Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

On Election Night when Novak appeared ready to swallow hemlock rather than endure a Democratic presidential administration the CNN team switched to an elated Ken Mehlman at the Republican central command center, who bubbled enthusiastically over robust new gains that Bush had made in the vote rich I-4 corridor in Florida that would bring the GOP ticket over the top.

As Democratic consultants are so prone toward doing, Paul Begala totally misread the significance of Mehlman's buoyant announcement.  A smiling Begala, while conceding that Mehlman is a "nice guy", offered his sympathy.  

Begala than explained that Mehlman, in his anxiety to spin an increasingly disastrous election to his advantage, was attempting to project cheer that, on the basis of number crunching, had no justification.

It became increasingly clear with the passing minutes that Begala should have saved any "out of the loop" pity for himself since Mehlman was doing anything other than engaging in unjustified spin control.  Further evidence substantiating this point occurred when the formerly death-like and ashen Robert Novak returned to the camera with his best Richard Nixon-like devious smile.  

Novak was delighted to inform viewers that he had rechecked with his on the scene Republican operative and learned that the earlier report had been unduly pessimistic and that it appeared that there were more Bush votes in Ohio than what had been earlier anticipated.  The dour pessimist had suddenly become a cheery optimist, a condition Novak assumed only under bullish Republican circumstances.    

To ascertain circumstances behind the sudden turn of events as described by Mehlman and Novak, whose reports were ultimately confirmed by developing events, it is necessary to turn the clock back to the spring of 2003.  

At that time Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold, which provided voting machines, announced in a letter to prominent Republicans in Ohio, where the company was based, that he was determined to do all in his power to secure victory for George W. Bush in the buckeye state.

In that Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, shortly after O'Dell's statement, announced that Diebold was on the list of companies being considered to service the upcoming election within the state, the prominent CEO was then asked what he meant when stating that he would do all in his power to help assure a Bush victory.  

An embarrassed O'Dell was compelled to backtrack that he did not mean to indicate that he would tamper with results to assist the Republican ticket.

Yet that nagging 6 percent factor was much at work.  Noted political operative Dick Morris, who supported Bush in 2004, had stated his opinion that exit polling results were the most reliable of barometers.  

Morris explained that he was so convinced of that proposition's validity that, when he was working for Vincente Fox in his first winning presidential race in Mexico, he utilized the most sophisticated and detailed exit polling to use in the event that an attempt was made to stuff the ballot box and deprive his candidate of victory.

In 2004 the posted result showed Bush over Kerry by a 51-48 margin while exit polls revealed the reverse, meaning a 6 percent differential.  Turning back the clock to 2002, the final polling in key senatorial elections that would determine which party controlled that legislative body saw the 6 percent factor or figures closely representing it occurring in the most competitive key races.  

Wayne Allard was thought to be a defeated senator in Colorado and miraculously somehow won.  In Minnesota Walter Mondale as a last moment replacement for Senator Paul Wellstone, who perished in a plane crash, was running ahead of Norm Coleman, but when the final votes were counted the Republican was deemed winner.  

Similar results flying in the face of poll results occurred in New Hampshire and Georgia, when Jean Shaheen and Senator Max Cleland, perceived as winners based on final polling, lost to John Sununu Jr. and Saxby Chambliss.  

Diebold machines were in evidence in major races throughout America in 2002 and 2004.  There were also reports of widespread irregularities at the election board level as well as scores of peculiar results based not only on exit polls, but also in analyzing the histories of key polling areas.  

For instance, in the I-4 corridor, where Mehlman exulted over the tremendous strides made by Bush compared to four years earlier, close analysis provided no answer as to how and why this factor occurred.  

The polling areas where Bush was anticipated to potentially outpoll his 2000 performance against Al Gore was in the state's more traditionally conservative northern panhandle area, where conservative evangelical Christians constituted significant numbers of potential voters.  

Instead the big Bush swing came from an area where it was unexpected, and where no plausible explanations were provided.  

So the 6 percent factor needs to be strongly considered before Democrats become cheerily bullish about 2006 victory prospects.  Defeat can be quickly snatched from the jaws of victory through election chicanery.  

Democrats will have to do much better than John Kerry's post-election fold, when he conceded to Bush because, in his words, he did not want to look like a sore loser, or the recent Inspector Clousseau performances at the Alito confirmation hearings.

As in the words of Jason Robards in All the President's Men that he delivered to Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, "There's not much riding on the outcome, only the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and American democracy."