Conspiracy Theories
Let's give a quick rundown in chronological order...
Before the polls closed, there were quite a few predictions of low voter turnout, but no one had them as low as the final number of 26% provided by the city clerk.
Speaking of the city clerk Frank Martinez, he was appointed by Mayor Hahn just last September, just in time to host this election
Election Night - The fog factor. Remember the mysterious fog incident on election night. This caused the ballots which are normally flown downtown to Piper Tech for counting to be driven across the city by city employees without supervision, helping add to the delay in counting.
Speaking of the city employees, remember they are members of SEIU, the very union which endorsed Jim Hahn and whose head, Julie Butcher had serious issues with Bob Hertzberg.
Ballot Counting - The Daily News says it all. "L.A. re-inked votes - City clerk ordered election workers to fill in faintly marked ballots" . This was in addition to the fact that the city employees handled EVERY SINGLE BALLOT before they were counted to check for the marks. Isn't this called "ballot tampering?"
Missing Precincts. Does anyone else find it odd that thirteen precincts have yet to report or be counted? Check the city clerks report... 1599 total precincts, 1586 number reporting... and the other 13 are .... lost in the fog?
Now, I'm not saying anything happened, I'm just saying these all added together are starting to make me go hmmmm...
Additional Stories:
L.A. city clerk's decision to re-ink ballots in mayor's race criticized
L.A. city clerk's decision to re-ink ballots in mayor's race criticized II
Candidates Unaware Ballots Re-Inked
Inka dinka don't?
Muttering the Election Administrator's Prayer
In addition, you might read between the lines in this Daily Breeze article. While the harbor had a lighter turnout than everybody else, they seem to be heavily aligned behind only one candidate and the percentages just don't make much sense...
Labels: SEIU
Posted by Anonymous @ 3/12/2005 12:11:00 PM
27 Comments:
who cares!!!
tomcat
Elections workers were ordered to re-ink thousands of ballots on election night, Tuesday. Troy Anderson, of the Los Angeles Daily News learned of this on Friday and reported it in Saturday's edition.
It is bad enough that the ballots were delayed due to fog and the count went well into the early morning. This is all we need, no wonder the electorate is so fed up. Voter apathy is at an all time low and turn out for Tuesday's vote was the lowest it has been in decades...
By the way paranoid, but still very valid. Thanks Chief.
CAN WE ALL SAY SORE LOSERS.!!!!!
CAN WE ALL SAY SORE LOSERS.!!!!!
nice, did this thing just get taken over by the daily kos?
I dont get why people who backed bob cannot give up. Look at what he got in predominantly black/latino council districts - 500 votes. I know more black and latino people. And dont go comparing him to riordan who got that kind of reception in those areas. Riordan went hard on the money to get name reco, bob did not. riordan did people favors and made them millions, bob gave the valley a busway.
Bob was not serious about running for mayor. You are not serious about being realistic.
blog away.
Bob should be going after Walter Moore who got 10,000 votes. He's the run that hurt him coming in 2nd. Move on people!!!
The funny part is that the very blowhards bagging on Bob are the same ones tripping over themselves for his endorsement. I hope he sees these comments and tells you Hahn hacks to shove it!
Bob should should thanking his lucky stars he's not going to be the target of ADV's newest nastiest slime campaign complete with claims of "victimization," race-baiting and personal attacks (without any such thing taking place).
Will the unions be able to muster up enough votes for Hahn? What will happen when they don't?
Not to taint Tony with John Kerry but he is getting more mentions as a flip-flopper. Earlier reports said that Villaraigosa had flipped-flopped on the sales tax. After supporting it in council he "flipped-flopped" by opposing it and siding with Greig Smith. Today, the Daily News said Villaraigosa did a "flip-flop" on entering the mayor's race after promising his constituents to keep out of it. Can we believe Tony?
Tony V. changes his positions entirely too often to be called just a "flip-flopper".
rank opportunist?
panderer?
liar?
(Liar is too kind) ADV tells more lies before breakfast than most people do all day).
Too bad!
Because of Hahn's bullshit (and make no mistake about it) with the unions (refer to the Fly's post of a while back) this election WAS tampered with. It does not add up.
Stay tuned for massive election investigations by the end of this week.
Too bad, los Angeles for the next 4 years lost out on electing Mayor HertzGuardia.
Now we are left with 2nd place Tony V.
Hahn IS going down.
Will one of the stalwarts of the 5 liberal Democratic camps that owned this election explain how completing the fill-in in an already marked ballot could be any different than knocking out the last corner of a hanging (or seriously "pregnant") CHAD in Florida, the way the liberal Dems wanted to do then (and "screamed" that EVERY VOTE SHOULD BE COUNTED (even if that meant the election officials there had to guess the intent of the voter).
Daily News...No cakewalk for challenger Villaraigosa...By Earl Ofari Hutchinson so true. South Central is hearing the truth about how poorly ADV can't take care of his own district. They don't want illegal Latino vendors all over their community. Blacks are pissed that Latinos are taking over their communities.
HERE YOU GO MEAT. Welch@tabloid.net
The Anti-Antonio Brigades: Now that the L.A. Mayor's race has boiled down to a repeat of the 2001 Hahn-Villaraigosa contest, you can bet your sweet bottom that the Latino is once again getting pilloried by the MeCHA-fighting online immigration-obsessives. What are they saying? Let's look:
Lonewacko: "While Hahn has his faults, they are insignificant in comparison to the effect that Villaraigosa would have on Los Angeles, California, and the U.S."
Hal Netkin: "Antonio Villaraigosa is the former Chairman of the UCLA Chapter of MEChA, an anti-Israel separatist group vowing to liberate Aztlan (the U.S. Southwest), who refer to themselves as La Raza (The Race)."
Joe Guzzardi, at VDare: "Antonio Villaraigosa [is] a second generation American but unrepentant MeCHISTA whose only claim to office is his Mexican heritage."
The now heavily pro-ADV conspiracy buffs think-tanked here need to set up a group meeting so that its component parts aren't contradicting each other quite so much. So, some think the city employees tampered with ballots (at the behest of their union bosses, presumably?), also presumably to make sure Hahn made the runoff and Hertzberg didn't. They did this (following the conspiratorial thread here), by re-inking thousands of ballots -- in Hahn's direction -- but had to do so in such as way that the ballots wouldn't be spoiled and discarded by having two different candidates marked. They apparently did this all in a speeding van coming down the Sepulveda Pass at 2 a.m., in the course of an extra hour or so?
HELL, why not just steal the Bob ballots and swap-in some fake Jimmy's? Why bother "inking" anything and risk being seen doing this over and over (as they were) unless it really WAS just an on the up-and-up attempt to make sure all votes got counted.
But, these would then ALSO be the same city employees that other ADV supporters say are NOT following the suggestions of their union bosses to actually VOTE for Hahn themselves, but straying off to support Villaraigosa (and were also, I believe someone said, too disinterested to even place that many Hahn signs before the primary on their own time). But they WILL tamper with ballots -- risking fines and prison -- to make sure the candidate ADV supporters say the rank-and-file doesn't support gets a second chance. Are these then the same city employees that one pollyana blogger here keeps saying are literally cheering in the "halls" at the prospect of having ADV as their new boss? If one wanted to concoct a conspiracy theory from all this, wouldn't it make more sense to suggest these people would doctor ballots for ADV, and NOT Hahn (assuming all the previous claims of bottom-up ADV support in the unions are true)?
ADV was 21 and had known the mother of his first daughter for just six weeks before she became pregnant. He was 25 when his second daughter was born to another woman.
Molina appointed Villaraigosa to MTAuthority board, in 1991. In 1993, he became a subject of media scrutiny when Molina's husband was awarded a $193,000 contract after Villaraigosa voted against granting the contract to two competing firms.
He had an affair that became the talk of the Eastside political elite. His wife filed for divorce just one day after he won his first election.
This is a guy with abolutely NO FAMILY VALUES.
FROM MEAT:
From Matt Welch - responding to Lonewacko.
OK, Loney, I'll bite on Kaus' 1999 blog post. First, by mentioning that it was written in 1999 ... surely you could come up with some more recent & pressing outrages?
Irredentist's Appointment Postponed?
There is no evidence in Kaus' post, or in anything I have ever read, that Villaraigosa is an "irredentist."
One of the great underreported stories is the impending takeover of Los Angeles politics, at some point, by Latino voters.
That story is no longer underreported, though the alarmist-sounding takeover has utterly failed to materialize.
The biggest potential worry, of course, is that Southern California might become a sort of super-Quebec (imagine that restless Canadian province, except with France right next door).
Of course? There's a huge legal difference between an American state and a Canadian province, especially if the latter has extra-ordinary linguistic and power-sharing arrangements with the federal government. You don't need to have a Californian in a senior position of the federal government, and you never will (especially if Republicans maintain their control of the federal government).
Even my rightish L.A. friends assure me such fears are completely unjustified -- Southern California's Latino immigrants, like other immigrants, want to be integrated into the U.S., they're becoming more conservative, only a tiny fringe exhibits irredentist sympathies, etc. Maybe my friends are right.
This passage is well worth dwelling on.
Two weeks ago, Antonio Villaraigosa, Speaker of the California Assembly and a leading candidate to be L.A.'s first modern Latino mayor, publicly thanked Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo for having "great impact in defeating Proposition 187" (the anti-illegal-immigration measure that passed in 1994 with almost 60 percent of the vote but has since been killed in the courts). The Los Angeles Times's story quoted Mexico's Deputy Foreign Minister, Juan Rebolledo, to the effect that Villaraigosa "gave [Zedillo] thanks on behalf of Mexican Americans." The Times then waxed enthusiastic about how Villaraigosa's comments heralded the "rise of a new phenomenon: cross-border politics," and what one expert called the "silent integration" of California and Mexico.
Hypothetical for you -- would there be something wrong for the speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly to publicly thank an Irish politician for successfully lobbying the U.S. government to drop its visa restrictions for Gerry Adams? I think that's well within the field of tolerable behavior, even if I disagreed with the policy under question. Also, the Times did not "wax enthusiastic" about "silent integration," it quoted a political scientist saying that.
But there were at least four things conspicuously wrong with what Villaraigosa said: 1) It wasn't true; Zedillo didn't have a "great impact." Prop. 187 was struck down by a federal judge and then abandoned by the newly-elected Democratic Governor, Gray Davis -- a 187 opponent -- who "settled" the lawsuit by basically letting the judge's ruling stand;
Sorta pours water on the whole eroding-sovereignty theory, don't it? Villaraigosa thanked Zedillo impact he did not have. (This, incidentally, is in the Times story: "Dresser said Zedillo didn't overtly contribute to the demise of Proposition 187.")
2) Zedillo is head of a foreign power -- do we want American politicians encouraging him to meddle in California's affairs, especially to overturn the will of California voters?
One man's "meddling" is another man's "diplomacy." Should an Armenian-American politician not thank an Armenian-Armenian politician for encouraging the state of California to adopt a "California Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923"? In general, I don't necessarily want Californian politicians to encourage foreign leaders to lobby against (or for) state law, but A) the net effects of such lobbying attempts are (as in this case) minimal; and B) this is pretty typical behavior of ethnic domestic politicians speaking to the foreign leader from the Old Country.
3) Why thank Zedillo "on behalf of Mexican Americans?" Villaraigosa is Speaker of the state assembly -- doesn't he represent all Californians (many of whom were non-Mexican-Americans who opposed 187)? Villaraigosa's bald appeal to cross-border ethnic solidarity would be troubling even if it hadn't had a triumphalist "we beat the gringos" undertone. Mexican diplomat Robelledo said "I was surprised he was so explicit;"
I agree that Villaraigosa shouldn't have said "on behalf of Mexican Americans" (if indeed that's what he said -- the quote came from Juan Rebolledo, who certainly had motivation to inflate a California politician's words). If he had said "on behalf of Californian Mexican-Americans," he would have been on more solid footing; I, too, would prefer that he attempt to speak for all Californians (or better yet, for none of us), but I also recognize that ethnic politics has a long history, and yet the Republic continues to survive. Villaraigosa, like a lot of non-Latinos (me) was deeply troubled by Prop. 187, and was probably happy for every little help he could get. If Tom Tancredo had an ally in the Mexican government who thought matrica consular cards were wrong, would it be wrong for the guy to go down to Mexico and give him a high-five?
4) Zedillo's government is not exactly a model deserving of fawning flattery.
Nothing in the Times story indicated that Villaraigosa flattered Mexico's democracy, unless it was the mere fact of a California politician being complimentary (and hyperbolistic) about a specific policy issue.
And let's look at what other kind of "irredentist" agitating Antonio was doing down there:
* "In his meeting with Zedillo, Villaraigosa also urged that this country's government-controlled airlines, Mexicana and Aeromexico, award a $6.5 billion contract for new planes to Seattle-based Boeing Co., which manufactures aircraft in Long Beach."
* "Villaraigosa said in an interview Tuesday that he is seeking alternatives to propositions like 187 to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into California."
It turns out that many in Los Angeles did not share in the enthusiasim for "cross-border politics" either. Villaraigosa's comments stirred a mini-firestorm. He attempted damage control with a rote op-ed piece blaming pro-187 zealots. But Times columnist Frank del Olmo then weighed in with an uncharacteristically blunt, powerful piece making all the above anti-Villaraigosa points. "You can scratch the name of [Villaraigosa] off your list of potential mayoral candidates," del Olmo wrote. Now comes today's Times with the news that Villaraigosa's allies, "including politically powerful Latinos," are urging him to abandon his mayoral run, and maybe seek a City Council seat instead.
I guess that campaign didn't exactly take off.
Only someone paranoid about the divisive potential of identity politics in Southern California would suggest that for at least some of Villaraigosa's critics, the main objection may not have been so much to what he said, but rather to his stupidity in saying it so crudely in public at a time when Latinos are still only a fifth of L.A. voters .....
What the hell is Kaus even talking about here? Seriously. Look at all the hedge-betting qualifier words: at least some, may not have been so much.... To put it into English, I think Kaus is himself suggesting that the del Olmite objections may have been motivated by the fact that Antonio tipped his hand about the coming wave of Latino-dominated, gringo-mocking irredentist California politics. In which case the word "paranoid" I think does indeed apply.
Just because it was Mickey Kaus saying it, and not Hal Netkin, doesn't mean it's any more right. (And, needless to say, I could be blind to the reconquista revolution ... though I really doubt it.) I know you've been researching this with dogged single-mindedness, so why not show us something to worry about aside from a hyperbolistic 1999 blog post from Mickey Kaus, and the stunning news that Villaraigosa belonged to a Chicano group in college?
Clerk Martinez gave a detailed explanation of this on radio Tues. a.m. The re-inking is a practice recommended by the secretary of state, and was done under supervision in view of any observers who took the time to be there. The verification banking was noticed appropriately, and any of the candidates' teams could have watched if they wanted to -- in a tight race, would probably have been a good idea. The prescribed re-inking process leaves the voter's original mark visible for post-verification. The vote isn't considered final for 21 days after the election.
(Hertzberg, however... interviewed on the same program, made it sound like he may still be backing away from his "concession" and is leaving options open to ask for a recount).
But there's no reason to believe the remaining 25K absentees, etc. will break much different than the inital batch, which came through in the following order, favoring, Hahn, then Hertzberg, then Villaraigosa.
12:00 PM ANON said:
"ADV was 21 and had known the mother of his first daughter for just six weeks before she became pregnant. He was 25 when his second daughter was born to another woman. "
You forgot about the girl that Tony got pregnant at 16. She was a naive, innocent Catholic School girl from Sacred Heart of Jesus. Tony got her to fall in love with him and then got her pregnant. This led to Tony's first stint as an organizer. He got all his friends together and they all claimed that they took turns on the girl - some organizing. The father went to court, the baby was given up for adoption and the family sold their business on Olvera Street and moved to Fresno. Just another in a long line of women's lives Tony has ruined. This could be chalked up to youthful indiscretioin if such activity stopped during his youth. But Tony is still behaving the same way, after nearly 35 years, nothing has changed.
Antonio has the funniest stuff on his website. I check it out for a good laugh. Here's the latest. Antonio hasn't been to a Boyle Heights Neigborhood Council meeting in 2 years even though he is on the Education and Neighborhood Committee.
Antonio: I will promptly respond to all requests from concerned citizens, Neighborhood Councils and the City Council.
Like with the "largest open space" claim last week, this one's missing the end of the sentence, too.
"I will promptly respond... (etc.) ASSUMING the proper amount of tribute has been paid into my mayoral campaign funds."
Just ask the dog parke people in CD14 about that one.
Slanderous remarks about Villaraigosa's supposed personal life. I could say some mean remarks but then it would probably be true about you too.
SNAPPY retort there, 12:07 ("wel... you are, too"). But you better wade back over into the kiddie pool before you get hurt here in deep water.
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