Palpatine in '08

[Kevin]

#36 by Gnollguy

"I even voted for the dead man since I was in MO at the time and I had issues with Ashcroft"

Voting for dead people and convicted felons, of whom you know they will never get the job, just because you don't want other candidates to have their chance? Is that common practice over there? If so, maybe many of you deserve the circus that poses as your elections :glare:

It's a little more complicated than that. I was well informed that I was actually voting for the democrat who would be appointed by the governor and that democrat would be Carnahan's wife Jean. Of course it was more complex than that since Mel was the the governor until 2000.

Mel died in a plane crash 3 weeks before the election (with his son and a campaign advisor). Missouri election laws don't allow you to remove a name from the ballot that close to the election (probably an archaic law to insure time to get ballots ready, etc). When Mel died Roger Wilson became the acting governor. Via the Missouri law process Wilson was able to appoint the new dem canidate. There was some discussion and issues if it would be the dem Mel defeated in the primaries or someone else appointed by the party or just whoever Wilson wanted. Due process was followed and everyone knew that if Mel won that Jean Carnahan, his wife, would get the seat. There were even stickers and flyers and signs on the ballots and at the polling places that explained the situation for people who didn't see the TV or a newspaper or talk to anyone else living in the state for the 2 weeks prior to the election. So yes, my vote was technically for a dead man, but I knew that based on the laws of the state I was actually voting for Jean Carnahan so did anyone else with an IQ. I also knew that I would get to vote for the position again in 2002. Jean ran for the seat in 2002 and lost to James Talent by 22,000 votes, 49.8%-48.6%.

It's very possible that had Mel not died that Ashcroft would have defeated him. Ashcroft suspended his campaign, and Jean didn't campaign when she accepted the appointment to take the seat if Mel won. She filmed one commercial. However since they had a home here in Rolla I got to have a little more info from people that talked to her. But the race was very very close and the sympathy vote might have swayed the election. For the record I was mostly happy with Jean's voting record too. When Bush appointed Ashcroft Attorney General in 2000 I felt even more validated for voting against him. I was not happy with some of what he championed, some of the sections of the Patriot Act in particular, many of which he was very heavily involved in writing. I blame him for impinging on some of my liberties.

So no, I didn't actually vote for a dead me. I technically voted for a dead man, but I vote for Jean Carnahan because I thought she would do a better job than Ashcroft and while she did just fine in her 2 years in the senate, that close race between her and Talent had me on the side of Talent, because Talent disagreed with Ashcroft on the issues that I had the bigger concerns about and I generally prefered the rest of the Republican platform at the time on state issues. Though of course it's a bit foolish to think your senator actually represents you state level issues in congress even when they are supposed to. Most of what I wanted to happen, Talent voted the way I wanted most of the time but still actually came out on the losing side of the votes and yes he was generally voting against the party on those issues.

Does that make it clearer? It's actually kind of fun to say I voted for a dead man, technically I did, but I was well aware of who I was voting for when I voted and I believe everyone else who voted for Carnahan were too.