“Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012” is the title of a column Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal in June 2011.
It’s not Rove’s prediction: this is his plan to make sure Obama will lose. That’s fine with me—if Rove prefers vanilla to chocolate, hey, it’s a free country. But how Rove plans to take Obama down is contained in the subhead, and it gives me the chills:
“even a small drop in the share of black voters would wipe out [Obama’s] winning margin in North Carolina.”Here, Rove is not talking about winning by convincing black voters to vote Republican. The key to victory is preventing the black vote. Period. Rove suggests, with a wink and nudge, the Game Plan:
“If their [black voters’] share of the turnout drops just one point in North Carolina, Mr. Obama’s 2008 winning margin there is wiped out two and a half times over.”The smell of freshly laundered white sheets, brown shirts, and sulfur is unmistakable: The key to Republican victory, in the Carolinas and nationwide, then, is making sure black people don’t turn out. Or, if they do, that they’re turned away. Or, if they can’t be turned away, that their votes are not counted.
If Rove can stand in the polling station doorway and block three million voters from entering and bulldoze another three million ballots into a landfill he can make the Ice Man’s dreams come true.
I can report that Rove is well on his way to success, and he’s only just begun.
How Rove and his compadres set out to do that—eliminate six million
votes and voters—and how he and his partners have done it in the past to
black voters, Hispanic voters, students, Jews, and any kind of Blue-ish
voter— that’s the story you’ll get here. And not just Rove’s sleight of
hand, but deliberate ballot-burgling done by others in the GOP
and—cover the children’s ears!—Democrats too.
But Griffin’s not in jail, he’s in Congress. Rove is not in prison, either. According to IRS records, he’s director of a nonprofit “social welfare” organization. American Crossroads GPS, tax-exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, aims to improve society’s welfare by dragging Democrats out of their seats in Congress and removing The Black One from the White House.
Let me be clear: whether Obama is reelected, that’s none of my business. As a journalist, I stay clear of cuddling up to candidates of either party. Who gets elected, well, that’s your problem, gringo.
I’m a reporter, and it’s not my job to preserve Democrats. But preserving democracy, with that fragile little d, that means something to me.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It was investigative reporter Greg Palast, for The Guardian and BBC Television who uncovered Katherine Harris purge of Black voters in 2000.
He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures' Picnic, named Book of the Year 2012 on BBC Newsnight Review.
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