"Emmanuel Ortiz" -- a nom de blog to protect the politically-connected -- is a moderate Republican who's been documenting the 2004 election irregularities since the beginning of this month on his blog,
Scam-O-Rama..
Scanning Scam-O-Rama doesn't yield much new data for the average obsessive Kossack. What is different, however, is that it's written by a Republican lawyer. Ortiz writes in his (truly refreshing) profile:
My political career has included opposition research for a Republican gubenatorial campaign (the most successful in my state's history), national fund raising for an unsuccessful Republican Presidential campaign, and a Republican campaign for US Senate. Quite simply, I am horrified. . . .
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Ortiz sees ominous implications for the future of our republic in the 2004 Republican hijinks. I suspect he's the first Republican I've seen invoke the twin F-words: fascism and fraud. In yesterday's post,
Can we stop a Fascist Revolution in America?, he wrote:
No one questions that the 2004 General Election solidified a trend of Republican gains in Federal and state offices nationwide. As a result, many citizen activists---including Greens, Libertarians, Democrats, and increasingly, moderate Republicans (such as myself)---are concerned that the country has reached a crucial inflection point.
The 2004 General Election will allow ultra-conservative Republicans to place an almost unassailable stranglehold on Federal and state power in all three branches of government, for decades to come. Well-documented allegations of election fraud in the 2000 General Election and the 2002 Mid Term Election suggest that if wide spread fraud is found to exist in the 2004 General Election, it is part of a larger and, perhaps, darker process that parallels increasing Republican political influence and power.
If Republican gains in 2000, 2002, and 2004 are indeed illegitimate, won through organized fraud, the implications are blood curdling. Faced with this possible scenario, a reasonable person could conclude that the United States is in the final throes of a silent coup d'etat perpetrated over the past four years by a small minority of corporate-backed ultra-conservative interests. In effect, the United States is undergoing an invisible fascist revolution, and no one seems to notice or care.
What concerns Ortiz more than the unsavory events of Election Day, however, is partisan Republican judicial stonewalling and obfuscation. This guy is a bonafide member of the reality-based community. Even if Bushco makes the Nixon conspirators look like thuggy fourth-graders (and that's gotta hurt, for any Republican), he believes that the most important thing for us now is that we keep sight of what's real and true. The lawyerly shenanigans are therefore frightening:
In our current election investigation, unless the evidentiary record is preserved, we will never know whether history [here he refers to FDR's documented Pearl Harbor funny business] is repeating itself, this time at the loss of our democracy.
As the country prepares to welcome in 2005, the clock may also be ticking for our democracy. Current Republican-led delay and evasion tactics are having a major impact on whether the true story of the 2004 Election will ever be told. Without Kerry/Edwards support at this juncture, the opportunity for an effective investigation is virtually over. . . . .
As Americans, we must do everything that we can to ensure that the truth comes out. With a properly preserved evidentiary record, the 2004 Election may turn out to be Bush's Watergate. We should not as a country wish for this. The resulting national disgrace, loss of standing in the world, and the impact on our economy will be significant, and lasting. However, if warranted, we must accept these costs--at minimum the cost of an open, fair and thorough investigation--in order to re-engage ourselves with the most basic principles upon which our nation is founded.
Amen, brother.