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How Liberals Use the False Myth of Voter Suppression to Rally Support But at the Expense of Better Race Relations

by Hughey Newsome (bio)

In interviews before the midterm elections, NAACP President Cornell William Brooks appeared on news programs to warn, as he did on MSNBC, "this is the first election in a generation where the American electorate is unprotected by the Voting Rights Act."

Brooks is not accurate: the Voting Rights Act remains powerful and in effect; only a small portion of the Act, Section 4(b), was struck down last year.

What's more, when he asserts that the Act was "gutted," his words imply there is a conspiracy to neuter African-American voters by requiring IDs to vote and rolling back conveniences African-Americans disproportionately use, such as Sunday voting.

To meaningfully discuss such claims, mistruths must be resolved.

Liberals vociferously oppose ballot protection laws recently passed in several states, saying valid identification requirements and more stringent voting rules disfranchise voters particularly minorities. They dismiss vote fraud as a rare occurrence, yet people have been convicted and investigations have proven that fraud can easily occur in the absence of common sense safeguards.

They also support President Obama in his opposition to voting safeguards. Yet they ignore the irony that Obama won his first election in 1996 by challenging and invalidating the candidate petitions of all his primary opponents, including the incumbent, so he ran unopposed in the primary and cruised to victory in the general election.

Where are the howls of voter suppression? Obama clearly disfranchised South Side Chicago voters.

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How Liberals Use the False Myth of Voter Suppression to Rally Support But at the Expense of Better Race Relations

South Australia's two big political parties - particularly the Liberals - are famous for long and bitter internal divisions.

But echoes from further afield - specifically the federal ALP's fraught Rudd-Gillard-Rudd period - can hardly be avoided if Labor loses its 12-year grasp on governing the state at Saturday night's election, as widely expected.

Parallels could include a successful leader pushed out by factional heavies and a governing party caught flatfooted by a new Opposition Leader

Not so fast, cautions Associate Professor of Politics at Flinders University, Haydon Manning.

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A more salient cause of South Australians' disenchantment with the Labor Government of Premier Jay Weatherill, Professor Manning says, is their fear of an economy in decline and the return of the spectre of a ''rust-belt'' state.

The Liberal Party, having chosen a previously unknown Steven Marshall as leader, free of the party's decades-old leadership merry-go-round, had managed to harness voters' disenchantment through an emphasis on Labor's $1 billion deficit and the loss of its hard-won AAA credit rating.

The biggest blow to confidence had been BHP Billiton's decision in August 2012 to postpone indefinitely its planned $30 billion expansion of South Australia's Olympic Dam mine. Less than 12 months previously, former premier Mike Rann had touted the mine expansion as his crowning achievement, and there had been a sense the state could continue to afford to build debt, knowing it could be paid off.

Now, with Rann and the mine expansion gone, there had grown ''a sense of hopes and aspirations dashed'', Professor Manning said. Holden's recent announcement it was quitting car manufacturing had deepened the gloom.

Weatherill, in his first term as leader after Rann was pushed from office by union-backed factional leaders in late 2011, has lacked Rann's touch in building a narrative of hope.

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Analysis: Disenchanted SA voters driven by fears of economy in decline

White Liberals and Gays Hijacking Mike Brown and Eric Garner Protests
Irritated Genie (War On The Horizon) sheds light on how gay activists, hippie-style rebels and white liberals are using the Ferguson protest movement to promote their agendas. He questions...

By: SpellChecker42

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White Liberals and Gays Hijacking Mike Brown and Eric Garner Protests - Video

OTTAWA Barack Obamas vote-getting days may be over, but the U.S. presidents campaign machinery and its methods seem destined to be a part of Canadas federal election in 2015.

New Democrats and Liberals, in a bid to catch up with the Conservatives long-held advantage in digital and data campaigning, have been looking south, to U.S. Democrats in particular, for advice on how best to fight the next election here.

From consulting former Obama staffers to sending trainees to work with Democrats in the U.S. mid-terms to outright imitation the Liberals and NDP have been amassing the newest tools of the trade to trot out for Canadas big day at the polls in 2015.

Were definitely going to see a lot of Obama tactics at play, says Jennifer Hollett, a potential candidate in Torontos University-Rosedale riding in 2015, who has been at the forefront of the NDPs efforts to modernize the partys campaign machinery.

The Liberals national director, Jeremy Broadhurst, also acknowledges his party has dipped deeply into the Democrats well of knowledge.

We closely follow developments in American political techniques as we do in a variety of different jurisdictions, Broadhurst says, adding Obamas people have much to teach Canadians on recruiting, engaging and mobilizing new volunteers to politics.

Toronto residents may have already had a bit of a sneak preview of Obama: the Sequel (North of 49th Parallel Edition). Peter Tanner, 32, works in Torontos financial sector these days but celebrated his 30th birthday working as a data analyst at Obama headquarters in Chicago on election night in 2012.

He wasnt the only Canadian expatriate working there either at least four other people among the approximately 50 members of Obamas analytics team were dual, Canada-U.S. citizens.

Its not magic, Tanner says whenever hes asked about whether Big Data can win campaigns. However, in close races, analytics can make a big difference, Tanner says, especially if political parties concentrate their data efforts on finding voters beyond the already declared supporters.

The 2015 campaign in Canada could well be close and it could turn on the ability of all parties to get tuned-out citizens to the polls, as Obamas team did in 2008 and 2012.

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Federal NDP, Liberals take a leaf from Obama playbook

Labor has extended its two-party-preferred lead over the Liberals in SA, the latest Newspoll shows.

South Australia's Labor government has capped off a strong year with a surge in voter support, the latest Newspoll shows.

The News Corp Australia poll, published on Wednesday, shows Labor has a two-party-preferred lead of 53 to 47 per cent over the Liberal opposition.

The Liberals' primary vote has plunged from 44.8 per cent at the March state election to just 33 per cent, with Labor claiming 35 per cent of the vote.

Voters overwhelmingly backed Premier Jay Weatherill, with 47 per cent of voters nominating him as preferred leader compared with 29 per cent for Steven Marshall.

The results will come as another blow to the Liberals, who had been widely expected to reclaim power at the March election after 12 years in opposition.

Despite claiming 53 per cent of the two-party vote, the Liberals failed to win key marginal seats, paving the way for Labor to form minority government with the support of independents.

Labor shored up its parliamentary numbers in May when former Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith made a shock defection, throwing his support behind the government as an independent cabinet minister.

The Liberals' woes deepened in December when Labor claimed a stunning win in a by-election for the southern suburbs seat of Fisher, once considered safe Liberal territory.

Labor's victory was driven partly by a strong negative campaign on federal issues, including Abbott government cuts to health spending and uncertainty about future submarines contracts.

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Strong support for Labor in SA: Newspoll