John McCain was interviewed in the new issue of Esquire. Asked about Hillary Clinton's chances in 2008, here's what he had to say:

I think the biggest mistake we could make is to underestimate Hillary Clinton. She's smart and she's tough. She's very disciplined in all ways--unlike her husband--and I think she's formidable. Plus, she already has $20 million in the bank. If we don't get our act together..."

Asked about Bush, he said:

He also believes that the war has been botched badly. "I don't blame Bush," he says. "I blame Rumsfeld. It's his failure that we didn't have enough troops in Iraq, because he ignored the advice of the military. We never had enough troops over there from the beginning, and that's where most of our problems come from."

The Observer takes a look at the Heartland today and finds Republicans not only deserting Bush but switching party affiliation to the Democrats. It begins in Kansas with Mark Parkison who changed affiliation recently.

a few weeks ago Parkinson was a Republican. In fact, he was Kansas Republican party chairman. His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson's leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party's obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion

The Republicans' loss is the Democrats' gain:

RFK, Jr. was just on CNN discussing his Rolling Stone article alleging that but for voting fraud in Ohio, John Kerry would have won the 2004 election.

How might this fraud have been carried out? One way to steal votes is to tamper with individual ballots -- and there is evidence that Republicans did just that....In addition to altering individual ballots, evidence suggests that Republicans tampered with the software used to tabulate votes.....Election officials in Ohio worked outside the law to avoid hand recounts.

I had a hard time following RFK, Jr. Something is very wrong wth his voice. It shakes terribly while he talks. Is this something new?

by TChris

Raw Story reports that the FEC has fined Sen. Frist's 2000 Senate campaign committee, Frist 2000, Inc., for failing to disclose a $1.44 million loan. The loan was needed to cover stock market losses. The fine came in response to a complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said "it is gratifying to see that the FEC recognizes that Senator Frist's campaign committee broke the law. Apparently, the FEC disagreed with Sen. Frist's aide's dismissal of the complaint as 'incorrect' and 'politically driven.'"

by TChris

On Thursday, BlackBoxVoting released this report exposing security flaws with Diebold's electronic voting touch-pad terminals.

"It is like the nuclear bomb for e-voting systems," said Avi Rubin, computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University. "It's the deal breaker. It really makes the security flaws that we found (in prior years) look trivial."

States have been slow to respond to the problem, as this report describes. Pennsylvania was the first state to recognize the need to act. Iowa and California have also directed local election officials to take additional security steps to prevent unauthorized software from being loaded into the machines.

by TChris

It's time for another Ohio election, which means it's time for more ballot problems:

Election officials had trouble printing ballot receipts, finding lost votes and tabulating election results in Tuesday's primary. Some election workers were late or did not show up at all in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, the state's largest. Others could not figure out how to turn on the machines.

Couldn't figure out how to turn on the machines? Good grief.

And then there's this:

by TChris

Laws that disenfranchise felons who have finished their prison terms undermine democracy. They also have a disproportionate impact on African American voters.

Today, nearly 5 million Americans are disfranchised from the right to vote either because they are in prison, on parole or probation, or because they live in a state that extends disfranchisement beyond the end of one's sentence. Racial, ethnic and economic disparities in the criminal justice system, and the "war on drugs" have resulted in the most severe impact hitting communities of color. Where African-Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses, causing critics to call the war on drugs the "New Jim Crow." Nationally, an estimated 13 percent of African-American men are unable to vote because of a felony conviction. That's seven times the national average.

AlterNet has an interview with Sasha Abramsky, author of Conned: How Millions of Americans Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House. Importantly, Abramsky explodes the myth that former felons wouldn't vote if given the chance.

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported here, James Tobin was indicted for participating in a scheme to jam telephone lines used by Democrats in a "get-out-the-vote" drive on Election Day 2002. He was convicted in December of conspiracy to commit telephone harassment. Suspiciously, the Republican National Committee has been paying Tobin's legal bills. Tobin plans to appeal his conviction, and "Robert Kelner, outside counsel to the Republican National Committee, said he's unsure if the committee will continue to foot Tobin's legal bills."

Why would they? Perhaps to keep Tobin happy. Tobin, after all, could explain why he made about two dozen telephone calls to the White House from the day before the election to the day after. Ken Mehlman, who was then the White House political director, says the calls were routine. Is it routine for the RNC to pay the legal bills of Republicans who try to thwart fair elections?

by TChris

Vernon, California consists of five square miles of "warehouses, meatpacking plants, fuel tanks and an occasional vacant lot." No parks, no schools. The city's motto is "Exclusively Industrial."

Vernon wouldn't seem like an ideal place to live, but the city owns almost all the houses within its borders, and it offers cheap rents compared to the cost of living in bordering Los Angeles. The catch: most of the renters work for the city, and therefore have an interest in perpetuating the political careers of those responsible for providing them with inexpensive housing. As a result, Vernon hasn't had an election since 1980, despite what seems to be profligate municipal spending, including employment of a city administrator who was paid $600,000 annually and given the use of a leased Cadillac Escalade, a city-owned apartment, and $120,000 for limousine services. Perhaps not coincidentally, the administrator, who retired last year, was the city clerk's father.

Don Huff thought he could do better, so he joined two others in a run for city council. Huff says city crews cut off his power before he was evicted in retaliation for opposing the entrenched government. But how did the election turn out? We don't know, because the city clerk refuses to count the ballots.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has launched Very Fancy Frist, a very creative site. It's categories include: "Fly Like Frist", "Live Like Frist", "Invest Like Frist" and "Lead Like Frist."

by TChris

Voting machines were in the news today as state and local governments scramble to prepare for elections. Fox News sounds curiously optimistic even as it reports widespread failures to comply with deadlines mandated by the Help America Vote Act.

Diebold scores in San Joaquin and at least 17 other California counties (more here and here):

"It's horrifying. It's staggeringly inappropriate," said Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, a Washington state nonprofit group that monitors election processes. "They've certified something that's illegal on its face."

Diebold scores in Florida:

Do you care that the Volusia County Council is being forced, because of illegal acts by the Department of State, to settle for a voting system that computer scientists have called unfit to use in any election?

If you thought Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract on America died a welcome death, think again. Rep. John Shadegg, who has announced his candidacy to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader, will bring it back from the grave.

You can read about Shadegg in today's Washington Post.

"He's Newt's progeny," said Marshall Wittmann, a Democratic Leadership Council aide who previously worked for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "A hard-core, true-believing, hard-charging right-winger who believes everything Newt said about dismantling government and transforming the culture. In many ways, he is trying to revive the spirit of the revolution of '94."

The Arizona Republic has called Shadegg a "firebrand" and "equal-opportunity iconoclast." He argued in 2001 that Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut was not big enough.

There's lots more, but for readers who may not remember Newt's Contract on America, particularly as it pertained to criminal justice and civil liberties issues, I'll provide a refresher course. I wrote numerous published articles about it at the time, and lobbied mightily for its defeat. The worst of the provisions were defeated, but with the wrong leaders in Congress, they will rear their ugly heads again.