this make sense.
After the Republican nominee John McCain had already had his butt whipped twice by Bible thumping Mike Huckabee just a few hours earlier in Kansas and Louisiana-- extremely embarrassing for the nominee and Party I’m sure-- and trailing for most of the vote count in Washington state, McCain begins to barely pull ahead as the voting draws to a close. And then, with no legal justification, and with McCain ahead of Huckabee by only 242 votes the chairman of the Washington GOP, Luke Esser, orders the counting to stop and declares McCain the winner. The difference between McCain and Huckabee was 242 votes or 1.8% with over 1,500 votes remaining and they aren’t even saying what precincts remain and which have been counted. The official word from the GOP is, McCain has enough votes, it’s over. I would write a treatise on how illegal this is even though I know full well that primaries are controlled by the parties, but right now I’m still in shock that it even happened.
All this begs the question why stop the counting? Why not just find out who really won? GOP Chairm
an Esser explains,
“Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn't said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses.”
So it would have been safer not to tell people that they aren’t going to bother counting the votes. That we already know who’s going to win so why bother? Interesting take on democracy there Mr. Esser.
Needless to say Mike Huckabee isn’t too happy about the whole thing. He’s already compared it to the Soviet Union and refused to concede the race.
"That is not what we do in American elections... Maybe that's how they used to conduct it in the old Soviet Union, but you don't just throw people's votes out and say, 'well, we're not going to bother counting them because we kind of think we know where this was going.'"
As unbelievable as all this sounds, I can’t figure out why the GOP would do this. Worst case scenario for the GOP is that the all but sealed-up nominee, McCain, loses three times in one day, which by itself is rather hilarious but it’s not like Huckabee could pull off any kind of upset. He trails too far in delegate count and it’s not like he’s the prized poster boy of conservatism that Rush Limbaugh is choosing as his next president. If I recall correctly Limbaugh said that if either McCain or Huckabee is the nominee it would destroy the Republican Party. So what’s the big deal if Huck does win three times in one day? He could win from here till April and I still don’t think he could catch McCain in the delegate count. The only reason I can think of is that the GOP doesn’t want to even flirt with the idea that the Republican establishment is very unhappy with their nominee. And if stopping an election in mid-count quells some of the uprising that may arise, then something as simple as fixing elections is what they’ll do to ward off the mobs. All the while trying their hardest to demonstrate that the GOP is very strong and united and McCain is so popular amongst party members that even on non-Super Tuesday weekend voting he’s still winning.
I’m telling ya, this is crazy stuff. As a history person I don't think I've ever heard of this before. Sure during Reconstruction some very messed up stuff happened in both the North and the South, but in modern day Party politics this is very unique. There might a good chance the GOP will call off the rest of the primaries and just declare McCain the nominee. Why waste all that money on elections when they aren't even going to count the votes. Save the money for the General Election because they are really going to need it.*Update:
Huck writes Chairman Esser, with grammatical errors and everything.
Tags: John McCain, Ron Paul, Huckabee, Washington state primary
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