Beck, Fox & Friends tout Beck's ability to get Hoffman to "unconcede" NY-23 race
November 17, 2009 7:30 am ET
From the November 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
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Is this from the "news" or "opinion" side of FOX? Or the "blatant right wing propaganda" side...?
Teabaggers love BillO and Beck. Many conservative evangelicals like them, too.
Teabaggers and conservative evangelicals are pretty sure pop culture is out to get them and their children.
Therefore, they fill their house with things like books that would be written from a teabagger/evangelical standpoint.
Therefore, the teabagger/evangelical chiefs see a HUGE market to tap.
(just completing the dialogue, and tossing in another 'bit')
This idiot Doug Hoffman initially did the honorable thing when he lost fair and square to his democratic opponent; he conceded the election.
Glen Beck showing contempt and absolutely no respect for the political process or Hoffman's decision to submit to defeat discusses the possibility of rejecting Hoffman's original decision, a decision made over two weeks ago.
As if the Republicans aren't doing a good job of making fools of themselves, Glen Beck is willing to give them a helping hand. What is even more stupid; when Glen Beck joined "Fox and Friends" to discuss his conversation with Hoffman he said he doesn't believe Hoffman have a chance to suceed, yet he want to encourage the man to make a fool out of himself anyway, instead of offering him sound advice and well wishes for the future.
I predict we are going to see a lot more Republicans making fools of themselves, because of their inability to accept reality and use some common sense.
Basically, what I'm seeing is that every case before this a formal concession was never given. Hoffman certainly would be setting a new precident if he decides to challenge after formally quitting.
Living in Illinois, I've got to keep on top of this, in case she sets precedent for Governor Rod "The Hair" Blagojevich!
Conklin said the state sent a letter to the House Clerk last week explaining that no winner had been determined in the 23rd District, and therefore the state had not certified the election. But the letter noted that Owens still led by about 3,000 votes, and that the special election was not contested -- two factors that legally allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to swear in Owens on Friday.
"We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals," Conklin said. "The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed."
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html
I do think the Republican party would want to stop this. The last thing they need is more of Palin's failures in the news right now.
Oh wait, the Supreme Court decided that was not the case. Wait, they also decided we could not use their precedent as precedent. So, count on!
But you knew that.
New York's election was between three candidates, with one getting more votes then the other at a time when most districts were reporting totals. Based on that information, Hoffman conceded. He should have waited, but he didn't, and so it would be his fault, not the system's.
Maybe districts should not report vote counts until after they are all in. What if a voter saw that Hoffman was behind, and decided to go with the winner? What if a voter wanted to go with Scozzafava, but then noticed she was way behind in the polls, so they decided to go for what they thought would be the next best thing, Hoffman.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to the individual. Hoffman conceded. Owens was sworn in. Beck was upset that his candidate lost.
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The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
The biggest reason that runoff elections don't happen all the time is the cost. You'd be surprised how much it costs to hold an election. And that's not even counting the money that the politicians have to raise and spend to compete in a runoff election.
Can we do away with the electoral college while we are at it? I think the time has come. In 2000, Gore won more votes and should have won. In 2004, if 200,000 votes in Ohio would have gone differently (and for Kerry) he would have won the electoral college even though G-Dub clearly won the national vote. I would have an issue with both results. With mass communication the way we have today, there is no reason everyone should not have a knowledgeable basis for whom they are voting.
if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote;
Clearly, the intent was NOT for there to only be two parties, but so many people accept an 'either/or' as 'the way things are', IMHO because we are basically lazy, that we now have the D's and the R's as the only viable choices.
Vote totals aren't reported (normally..) until the polls close, the outstanding votes in NY23, for instance, are 'absentee ballots', which actually were completed (but not counted) before the polls closed (since some are simply 'handed in' at the polls rather than sent in before the election).
That's why serious news organizations refuse to report on elections until the closing of polling places, though they can use 'exit polls' for an estimate, but usually don't ahead of the closure of the polls.
I responded to your question of how the NY 23rd congressional district race differed from the Minnesota senate race.
The democrat won the 23rd district race by a margin of 2.3%.
Franken won the Minnesota senate race in 2008 by .011%.
The margin was so much greater in the 23rd race than the MN race.
The Wall Street Journal and others raised that point that you raise, Dexter, and the Minnesota Supreme Court debunked it. They set a statewide standard, even though the state doesn't set the standards, the counties do.
If you have an issue with the way Minnesota counts and evaluate votes and does recounts, then feel free to lobby to change those standards for the next election. For this one, you have no legitimate complaints.
But you're doing a dandy job of derailing the thread with nonsense about Franken. Franken has nothing to do with this. Whether or not Franken ever conceded has nothing to do with this. What we favor in recount elections has nothing to do with this.
You seem to be implying that slowtyper was talking about legal vs. illegal ballots in MN, and I thought he was talking about NY. My mistake.
Based on how the law is written in N.Y. then this contest should be decided the same way. If the counts goes to favor the canidate that you like, then all is good. If the count turns out not to favor the canidate that you like, then all is not good.
No system is perfect, no matter how hard you try. All we can do is fix flaws as they are discovered. If a flaw is egregous enough, then take it to court and see how that works out.
It is the AMERICAN way.
The adjusted results from the NY-23 district election appear to be a 3,176 vote edge for Owens over Hoffman (48.7% to 46.4%).
Why should Franken have conceded if he still had a viable shot at winning?
Now two weeks later he can only look like a fool for waiting so long AFTER the election to "unconcede", especially if he still comes up a loser, which know doubt he will.
Republicans are so dumb to let outside forces, such as Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Klannity and Fox News dictate their moves. These people support and back the idiotic ideology of wing-nuts.
Republicans have learned nothing from their mistakes. They want America to accept them despite being led by "Birthers, Deather and Tea Baggers", dangerous uninformed people who are mentally challenged.
Scazzofava's endorsement of a Democrat is completely in line with her own beliefs. She believes that the NY-23 representative should represent the members of the NY-23 district rather than the wishes of Fox News and the rest of the far right.
I despise the two-party system, but I can't find much fault with that endorsement. I'm not sure that connection is there.
I see it as a lady that felt she was one of what will probably be many Republicans that suffer persecution from their own party for not aligning with the far right fringe known as the Tea Party Movement. What Republicans are doing within their own party amounts to nothing short of Ethnic Cleansing.
I applaud the lady for having the knowledge to recognize this and the courage to stand up to it.
My definition of far right fringe movement include indiviuals or groups who find it necessary to pack assault weapons while attending presidential speechs, succomb to or endorse far fetched conspiracy theories not based on fact (i.e. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc., etc.), or those that feel their particular religious ideology should be the basis for all laws pertaining to mankind.
2) FEMA trailers = concentration camps
That's just two tasty tidbits.
Glenn Beck is so classy, he once called a woman on live radio and mocked her recent miscarriage. Funny, I always try to mention that incident and no Beck fan has ever even acknowledged it, let alone repudiated it.
I say, Glenn Beck should be forced to apologize for the time he mocked a woman's recent miscarriage on live radio. It would be the honorable thing to do.
(2) he never said these existed, he merely mentioned them and then took the lead in debunking them. nice try.
If the miscarriage thing were true (audio proof should be easy to produce), it was 23 years ago when he was in his 20's. We all have things to be ashamed of from our 20's. You act like he killed somebody. He said something stupid in his 20's. Shocking! Most people don't acknowledge you because it is a lame smear tactic.
Symoblism, by definition, is not "clear as day". It's open to interpretation. If it was direct and obvious, it wouldn't be symbolism. And furthermore, what relevant political point is Beck making by pointing out "communist symbolism" in a building erected several decades ago? That NBC and therefore GE is a communist operation?
He also suggested on his radio show recently that ACORN orchestrated the destruction of the levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in order to provide for the destruction of records.
He's also dedicated lengthy segments of his show to detailing the many similarities between this administration and Nazi Germany.
I agree that the radio-miscarriage-prank call thing is irrelevant. There's no recording to verify its existence, and there's plenty of readily available evidence to demonstrate Beck's use of inflammatory rhetoric and out-and-out lies to fearmonger, promote his political agenda, and most importantly, make money.
My dad doesn't think of his political views in a binary way, but I think it's safe to say that most of his ideas are on the more conservative side (he's no fan of Obama). But he watched Beck's show recently and said, "that man would have you believe that it's time to get your gun". It's one of the prices of freedom that irresponsible fearmongers have just as much a right to free speech as anyone else, but I think it's important for people to recognize that rhetoric like Beck's is, indeed, quite dangerous.
And if you really need us to explain to you how Beck dabbles in conspiracy theories or how ridiculous it is to suggest that NBC is part of some Rockefeller inspired conspiracy theory - then you've already drank the Kool-Aid.
He comes up with a new conspiracy two or three times a week. He implies that the theories are real as in the FEMA camps.
I interpret the "art" he covered as architecture commissioned by one of the original thugs and robber barons, John D. Rockefeller. A man that your idiot hero Beck implied was a communist.
That, as in everything he promotes, turns history on it's ass and twists it and then pounds it into another one of his ignorant lessons for his ignorant listeners.
As for FEMA camps, what Glenn Beck actually said was that he couldn't debunk them:
(here)
The miscarriage 'thing' is true. His station manager at the time issued an apology over it, though Glenn himself never did.
2) The FEMA trailer - concentration camp thing was actually debunked by Beck.
If what you say is true, of course he should have apologized.
So, no... he isn't entitled to any props for 'debunking' the lie that he'd spent so much time and energy propagating.
It was just a couple black panther wanna-be's playing dress up. They were escorted away. It was no fringe movement, unlike the armed teabaggers. Make a note of it.
In other words it doesn't require a comparison of percentages to make the point. Even one assault rifle is way too many.
Again, analogies are not a specialty of the nutjobs.
We are a country that is headed towards socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest dreams. I have to tell you: I’m doing a story tonight that I wanted to debunk – these FEMA camps – I’m tired of hearing about them – you know about them? - I wanted to debunk them. We’ve now for several days done research on them. I can’t debunk them! If you trust our government, it’s fine. If you have any kind of fear that we might be heading towards a totalitarian state: look out. Buckle up. There’s something going on in our country … that ain’t good.
The audience for Beck’s Friday night special were each given copies of two books. One of them was Cleon Skousen’s Five Thousand Year Leap. Skousen, who died in 2006, is one of the legendary cranks of the conservative world, a John Bircher, a grand fantasist of theories about secret conspiracies between capitalists and communists to impose a one-world government under the control of David Rockefeller.
As for 30 Rock, "Swords into Plowshares"
Let's not go by actual vote number, since we're not talking millions of votes here.
However, I do favor a recount if it is needed. Fine. I have confidence the result will be the same.
Because it is a district heavily weighted towards the right. The Democratic candidate should have never had a chance, until Palin decided to win another election for them.
"I would be just as interested to hear from a candidate that calls themselves a progressive or socialist and states their true views rather than aligning with a party and speaking in platitudes." - jms
I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. We need more diverse ideas in the political arena, not less. The two-party system continues to drown out progressive ideas as well as libertarian.
Economy: Favors lower taxes to spur economic growth. She would make Bush-era tax cuts permanent and repeal the estate tax.
Small businesses need government to get out of the way so they can grow.
As the only candidate to hold elected office, she points to her vote against “reckless” government spending when she opposed Gov. David Paterson’s state budget.
Republicans are doomed when they act (vote) like Democrats. Why would people vote for them? Just vote for the Democrat.
"I have a woman, a cripple, two Jews, and a black."
Get over it.
Hoffman has little concept of how government works, and even less familiarity with the issues of the district he's trying to represent (considering he doesn't even live there). What sane person could possibly consider that guy a qualified candidate?
With that in mind, HEEEEEELP!!!
The party system creates gridlock, which is a necessary part of how the founding fathers designed government.
If the Republican party collapses in on itself, it would be (overall) bad for the country. We need to have two competing parties.
Government is designed to be incremental, to work slowly. Gridlock is necessary, and in order to have gridlock, you have to have competing parties with conflicting ideology.
There has to be a party to oppose the Democrats in order for government to work correctly. I certainly wish that the Republican party was, as a whole, more reasonable and less inflammatory, but I also recognize that the existence of BOTH parties is necessary for government to run properly. Therefore, we should all be concerned with the direction the GOP is going. Sure, the Democrats may win a few elections and benefit in the short run (which doesn't excite me all that much anyway, because I don't feel very well-represented by Dems either), but in the long run, if the GOP dissolves and there is nothing substantial there to take its place, that is bad news for the country.
I think that the parties keep ideology from running amok. Ideology without any structure or framework can be chaos.
I hope that made some kind of sense.
When dealing with ideology, there's much more fluidity involved. There's different levels involved, but allegiance would be towards principles more than people. On this issue I side with these guys. On that issue I side with those guys. People can get an idea of my general mindset, but I'm not beholden to an outside "platform" or "party line". And so there's no motivation for me to follow anyone else's lead. The more extreme elements therefore gain little or no momentum, and are more likely to marginalize themselves away from having significant influence.
But this election, even if you were to assume that all the votes that went to Scozzafava, went to Hoffman, would only be a margin of about 54% to 46% or so...
As it is, this election clearly shows the fractured nature of the Republican party today since it is not even a Republican we are talking about here, but a Conservative party candidate.
So Cluster Fox is turning away from the Republican Party and is now endorsing the Conservative (right-wing) party. Brilliant!
First, Hofmann is a right wing ideologue who lacks any independent thought. Just look at his Beck interviews. Beck asked him leading questions and he followed his lead. It was Beck who suggested he "unconcede". Hofmann is Lennie to Beck's George.
I live in NY-23 and was unsure whether to vote for Scozzafava, or Owens. It was not until Owens definitively came out in favor of health care reform did I make my decision.
Hofmann did as well as he did because of outside money and political endorsements that did not take into account our districts local needs and desires. That Hofmann did as well as he did is impressive, but Ms. Scozzafava would have won handily if Hofmann did not enter the race.
Ms. Scozzafava showed great political courage and concern for her district in endorsing Owens, but it would have all been unnecessary if the Republicans who originally supported her showed as much courage and concern, and, even if she did withdraw, showed her the tiniest bit of graciousness and courtesy.
Quite a few counties are finishing their counts today, and the rest are supposed to finish by the end of this week. Hoffman was losing by about 5000 votes, and now it's down to 3000. I think it's still a big enough lead.
Yeah we all know Hoffman worships Becky. Beck is holding the remote control and Hoffman is the robot. "Danger Will Robinson!" <sarcasm>
Sure. Like PL-RR said, we had to go thru the Bush thing, too.
Speaking of the Bush recount thing, I seem to recall several right wing pundits saying, in the aftermath of both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, that since Bush won, both Gore and Kerry should just "shut up -- Bush IS the president."
Sounds to me as though Becky, the Fiends, and a few others should take the same advice in the case of Owens . . .
He made an error because he's stupid, and it's supposed to make a legal difference?
Of course, it doesn't. His stupidity doesn't change the rules. Until the vote is legally certified by the elections officials, it's not legal. The House can swear him in, but they can also be forced to kick Owens out if the election results change that significantly.
But I don't think there's a chance they will. Owens and Hoffman have been pretty close in getting the absentee votes so far, and Scozzafava has gotten quite a few, so out of the 5000 or so votes left to count, Hoffman would have to get more than 50% of them to gain the 3100+ votes he needs, and there doesn't seem to be a chance of that happening unless the patterns change. Several of the counties with votes left to count went for Owens on election night.
Hoffman has said he's not contesting the election either. It's simply a show of power by Beck - look at how I can manipulate a candidate into saying whatever I want him to say! Turns out that he exaggerates his power. Hoffman says he's NOT "unconceding"!
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman will watch this week's count of absentee ballots in the 23rd Congressional District race before deciding whether to contest the results, his campaign said today.
Hoffman is not "un-conceding" the race, contrary to what he said Monday when pressed by Glenn Beck on his national talk radio show.
“What really matters is the count that is taking place today," Rob Ryan, Hoffman's spokesman told The Post-Standard. "When we see the direction that is taking, we will make the decision."
Ryan added, "There has been no formal action to contest the vote, and depending on how the absentee count turns out we will decide how to proceed."
Too bad Becky and the Fiends couldn't tout Beck's ability to get Hoffman ELECTED.
But, I guess when a Democrat wins a congressional district that had been in GOP hands since the days of the horse-drawn buggy, you gotta hold onto whatever you can . . .
Side note: remember how the Fox mouthpieces and some trolls here were calling the NY-23 and CA-10 races "insignificant"? They continually insisted that the NJ and VA governors races were the true sign of "danger" for the Dems in '10 and were a "referendum" on Obama's performance.
Well, if this race was so "insignificant," why are they still talking about it two weeks later?
(Pete puts an 'L' to his forehead)
That's why.