posted June 01, 2006 12:06 PM              

With the poll results being so low for both the Bush administration and this Congress if the Republicans retain control after the Nov. 2006 elections you can be sure election fraud was involved in the results.

How is this for a cop out by Diebold?

quote:

---

Diebold Election Systems spokesperson David Bear says Hursti's findings do not represent a fatal vulnerability in Diebold technology, but simply note the presence of a feature that allows access to authorized technicians to periodically update the software. If it so happens that someone not supposed to use the machine—or an election official who wants to put his or her thumb on the scale of democracy—takes advantage of this fast track to fraud, that's not Diebold's problem. "[Our critics are] throwing out a 'what if' that's premised on a basis of an evil, nefarious person breaking the law," says Bear.

---

Not Diebold's fault if they make it easy for these "evil, nefarious " people to change votes. What a butt wipe!!! Uh, I think we are going on more than "what ifs." There are a lot of "evil, nefarious" persons in this administration and the Republican Congress. They have more than proven that the rights of the American people are not high on their agenda or something they are concerned about at all. And they stand to lose all their control if the Dems take back the majority in the House and Congress in the Nov. elections. We have seen what the Republicans are capable of if they have a lot to lose. It's amazing to me that in 6 years only 26 states have required a paper trail. My state, Michigan, has a Democrat for governor and a Democrat majority in the legislature so paper trails are mandatory in Michigan now. Wonder how many of those entire 26 States have Democratic governors and legislatures. Will see if I can find some info on this.

Will Your Vote Count in 2006?

'When you're using a paperless voting system, there is no security,' says Stanford's David Dill.

By Steven Levy
Newsweek

May 29, 2006 issue - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the voting booth, here comes more disturbing news about the trustworthiness of electronic touchscreen ballot machines. Earlier this month a report by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti analyzed Diebold voting machines for an organization called Black Box Voting. Hursti found unheralded vulnerabilities in the machines that are currently entrusted to faithfully record the votes of millions of Americans.

How bad are the problems? Experts are calling them the most serious voting-machine flaws ever documented. Basically the trouble stems from the ease with which the machine's software can be altered. It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems. "If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security expert.

Diebold Election Systems spokesperson David Bear says Hursti's findings do not represent a fatal vulnerability in Diebold technology, but simply note the presence of a feature that allows access to authorized technicians to periodically update the software. If it so happens that someone not supposed to use the machine—or an election official who wants to put his or her thumb on the scale of democracy—takes advantage of this fast track to fraud, that's not Diebold's problem. "[Our critics are] throwing out a 'what if' that's premised on a basis of an evil, nefarious person breaking the law," says Bear.

Those familiar with the actual election process—by and large run by honest people but historically subject to partisan politicking, dirty tricks and sloppy practices—are less sanguine. "It gives me a bit of alarm that the voting systems are subject to tampering and errors," says Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay, who worries that machines in his own St. Louis district might be affected by this vulnerability. (In Maryland and Georgia, all the machines are Diebold's.)

The Diebold security gap is only the most vivid example of the reality that no electronic voting system can be 100 percent safe or reliable. That's the reason behind an initiative to augment these systems, adding a paper receipt that voters can check to make sure it conforms with their choices. The receipt is retained at the polling place so a physical count can be conducted. "When you're using a paperless voting system, there is no security," says David Dill, a Stanford professor who founded the election-reform organization Verified Voting.

To their credit, 26 states have taken action to implement paper trails. But the U.S. Congress has yet to pass legislation introduced last year by Rep. Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, that would extend this protection nationwide. Holt says his bill is slowly gaining support. "The voters are saying that every vote should count, and the only way to do this is by verified audit trails," he says. But even an optimistic scenario for passage would challenge his goal of mandatory paper receipts for November's elections. In other words, it's unlikely that every voter using an electronic voting device in 2006 will know for sure that his or her vote will be reflected in the actual totals. Six years after the 2000 electoral debacle, how can this be?

posted June 01, 2006 01:22 PM            

They've already tired....."the people didn't understand our message"..."Our message didn't get out"...."the American voters are too stupid to understand our message"..."Bush stole the 2000 election"...Bush stole the 2004 election".

One day, it's going to dawn on leftists that their message was received loud and clear by American voters...and was rejected.

One day, it might penetrate thick leftist skulls that Americans do not share the values they hold and defend...the Clintonista values of:

Rape
Sexual Assault
Lying
Perjury
Obstruction of Justice
Subornation of Perjury
Treason
Bribery
Murder
Misfeasance in Office
Malfeasance in Office
Misuse of Government Agencies

posted June 02, 2006 12:12 AM            

This idiot seems to have forgotten the ballot box stuffing by democrats...aided by the mob..in Illinois, especially Chicago that won the 1960 Presidential election for....John F. Kennedy.

He seems to be revisiting the democrat excuses for losing in 2000 and 2004. Perhaps he's getting his excuses ready for losing in November and in 2008.

RFK Jr. Charges GOP Stole 2004 Election

Steve Marshall Reporting

NEW YORK, NY (KNX) -- Environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late New York Senator, is charging the Republican party with stealing the 2004 election.

In a cover story for Rolling Stone Magazine, due to hit the stands tomorrow, Kennedy says Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters -- the overwhelming majority of them Democratic -- from casting ballots or having their votes counted on election night.

Given that the election was decided by a mere 118,607, Kennedy theorizes that the alleged stolen votes would have been enough to have put John F. Kerry in the White House.

In his article "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?," Kennedy presents evidence of outright fraud that may have shifted more than 80,000 rural votes from Kerry to Bush.

The primary culprit behind the widespread barriers to voting, Kennedy charges, was Ken Blackwell, now the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, who allegedly used his powers as secretary of state to purge tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, create long lines in Democratic precincts, and oversee a rigged recount.

Kennedy's article points out that CNN had predicted Kerry would defeat Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.

posted June 02, 2006 12:53 AM              

Just to mention one instance, in one town in Ohio there were more votes cast for Bush than there were residents in the town.

Diebold, a Texas based company, promised Ohio to Bush and there is evidence of that also.

If what you say is true, Jwhop, that the Dems are crooks, then you would think that the Republican majority in Congress now would want to get election reform legislation passed that makes it nationally mandatory for all voting polls to have paper trails. But they don't. They keep shelving it. Why ? Please elaborate on why the Republicans keep refusing to do anything in regards to election reform.

Obviously you cannot answer that so you resort to wild accusations about the Democrats instead.

posted June 02, 2006 11:16 AM            

Now, here's another idiot Kennedy recycling accusations of voter fraud and claiming the exit polls showed the traitor Kerry winning. What this lame brained moron doesn't say is that immediately after the 2004 election a massive effort was undertaken to find out why the exit polling was so far off the actual vote count.

Here's why.

The company which did the exit polling and reported the results to the national media were in bed with both the DNC and leftist groups. They attempted to discourage the Republican voters from voting. They gave out the locations (early on in the afternoon) where exit polling was to be done..to leftist groups. These leftist groups sent hoards of Kerry people into those precincts to get interviewed in the exit polling. Of course, they all said they had voted for Kerry. As a result, the exit polling was totally skewed. Not only by that but also by oversampling segments of the voters who were more likely to vote for the traitor Kerry.

This exit polling data was then reported to the national media who dutifully reported to voters all across America that it looked like a landslide for Kerry. This was intended to discourage Republicans and keep Republicans home and away from the voting booths across America. It didn't work.

The national media also attempted to throw the election to Kerry by calling the election early...well before voting in western states was closed. That didn't work either. Of course, they've all apologized (yet again) for that breach of federal law before Congressional Committees.

The national (MSM) news media gave the traitor Kerry more than a billion dollars in free advertising. Their reporting on this traitor ran about 70% positive to less than 30% positive for Bush. That didn't work either.

Even though the Ohio vote was clear and for Bush early in the evening, the democrat controlled national media refused to call the state for Bush until much later. One didn't do so until the next morning...and I don't mean at 12:01am.

So, the whining, screeching moaning and lying continues.

One can only wonder what the next democrat excuse for losing will be.

posted June 02, 2006 12:15 PM              

You're still under the "delusion" that we have Republicans and Democrats, huh? (I used to be - so I understand)....

Fact is - they are all one....

...and did you know that "traitor" Kerry (dubya's fellow Skull and Bonesman), is a cousin to dubya???

...and of course I have to mention again, the close friendship between shrub Sr. and "captain corruption." that we're seeing nowadays....(which actually "always was" since NWO people are never enemies...)

Or perhaps jwhop....you're part of that NWO group who wants to keep us under that two party illusion...*Sigh*

posted June 02, 2006 12:59 PM            

I remember George Wallace declaring there isn't a dimes worth of difference between democrats and Republicans..and that was a very long time ago. It's also noted those who make those claims have an ax to grind and it's usually a 3rd party candidacy.

There's also another group who make those claims who don't want a 2 party or 3 party or 4 party system but rather want a 1 party communist government elected by no one.

There are people making the claim we already have a government elected by no one now..but rather that they are appointed by a shadow government in sham elections.

There are people in this country Rainbow who, if they believed that would take extreme exception and some people would undergo a sudden and progressive drop in body temperature Some of those people are undoubtedly Leo and Leo usually goes right to the top to file their grievances. Under your scenario, that wouldn't be Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et.al...but others...first.

posted June 02, 2006 11:55 PM              

But you know..you never turn on your own..like America is doing..you fix it..whatever way you can..with Respect and Love for ALL..

posted June 06, 2006 11:20 PM            

It's not possible to speak to or about every political division within the electorate. Nor do I know what they are all thinking or doing...if anything. So, it's necessary sometimes to paint with those broad strokes you spoke of.

We would have to disagree that the system is broken, however. It's up to everyone to weed out those who are unfit to serve...lesser or greater evils...during the primaries, before they get on the ballots for the general elections and have a shot at getting elected.

posted June 06, 2006 11:50 PM              

Will your vote count so long as more americans dont question that theres something very wrong and rigged with a "democraticly elected republic" that only give you one of 2 choices for pollitical partys with any power that actualy stands a chance of wining the votes ?

Another perhaps very necesary question-

why do we have only 2 pollitical power partys here, when mostly any other free election country in the known world has atleast 5 or more partys with equal pollitical power ?

What causes this exactly, a nation of peaples that have so easily been convinced that views and reality only have one of two ways of being, the black or the white-

the conservatives or the liberals

the leftist or the rightist

the good guys or the bad guys

the smart or the stupid fellows

or

did this rapeing of our better sences occur from only 2 partys collecting the major mass of voters funds, in a system of capitolism all too easily rigged for the benefit of only a few ?

Wouldnt it be easyer too pull the wool over a publics eyes if they are kept amused and confused by the games and bickerings of only 2 teams, as oposed too 5 or more equal openents having corners and persuasions of pollitical and social influence ?

posted June 07, 2006 03:06 AM              

Now we even have other countries having a say in who gets elected in the U.S.:

Third Largest Voting Machine Producer may be tied to Venezuelan Government; Citizens' Group, Congresswoman call for inquiry

Citing national security concerns, the non-profit public integrity group VoteTrustUSA.org voiced support for a call from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney to investigate the ownership of Sequoia Voting Systems. A leading producer of computerized voting systems used in the U.S., Sequoia was purchased by the Venezuelan-owned Smartmatic International last year. In 2004, Smartmatic partnered with Bizta, a company owned partially by the Venezuelan Government of Hugo Chavez.

In the March Chicago primary, over a dozen Venezuelan nationals were present in the tabulation room, to "support" the computation of the results according to testimony of Jack Blaine, Smartmatic President and CEO at a recent Chicago City Council hearing.

"Control of our election system must be considered a national security issue. The American voter deserves to know who is programming the software that will count their votes," said Joan Krawitz, Executive Director of VoteTrustUSA.org. "The manufacturers of e-voting systems claim the software code as their 'proprietary intellectual property', preventing any independent examination. It is intolerable that a foreign-owned company with possible ties to a foreign government should be able to purchase that kind of power over our electoral system without any government oversight or investigation."

"Just as the Dubai ports deal was a priority security issue, any potential foreign influence on our elections system is vital to our national security and deserves at least a look," said Congresswoman Maloney. "It doesn't seem that the deal for Sequoia was vetted by our government, and I want to know why."

Representative Maloney has questioned whether the sale of Sequoia to Smartmatic was reviewed by the Department of Treasury or vetted in the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) process.

posted June 19, 2006 11:04 AM            

A 3 party, 4 party, 5 party or more system of power sharing.

Their goal is to split the vote into so many voting groups the country will be ungovernable...as in Europe where it's necessary to form coalitions to get anything at all done. In those instances, instead of doing what's right, obvious and necessary, compromises with those who should never be compromised with become necessary but it makes for skewed, erratic and irrational governance.

I would rather see the electorate polarized along 2 lines of thought than fractured into 3, 4 or 5. If a new party arises, it makes more sense to me that one would disappear and become a footnote in history books.

posted June 19, 2006 11:23 AM            

Democrats need to think outside the box and come up with new excuses. Even in the democrat leaning press, that one won't fly.

To have RFK Jr. making the charge at this late date is a gross hypocrisy. It was his uncle, JFK who benefited from mob engineered voter fraud in Illinois which narrowly got John Kennedy elected in 1960.

Chances are that had Nixon been elected in 1960, there would have been no Vietnam War and Cuba would be free and have a democratically elected government.

It was John Kennedy who sent what he termed "military advisors" into Vietnam. And it was Lyndon Johnson who escalated the introduction of US Military forces into Vietnam.

Chances are, had Kennedy not stolen that election, Nixon would have served two terms in office and there would have not been a Kennedy or Johnson administration at all.

Chances are too, that had Nixon left office in 1968 after 2 terms and no war in Vietnam, there would never have been a bungling, incompetent, boobish Carter administration which unleashed radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and terrorist governments on the world....as was and is the case with the Iranian government Carter ushered into power.

posted June 19, 2006 11:31 AM            

In the June 15 issue of Rolling Stone, under the headline "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” Kennedy writes: "A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.”

But the Cleveland Plain Dealer – regarded as anything but a conservative newspaper – headlines a June 18 article: "Rest assured, we checked out Election 2004 thoroughly,” and states: "There was no shortage of mistakes made in vote counting. There were voters who should have been registered but weren’t, polling places with lines that were too long and without enough voting machines, and decisions from [Secretary of State Ken] Blackwell that appeared to be partisan.

"All these mistakes and misjudgments took votes from both candidates, but probably more from Kerry. But they didn’t add up to nearly enough votes to swing Ohio from Bush to Kerry. "The mistakes were … bipartisan in nature and not a result of Republican chicanery.”

The Plain Dealer article by Ted Diadiun points to several instances when Kennedy "ignored” the facts, including:

"In his online footnotes, Kennedy refers no less than a half-dozen times to a five-month-long post-election investigation commissioned by the Democratic National Committee called ‘Democracy at Risk.’
"Somehow he never gets around to quoting the DNC investigative team’s conclusion that ‘The statistical study of precinct-level data does not suggest the occurrence of widespread fraud that systemically misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush.”

The newspaper also notes: "Kennedy saw conspiracy in a Franklin County foul-up that resulted in far too few voting machines at a polling place in a heavily black area that would presumably vote mainly for Kerry.

"But he didn’t tell his readers that the chairman of the Franklin County elections board, who oversaw the county’s voting machine allocation, was a black man who also chairs the county Democratic Party. Not a likely candidate to steal votes for Bush.”

Plain Dealer Metro Editor Jean Dubail said this about the Kennedy article: "My first reaction after reading the thing was how little actual news there was in it.”

Carl Weiser, government and public affairs editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer, expressed similar sentiments: "I read it and nothing in there was really new. The folks who know Ohio elections best checked into it and found there was no conspiracy.”

And a story by Farhad Manjoo on the Web site Salon.com – another news source that’s far from conservative – states: "If you do read Kennedy’s article, be prepared to machete your way through numerous errors of interpretations and his deliberate omission of key bits of data.”

posted June 19, 2006 12:14 PM              

quote:

---

To have RFK Jr. making the charge at this late date is a gross hypocrisy. It was his uncle, JFK who benefited from mob engineered voter fraud in Illinois which narrowly got John Kennedy elected in 1960.

---

Once again, Jwhop, unless you have valid proof that you can substantiate that statement regarding the mob and JFK in the 60's it remains just an assumption on your part or if I wanted to put it in your terms, it is nothing more than you spreading "more" rightest "lies."

It would seem odd to me if this "mob" thing were true since JFK's brother and RFK's dad, Bobby Kennedy, spent a large part of his time going after the mob in hearings etc. In fact it was most likly the mob behind the assassinations of both men. If it were the mob that helped JFK get elected which consequently put Bobby Kennedy on the White House staff they would have been "biting the hand that fed them" by going after the mob as Bobby Kennedy did.

Your accusation regarding the mob having gotten JFK elected is not logical ( or even rational ) for that reason.

posted June 19, 2006 01:11 PM            

Understand WHO is being quoted and understand they cannot simply be dismissed as cranks. Tip O'Neil, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, the Cardinal of the Catholic Church in MA. and most certainly, the mob boss Mickey Cohen cannot simply be dismissed.

Cook County, Illinois is the most crooked county in the United States politically. Perhaps Daley Political Machine politics ring a bell with you. Cook county is also under the control of organized crime and has been for more than 80 years, back to the days of Al Capone.

There's nothing here that isn't commonly known and has been known for many years. Try as they might, Kennedy supporters weren't able to suppress the facts about JFK's stolen Presidential election. No more than the Kennedys were able to suppress the facts about Edward M Kennedy and his late night ride into the water with his pregnant girlfriend Mary Jo. Nor could they suppress the facts about Edward Kennedys heroism in leaving Mary Jo there to suffocate in that very shallowly submerged car.

"Politics is like war. It takes three things to win.....
The first is money and the second is money and the third is money."
- Joe Kane (Kennedy's friend)

JFK's First Campaign

-1-
- Having tried and failed, Joe Kennedy knew he could never become president, but his sons could. He quenched his thirst for power through them.
- Joe had hoped that his eldest son, Joe Jr would fulfill his dream. That dream ended in August 1944 when Joe Jr, a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a dangerous secret bombing mission. Columnist and family friend Arthur Krock was convinced that the reason Joe Jr had volunteered for such a dangerous mission was to compensate for his father's reputation as a coward.

-2-
- In Palm Beach during Christmas of 1944, Joe gave his son Jack the orders: He was to take Joe Jr's place and enter politics. In 1957, Jack described the event, telling a reporter: "It was like being drafted. My father wanted his eldest son in politics. 'Wanted' isn't the right word. He demanded it."

- Joe would later brag that "I got Jack into politics. I told him that Joe Jr was deceased and that it was therefore his responsibility to run for Congress."

-3-
- In 1946, Joe Kennedy decided that the eleventh congressional district of Massachusetts, with it's high concentration of Catholic voters, would be the perfect launching pad for his son Jack's political career. There was only one problem: James Michael Curley, the former mayor of Boston and governor of Massachusetts, occupied the seat. Curley, however, was in danger of being indicted for mail fraud, and Joe decided that what the man needed most was some money.
- "Curley knew he was in trouble with the feds over the mail fraud rap," recalled Kennedy's friend Joe Kane. "The ambassador paid him to get out of his congressional seat......Curley figured that he might need the money."
- Joe paid Curley $12,000 through his bag man Joe Timilty. He promised additional campaign help if Curley chose to run again for mayor of Boston in the 1946 election, which Curley did. After being elected, Curley was sent to prison for mail fraud. He continued to serve from prison.
- To Joe, this was standard operating procedure, recalled Kane. "Everything he got, he bought and paid for. And politics is like war. It takes three things to win. The first is money and the second is money and the third is money."

-4-
- On April 25, 1946, Jack Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress. The next month, Joe founded the Joseph P Kennedy Jr Foundation which began furiously pumping money into Catholic institutions in Jack's adopted district. The timing was not a coincidence, and led one Massachusetts congressman to describe the gifts as "political currency."

- Joe's main job now became running his son's campaign. In effect, he was the candidate, devising campaign strategy and making every financial and policy decision. To conceal his own role and the extent of Jack's financing, Joe paid for everything clandestinely and in cash.
- David Powers, who ran Jack's Charlestown headquarters described how Joe's aide would meet him "at the campaign's central headquarters, and then lead me into the men's room, where, putting a dime into the slot, he would take me into a closed toilet stall. Then, with no one able to watch us, he would hand me the cash, saying, 'You can never be too careful in politics about handing over money."
- Joe also arranged for Jack to receive a salary from the Maine and New Hampshire Theaters Company, which he owned. Joe could then deduct it as a business expense. In addition, two of Joe's theater employees took care of all the campaign expenses. For example, if Jack needed a rental car, he simply charged it to Joe's theater company.

-5-
- Jack's opponent in the primary election was a legitimate politician named Joe Russo. To insure that Jack won the primary campaign, Joe Kennedy paid Joseph Russo, a janitor, to also enter the race. This effectively confused the voters, and split the votes for Joe Russo.
- Russo the janitor recalled how Joe's friend Joseph Timilty and another man had visited him one day and asked him to run. In return, Russo said, "They offered me favors. Whatever I wanted." In fact, he said later, he wound up getting very little - occasional payments of $50 in cash.
- Even the aunt of the real candidate voted for the janitor, recalled Joseph A Russo, the real candidate's son. "They didn't leave anything unturned," he said. His father claimed that Kennedy's people had also arranged for other bogus candidates to "run in other areas to break up the Irish vote, or some other vote. They played for keeps."

- After Jack won the Democratic primary, Joe sold Somerset Importers Inc, freeing $8 million to help Jack in his campaign and insuring that his liquor holdings would not become an issue.

-6-
- Just as he had done with the rent for Jack's campaign offices, Joe paid cash for Jack's advertising. John T Galvin, who was in charge of the advertising, recalled that "It was handled so that very few people knew.....There was a campaign law that limited campaign contributions. It didn't affect us very much."

- Joe also received crucial support from his friends in the media. For example, William Randolph Hearst, who owned the Boston American newspaper, had one of his reporters check in at Jack's headquarters every day. No other candidate got such special attention. Joe also got Hearst to ignore Jack's opponent Michael Neville, the mayor of Cambridge, and the paper would not accept his advertising.

-7-
- Joe spent $300,000 on Jack's first campaign, according to House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill, equivalent to $2.2 million today. O'Neill said that the sum was six times what he himself spent in the same district during a tough race six years later. In O'Neill's view, Joe was the "real force" behind the Kennedys.
- "Joe Kennedy was an ongoing factor in Massachusetts politics," O'Neill said. "Every time a Democrat ran for governor, he would go down to see Joe, who would always send him home with a briefcase full of cash."

- On November 5, 1946, Jack Kennedy was elected to Congress. Seven days later, he filed a report with the Massachusetts secretary of state certifying that no money had been collected for, or had been spent on his campaign.

JFK's First Senate Campaign
-1-
- Having been elected to Congress three terms, Jack Kennedy began a race for the Senate in April 1952, seeking the seat held by Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

- The race was still a toss-up when Joe Kennedy learned that John Fox, owner of the powerful Boston Post, was in desperate need of money. The Boston Post, which had a circulation of over 300,000, had been credited with helping defeat Michael Curley in his last campaign in 1949, and with being responsible for getting Maurice Tobin elected governor of Massachusetts. Under Fox, the Boston Post favored Republicans. The newspaper had endorsed Eisenhower for president, and was expected to endorse Lodge. Indeed, those close to Fox confirmed that he "hated JFK."
- Fox had bought the Boston Post in 1952 for about $4 million. As a down payment, Fox had paid $2 million for the newspaper, but the IRS immediately took it for back payment of his own taxes. The publisher soon found himself unable to pay his bills.

-2-
- It was generally assumed that the Boston Post would endorse Lodge, but Fox was desperate for funds, and Joe Kennedy was only too happy to help out. Two days before the election, following a private meeting with Joe Kennedy, Fox gave a front-page endorsement for JFK.
- Former Massachusetts state senator Robert L Lee said the Post endorsement of JFK was the "turning point" in the campaign. Lee believed that if Lodge had received the paper's endorsement, it "would have been sufficient to put him back in the Senate."

-3-
- During a House subcommittee hearing in 1958, Fox admitted that Joe Kennedy had given him a $500,000 loan late in 1952. He insisted that he "repaid it with interest," and that it had nothing to do with his paper's endorsement of Jack. Joe issued a statement saying that the loan - the equivalent of $2.7 million today - was "purely a commercial transaction for 60 days only with full collateral, at full interest, and was fully repaid on time....."
- Raymond Faxon, Fox's friend and vice president of the publisher's investment business, revealed the truth about the transaction for the first time years later.

- Faxon revealed that two days before the election, John Griffin, the editor-in-chief of the Boston Post, informed Joe that the paper was about to endorse Lodge. He also told him that Fox was desperately in need of cash, having been turned down for a loan by local banks. Joe called Fox and asked him to meet at a local club which Fox owned. In return for an endorsement of Jack, Joe offered Fox a loan that, contrary to what both men later said, carried no interest and was not fully collateralized. "Fox needed the money, and he got it from Joe," Faxon said. "It was $500,000. The whole thing was a payoff."
- Based on Faxon's recollection that a bank would have charged interest of about 5 percent at the time, the interest waived amounted to about $10,000, the equivalent of $54,000 today. Aside from that, making any loan to such a shaky financial operation without full collateral represented a bribe. "No bank would have made the loan," Faxon said. "The word 'payoff' was exactly what it was."

- Riding the Boston Post endorsement, Jack won the Senate race, beating Lodge by less than 6 percent of the vote.
- Jack reported expenses for the campaign of $349,646. That amount would not have covered even the cost of the billboard advertisements alone. It was widely assumed that the true cost of the campaign was several million dollars.

-4-
- Now that Joe had gotten Jack elected to the Senate, he told his son to find a wife. In May 1952, Jack Kennedy had been introduced to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. When Jack brought Jackie to Hyannis Port in the spring following the election, Joe decided she would be Jack's wife.
- Jackie had "all the social ingredients that Joe Kennedy thought would help Jack achieve the presidency," wrote C David Heymann in A Woman Named Jackie. As usual, Jack did what his father told him to do, and on June 24, 1953 the couple announced their engagement.
-Jack's friend Lem Billings said, "Joe Kennedy not only condoned the marriage,
he ordained it."

JFK's Presidential Campaign
"Jack, if you don't want the job, you don't have to take it.
They're still counting votes up in Cook County." - Joe Kennedy

-1-
- If Joe Kennedy had one area of expertise, it was manipulating the media. Long before spin doctors and political gurus talked of "packaging" presidential candidates, Joe shaped Jack's image more effectively than any Madison Avenue executive. "We're going to sell Jack like soap flakes," Joe said.
- In fact, Joe routinely paid off publishers as well as public officials to get what he wanted. Thomas Winship, the editor of the Boston Globe, recalled that Joe routinely "gave cases of Haig & Haig Pinch Bottle Scotch to press people - to people at the Globe, to political writers, and to a lot of people in Washington."
- Joe sent expensive jewelry to female columnists, a confidant said, and gave cash to others. "He distributed a substantial amount to journalists," the confidant said. In addition, "Reporters took consulting assignments. Some of these guys were pretty amenable to consulting fees and gifts." Columnists, especially, were "for sale" - not to mention politicians. For such purposes, Joe always kept large stashes of cash.
- Joe's friend and confidant Frank Morrissey recalled that Joe had once called him to Hyannis Port to help him move $1 million in cash from the basement of his home. "A big northeast storm was coming up, and the old man was afraid a lot of the cash would get wet," Morrissey said.

-2-
- Already, Joe had persuaded a top television executive in New England to give Jack lessons in going before a camera. "He was consumed by the fact that TV would make the difference in the presidential election," the executive said. As one aide put it, "The old politicians relied on their experience, but Joe and his boys left nothing to chance." Joe, it seemed, had "learned a lot of tricks from the movies" during his Hollywood days.

-3-
- Henry Luce, a long time friend and ally of Joe Kennedy, was editor-in-chief and principal stockholder in Time Inc. The founder of Time and Life, Luce was arguably the most powerful publisher in America, and Joe had cultivated their relationship since his Roosevelt days. For years, Luce had given Joe frequent and complimentary press coverage in the magazines he controlled, and Luce's equally favorable coverage of Joe's son had been critical to JFK's early campaigns.
- In 1956, Luce was vacationing with Joe on the Riviera when he cabled his editors and suggested they devote more space to Jack Kennedy, who "was emerging as a national figure."

- In November 1957, Fortune magazine listed Joe Kennedy as one of the sixteen wealthiest people in the country, with a net worth of $200 to $400 million.

- On December 2, 1957, Jack's smiling face appeared for the first time on the cover of Time magazine. As ordained by Joe, he had just begun his bid for the presidency.

- George Smathers, a family friend and Senator from Florida, claimed that "Joe had a good deal to do with getting Luce to put Jack on the cover of Time. Jack had not made any great record as a congressman or senator. It was nothing outstanding in terms of what others were doing. Lots of congressmen had more legislative accomplishments than Jack." Giving such prominence to a fledgling candidate was unusual, and the cover story which called Jack the "Democratic Whiz of 1957" gave him a tremendous boost.
- Just weeks before Jack appeared on the cover of Time, Joe had bragged to his friend Cardinal Spellman, "I just bought a horse for $75,000, and for another $75,000, I put Jack on the cover of Time." Spellman recalled that Joe was "very proud of the fact that he had spent $75,000, and now he would not have to spend as much on advertising." The sum was equivalent to $385,000 today. "He did not say whether he paid it directly to Luce," Spellman added.

- Several months later when Jack learned that Life magazine was going to run a story saying that evangelist Billy Graham was coming out for Nixon, Jack called Luce to complain that the story would be unfair. When Joe called and put the pressure on, Luce ordered the story killed.

-4-
- During an interview on ABC-TV in December 1958, Eleanor Roosevelt said that "Senator Kennedy's father has been spending oodles of money all over the country, and probably has a paid representative in every state by now." She said she had been told that Joe would spend "any money" to make his son the first Catholic president. Many people told her of money spent by Joe on Jack's behalf. "Building an organization is permissible," she said, "but giving too lavishly may seem to indicate a desire to influence through money."

- Joe solicited author William Bradford Huie to distribute cash to politicians who would help Jack, according to what Huie later told a Time reporter. Huie said he routinely made payoffs of $1000 (equivalent to $4800 today), and promised he would reveal more details, but died before he could.

-5-
- Meanwhile, Joe cranked up the media campaign. In October 1959, Look began running a series of articles about Jack. Prepared with the family's cooperation, they may as well have been written by Joe himself.
- One article declared that Jack was in excellent health, when in fact he had been diagnosed in 1947 as having Addison's disease, a failure of the adrenal glands. When a Boston reporter suggested that Jack should disclose his health history, a Kennedy aide replied, "No, old Joe doesn't want that to be done. We can't do it now."
- Another article tried to downplay Joe's role in the campaign, fictitiously reporting that Joe had little influence over his son and had no interest in spending money on political campaigns. "In political circles," the article claimed, "the Kennedy's are not regarded as big spenders."

-6-
- On January 2, 1960, Jack Kennedy formally announced his presidential candidacy, and declared that the White House must be "the center of moral leadership."
- Two months later, Jack began his affair with a former actress named Judith Exner. While seeing Jack, Exner was also seeing Sam Giancana, who was the head of the Chicago Mafia and a former partner in Joe's bootlegging business. Giancana, who was credited with at least two hundred killings, was considered one of the most powerful men in organized crime. He controlled betting, prostitution, loan sharking, and owned interests in three Las Vagas hotels.

- Jack and Bobby identified the West Virginia primary as key to winning the nomination. The state's nomination was ninety-five percent Protestant and a win there would convince convention delegates that Jack's Catholicism would not be an issue in the presidential election.
- Jack's opponent in the Democratic primary was Hubert Humphrey, the senator from Minnesota, who was beloved by West Virginia coal miners for his longtime union support and folksy, old-fashioned campaign style. But Humphrey's small-town ways were no match for the Kennedy bandwagon's deep pockets and high technology. There is no doubt that Jack's huge TV budget also helped.

- The Kennedy men were not content to rely on statesmanship alone. At Jack's request, Exner arranged a meeting for him with Sam Giancana, who agreed to use his influence with West Virginia officials to ensure victory there.
- Giancana sent his lieutenant, Paul "Skinny" D'Amato, into West Virginia to get out the vote. D'Amato met with sheriffs who controlled the state's political machine. He forgave debts many of them had run up at his 500 Club in Atlantic City and handed cash payments to others.
- FBI wiretaps reveal that Frank Sinatra also distributed large mob donations to pay off election officials.

- Years later, in a People magazine story, Exner described how she had introduced Sam Giancana to Jack, who asked for the mob's help in financing the campaign. While it is not documented, it is clear Giancana gave money to the campaign. After the election, an FBI wiretap picked up Giancana talking with Johnny Roselli, a mob associate. He said his donation had been "accepted", yet complained that Bobby Kennedy, whom Jack had appointed attorney general, was cracking down on organized crime. He said he expected that "one of these days, the guy will do me a favor...."
- Giancana apparently had believed that in helping Kennedy's campaign, he was gaining a friend in the White House and protection from future prosecution by the government.

-7-
- Meanwhile, Joe was funneling money to politicians to swing the West Virginia primary.

- Tip O'Neill recalled that Eddie Ford, a Boston real-estate man, "went out there with a pocket full of money." O'Neill said Ford would "see the sheriff, and he'd say to the sheriff, 'Sheriff, I'm from Chicago. I'm on my way south. I love this young Kennedy boy. He can help this nation, by God. He'll do things for West Virginians. I'll tell you what. Here's $5000. You carry your village for him or your county for him, and I'll give you a little reward when I'm on my way back.' "
- O'Neill said, "They passed money around like it was never seen."

-8-
- One of the most important contributions Joe Kennedy made to his son's campaign was to create the Ken-Air Corporation, purchase for it a $385,000 Corvair twin-engine turboprop airplane, and then lease it to the candidate for the ridiculous sum of $1.75 a mile. Joe got a large tax deduction, while the plane gave Jack a tremendous advantage over Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primary.
- While Humphrey either wasted time waiting around airports for commercial flights or lumbered about in his campaign bus, Jack Kennedy sped here and there in his private plane, covering more territory in less time and at less expense.

-9-
- In providing the cash for Jack's campaign, Joe Kennedy used the Catholic Church and, in particular, Cardinal Cushing. One of the couriers told author Peter Maas how it worked:

For example, if Boston area churches had collected $950,000 on a particular Sunday from collections, Joe would write a check for $1 million to the diocese, deduct it as a charitable contribution, and receive the $950,000 in cash. Thus, in this example, the church got a contribution of $50,000, Joe could deduct the entire amount on his income tax, and he could use the money to pay off politicians without fear that it would be traced.
- "The cash is untraceable," Maas said. "Part of the money goes to the diocese. He gets a contribution from Joe Kennedy for more than what the cash is. It's brilliant. Nobody can trace the money."

- In 1966, Cushing admitted that he had played a role in making payoffs to ministers. He told Hubert Humphrey, "I'll tell you who elected Jack Kennedy. It was his father, Joe, and me, right here in this room." Cushing explained that he and Joe decided which Protestant ministers should receive "contributions" of $100 to $500. As cushing described the tactic, "It's good for the church, it's good for the preacher, and it's good for the candidate."

- Maas also recalled that as a writer for the Saturday Evening Post he interviewed a political operative in one dirt-poor town in West Virginia who told him his county was for Humphrey. "A few weeks later, I interviewed him again, and he said the county was for Jack. I asked what had changed, and he said with a smile, 'My workers each got $20, and I got $150. We're for Kennedy."

-10-
- When Jack Kennedy narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey in theWest Virginia primary, Humphrey withdrew from the presidential race. It was the most important victory of Jack's campaign.

- On July 11 the Democratic National Convention nominated John F Kennedy for president. Some party leaders were leery of Jack, however. Truman opposed him, telling reporters, "I'm not against the Pope, I'm against the Pop." Eleanor Roosevelt regarded Jack as one of "the new managerial elite that has neither principles nor character."

- Meanwhile, Jackie had learned about Jack's philandering and developed a visceral dislike of politics. "She was ready to divorce Jack, and Joe offered her $1 million to stay until Jack entered the White House," said Igor Cassini. "He paid $1 million for her to stay with Jack until he was elected. He didn't tell me, but my brother and I learned about it."

-11-
- On November 8, 1960, John F Kennedy was elected president, defeating Republican Richard Nixon. Jack received 34,226,731 votes to 34,108,157 for Nixon. The popular vote margin, 118,574, was the equivalent of a win by one vote in every precinct in America.
- Kennedy's Electoral College majority was 303 to 219. The winning margin was provided by the state of Illinois, where in the eleventh hour, the votes that came in from Cook County's mob-dominated West Side put Jack over the top.
- "Actually, and this goes without saying, the presidency was really stolen in Chicago, without a question, by the Democratic machine," recalled mobster Mickey Cohen. "I know that certain people in the Chicago organization knew that they had to get John Kennedy in."

posted June 19, 2006 01:22 PM            

Nixon said no to recount in '60

By JACK TORRY

Toledo Blade

November 10, 2000

- After the exceedingly close 1960 election, the New York Herald Tribune published the start of a series suggesting voter fraud in Texas and Illinois might have tipped the presidency from Vice President Richard M. Nixon to Democrat Sen. John F. Kennedy.

- When the first four stories had been published, Nixon summoned reporter Earl Mazo to his office. "Earl, those are interesting articles you are writing," Nixon said. "But no one steals the presidency of the United States."
***note** Not because it didn't happen but to stop the stories which would be damaging to the nation and to American foreign relations.

- The Herald Tribune killed the rest of the series. It was the final act in a presidential election every bit as close as this year's race between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. And just like this year's allegations of voter irregularities in Florida, reports swirled in 1960 that fraud in key states could have cost Nixon a majority in the electoral college.

- While legal challenges are expected in Florida this year, Nixon met Kennedy one week after the election and made clear that he would neither demand a recount nor contest the election in court. Although Nixon's admirers consider his decision as one of his finest moments, his detractors dismiss it as self-serving, claiming a recount could have exposed as much Republican fraud as Democratic irregularities.

- But no matter what his reason, a divisive constitutional crisis was avoided during the height of the Cold War.

- "Whatever Nixon's inner feelings about his just due, whatever his motives for not challenging the election returns, his decision was both personally unselfish and profoundly in the interests of the country and of the president-elect," wrote former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker in his biography of Nixon, One of Us.

- In his 1978 memoirs, Nixon claimed that a recount would have taken more than a year and one-half "during which time the legitimacy of Kennedy's election would be in question," which he claimed would be "devastating to America's foreign relations."

- "And what if I demanded a recount and it turned out that despite the vote fraud, Kennedy had still won? Charges of 'sore loser' would follow me through history and remove any possibility of a further political career."

- The Kennedy-Nixon race featured two young, aggressive candidates in what was the first modern TV campaign. The election was so close that Kennedy used to keep a note in his pocket with the numerals 118,574 - the number of votes by which he won.

- Kennedy won 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. But Republicans charged that that there was voter fraud in Texas and Cook County, Ill., where the political machine was controlled by Mayor Richard Daley - father of Gore's campaign manager, Bill Daley.

- A shift of 4,480 votes in Illinois and 25,000 in Texas would have given Nixon the presidency. Although voter fraud in those states has never been proven and there is every reason to believe Republicans were stealing votes in southern Illinois, Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen, R., Ill., campaign manager Len Hall, Republican National Chairman Thruston Morton, and longtime adviser Bryce Harlow pleaded with Nixon to challenge the result.

- But Harlow later told Wicker that Nixon simply replied, "Bryce. It'd tear the country to pieces. You can't do that."

- Others were eager to avoid a messy fight. Former Republican President Herbert Hoover telephoned Nixon in Florida after the election and suggested a meeting with Kennedy. "I think we're in enough trouble in the world today," Nixon recalled Hoover telling him. Kennedy, who worried that Nixon would demand a recount, flew from Palm Beach to Key Biscayne. While Kennedy relaxed on the porch of one of the hotels, Nixon went inside and fetched Cokes for both.

- "How the hell did you carry Ohio?" Kennedy joked, referring to Nixon's narrow victory in a state Democrats expected to carry.

posted June 20, 2006 10:22 AM            

Beyond that, Kerry did the right thing for himself. Calling the results of the election into question...not because of the closeness of the vote in Ohio...it wasn't that close...would have made him look foolish to American voters and like a sore loser.

RFK Jr. exposed himself as a non thinker, partisan hack with his article.

Perhaps you didn't bother to read the results of the investigation the democrats did on the Ohio election results. They made it quite clear your allegations and the RFK Jr comments are nonsense.

All those squeals of outrage over those so called voting irregularities occurred in DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED VOTING DISTRICTS where Republicans were not in charge of voting machines, poll workers or anything else.

All those squeals of outrage over so called voting irregularities in the 2000 election occurred in Palm Beach and Broward County and other DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED VOTING DISTRICTS where Republicans were not in charge of voting machines, poll workers or anything else.