Apologies right away to the fact that this article was not researched by me. It is from http://www.consortiumnews.com/... based on "How the Republicans Win" by By Robert Parry - August 29, 2008
I searched to see if this topic has been covered lately but saw nothing.
However, after reading the entire article I felt compelled to share it with all of you. We have seen our power lately and this most be known to the public.
Humphrey 1968
In 1968, Nixon and his operatives great fear was that President Johnson would negotiate a settlement to the Vietnam War and thus push Vice President Hubert Humphrey over the top to victory. So, although a half million American soldiers were in the battle zone and the war was tearing the United States apart, Nixon’s campaign made secret contacts with South Vietnamese leaders, allegedly offering the assurance that if they refused to cooperate with the Paris peace talks, they could expect a better deal from Nixon. The evidence is now clear that the Nixon campaign dispatched Anna Chennault, a fiercely anti-communist Chinese-American, to carry that message to South Vietnamese president Nguyen van Thieu.
On Oct. 23, 1968, Ambassador Bui Dhien cabled Saigon with the message that "many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged me to stand firm." On Oct. 27, he wrote, "The longer the present situation continues, the more favorable for us. ... I am regularly in touch with the Nixon entourage." On Nov. 2, 1968, Thieu withdrew from his tentative agreement to sit down with the Viet Cong at the Paris peace talks, destroying Johnson’s last hope for a settlement and clearing the way for Nixon’s narrow victory.
McGovern 1972
In May 1972, the plumbers planted bugs in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee, apparently gleaning information about the last-minute strategies of the Democratic establishment to block the nomination of Sen. George McGovern, whom Nixon viewed as the easiest Democrat to beat. The next month, when the plumbers returned to plant more listening devices, they were caught by Washington police, leading to the Watergate investigation. But Nixon was able to keep the story mostly under wraps until he won his landslide victory against McGovern.
Carter 1980
Over the past 28 years, more than a score of witnesses – including senior Iranian officials, top French intelligence officers, U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives, the Russian government and even Palestine leader Yasir Arafat – have confirmed the existence of a Republican initiative to interfere with Carter’s efforts to free the hostages.
In a little-noticed letter to the U.S. Congress, dated Dec. 17, 1992, former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr said he first learned of the Republican hostage initiative in July 1980.
Bani-Sadr said a nephew of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, returned from a meeting with an Iranian banker, Cyrus Hashemi, who had close ties to Casey and to Casey’s business associate, John Shaheen.
Bani-Sadr said the message from the Khomeini emissary was clear: the Republicans were in league with pro-Republican elements of the CIA in an effort to undermine Carter and were demanding Iran’s help.
Bani-Sadr said the emissary "told me that if I do not accept this proposal they [the Republicans] would make the same offer to my rivals." The emissary added that the Republicans "have enormous influence in the CIA," Bani-Sadr wrote. "Lastly, he told me my refusal of their offer would result in my elimination." Bani-Sadr said he resisted the GOP scheme, but the plan was accepted by the hard-line Khomeini faction.
Though some Carter advisers suspected Republican manipulation of the hostage crisis, the Democrats again kept silent.
Only after the Iran-Contra scandal broke in 1986 – and witnesses began talking about its origins – did the 1980 story get fleshed out enough to compel Congress to take a closer look in 1991-92.
Again, however the Democrats feared that the evidence could endanger the fragile political relationships in Washington that enable governing to go forward. Once more, they chose to ignore the GOP machinations and, in some cases, literally hid the evidence.
Gore 2000
The Republican brazenness expanded into the actual counting of votes in Election 2000. Though Al Gore won the national popular vote and stood to gain the presidency if a full recount of legally cast votes in Florida had been allowed, five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court sided with George W. Bush and stopped the Florida recount, effectively handing Bush the presidency.
Almost a year later, in November 2001, a group of eight large news organizations finished a study of the uncounted Florida ballots and discovered that under any standard used for the chads – dimpled, hanging or fully punched through – Gore would have won if all ballots considered legal under Florida law were counted. However, in the post 9/11 climate, the news organizations tried to spin their own findings so as not to undermine Bush’s "legitimacy." The Democrats also didn’t do much.
Kerry 2004
In Campaign 2004, the power of the right-wing news media also was at its apex with a multitude of print, radio, TV and electronic outlets that could twist reality into almost any shape desired. So, in the campaign’s final days, when Osama bin Laden released his first video in a year to denounce President Bush, the pro-Bush media treated it as an "endorsement" of John Kerry.
After bin Laden’s video, last-minute polls showed a surge of about three-percentage points toward Bush and he hung on to win by an official margin of about 2½ points (although suspicions persist that Bush also benefited from voting irregularities in key states, such as Ohio).
Only after Election 2004 – in a book by journalist Ron Suskind – did the public learn that inside the CIA, senior analysts concluded that bin Laden had issued his 11th-hour video with the intent of tipping the election to Bush, whose belligerent policies bin Laden saw as helping al-Qaeda’s cause.
Source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/...
I find it scary that something will be done again this year to turn votes away from Senator Obama and towards Senator McCain. We have already seen their "Game Changer" energizing their right-wing base. What else do you think they will do at the last minute?