Elizabeth Edwards: John Wanted To "Fight" 2004 Election Results, Was Overruled

Comments (41)

Daniel wrote on October 4, 2007 7:20 PM:

The Edwards are trying to get back in the narrative for something else than money problems or scandals. After all, Edwrads is still very strong, espally in general election polls. Remember the Oklahoma poll with Edwards beating all Republicans?

tarheel74 wrote on October 4, 2007 7:22 PM:

fundraising woes, endorsement woes, flagging campaign, flagging polls and now this ...clearly the desperation is showing.

Dave wrote on October 4, 2007 7:32 PM:

I would have to hear the context before I wrote it off to desparation. Was she asked a question on this before responding? If so, that hardly seems calculated.

tarheel74 wrote on October 4, 2007 7:42 PM:

she was asked:
"were you disappointed that Senator Kerry conceded as quickly as he did?"
her answer included her disappointment and then that the campaign gave up "over John's objections".
The fact is it's old history and it is being rehashed for no apparent reason.
I mean I like Elizabeth Edwards but off late she has been saying some very silly things.

dcshungu wrote on October 4, 2007 7:43 PM:

This is meaningless posturing. I am glad Kerry opted to just let go. The only way to win elections is to win them outright. This means that you need to nominate a winner, and then have your side fired up and ready to flock to polls E-day. That is why the Repubs have sqweaked out victories the past two election cycles despite fielding a mediocre candidate: they do not look for ideological purity (if you're not Feingold, you're a Repub), and they do not split their vote...

Anonymous wrote on October 4, 2007 7:51 PM:

Did Kerry seriously weaken Democrats in 2004?
Kerry has come out now with the news that the 2004 election was stolen. Better late than never? Perhaps.

Mark Crispin Miller and Mark Hertsgaard, who are friends and who have been following different paths of investigation into faulty voting procedures in Ohio and elsewhere in 2004, joined in a discussion/debate on Democracy Now! this morning with program moderators, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Some excerpts:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Last week the Government Accountability Office, the investigative unit of Congress, issued a major report on the safety of electronic voting machines. Although the report has received little attention in the corporate media, its findings have startled critics of electronic voting. These are the three main problems the G.A.O. found with the machines: (1) Some electronic voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected; (2) It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works, so that votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate; and (3) Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level. The G.A.O. concluded, quote, "Some of these concerns were reported to have caused local problems at federal elections, resulting in the loss or miscount of votes."

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: ...There were three phases of chicanery. First, there was a pre-election period, during which the Secretary of State in Ohio, Ken Blackwell, was also co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, which is in itself mind-boggling, engaged in all sorts of bureaucratic and legal tricks to cut down on the number of people who could register, to limit the usability of provisional ballots. It was really a kind of classic case of using the letter of the law or the seeming letter of the law just to disenfranchise as many people as possible. On Election Day, there was clearly a systematic undersupply of working voting machines in Democratic areas, primarily inner city and student towns, you know, college towns. And the Conyers people found that in some of the most undersupplied places, there were scores of perfectly good voting machines held back and kept in warehouses, you know, and there are many similar stories to this. And other things happened that day. After Election Day, there is explicit evidence that a company called Triad, which manufactures all of the tabulators, the vote-counting tabulators that were used in Ohio in the last election, was systematically going around from county to county in Ohio and subverting the recount, which was court ordered and which never did take place. The Republicans will say to this day, ‘There was a recount in Ohio, and we won that.’ That’s a lie, one of many, many staggering lies. There was never a recount.

MARK HERTSGAARD: ...I think part of the problem is that there are some people who don't want to believe that Bush won that election. And, as I say, there's a lot of smelly stuff, but there's a difference between an allegation and a fact, and as a journalist, I have to look at facts, not just allegations.

MILLER: ... I agree with Mark. I think we should be looking at the facts. But what I think we should be emphasizing here is that this kind of hypervigilance in interrogating various details with a bias toward claiming that there is a conventional view, and that the conventional view is solid, and the skeptics who question it are grasping at straws and are desperate to deny reality -- this is itself a denial of reality... I want to emphasize that I'm not a Democrat. I'm an Independent. And I'm even less of a Democrat than I was before John Kerry conceded. Speaking of John Kerry, I have some news for you. On this last Friday I arranged to meet Senator Kerry at a fundraiser to give him a copy of my book. He told me he now thinks the election was stolen. He said he doesn't believe he's the person who can go out front on the issue because of the sour grapes question, but he said he believes it was stolen. He says he argues about this with his Democratic colleagues on the Hill -- he'd just had a big fight with Christopher Dodd about it. Because he said this is stuff about the voting machines -- they're really questionable. And Dodd was angry -- "I don't want to hear about it. I've looked into it. There's nothing there." Well, there's plenty there... This is not a criminal case. We don't have to prove guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is our election system. This is a system based on consent of the governed. If many many millions of Americans are convinced that they got screwed on Election Day and couldn't vote, or if 3.4 million more Americans claim that they voted that the actual total of voters. This is what the Census Bureau told us last May. This is grounds alone for serious investigation and I think Mark [Hertsgaard] would agree with me here. We have to have serious investigations.

GOODMAN: Did Senator Kerry say why he why he said on Friday night... that he does think the election was stolen? Did he say why he raced out the next day, after for months the Democratic candidates had assured the voters that they would make sure every vote was counted... As Mark Hertsgaard says... it didn't help that Kerry conceded immediately in spite of questions about Ohio.

MILLER: That's true. And that was a real body blow to the democratic system. It demoralized a lot of people when Kerry pulled out. Why did he do it? Well, according to my evidence... Kerry was swayed by the "brain trust" around him. These were people like Bob Shrum. Mary Beth Cahill... Democratic Party war horses. I don't think they have a stellar record of winning campaigns and I don't really understand how they were hired to do this. But they persuaded him up in Martha's Vineyard that he should pull out -- that otherwise, he told John Edwards in his call, Kerry said, "If we don't pull out, they're gonna call us sore losers!"

HERTSGAARD: Mark Crispin Miller has given us a major news flash here and kind of buried the lead. If Kerry thinks that the election was stolen, that is big big news. And I think it's very unfortunate that it took him twelve months to come around to that conclusion. I want to stress this. In my piece -- I'm an investigative journalist, I'm going to deal with the facts, and I'm sorry I am going to be picky about the facts. But at the conclusion of the piece, I said repeatedly that it's smelly what happened in Ohio, it's entirely plausible that the election was stolen, and above all that what we need is a real investigation, both by the mainstream media and especially by people with sub poena power. John Conyers -- god bless him for pushing his own investigation -- but he was stonewalled by Ken Blackwell, the Secretary of State of Ohio, and other officials including the Triad Computer Co., who basically refused to answer his questions. He, or another agency with sub poena power, should go back and get that. Because I agree with Mark entirely. This is the essence of our democracy. We deserve to have a persuasive answer to what happened in 2004. We probably would have gotten in if Kerry had shown the courage to say on the day after Election Day... "I suspect this election was stolen." Believe me! Even the corporate media would have investigated this. It's too juicy a story...

GOODMAN: Are you saying, Mark Crispin Miller, that John Edward did not want to concede?

MILLER: Absolutely not. I spoke to a relative of his who was with him when the phone call came from Kerry.... Edwards himself, just four hours before, had been on national TV promising righteously to count every vote. Now he felt he was being made to look like a fool and he argued with Kerry. Vehemently... ... Mark is right. Kerry's caving in like that gave an enormous gift to the right wing. They could even claim, Well,even their candidate doesn't think it was stolen!

Again, this is an edited transcript of the discussion. Transcripts of the full discussion will be posted eventually at Democracy Now! The guests were:

Mark Crispin Miller, author of “Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them).” He is a professor at New York University and author of several other books including "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order" and "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder."

Mark Hertsgaard, investigative reporter who recently examined the 2004 election for Mother Jones magazine. He is the author of many books including "The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World" and "Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future." He is also the environment correspondent for The Nation and the political correspondent for LinkTV.

http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2005/11/did_kerry_sell_.html

sheilamc7 wrote on October 4, 2007 7:51 PM:

The only way to win elections is to win them outright.

You're kidding, right? Is that what W. did, and I just imagined the 2000 Florida recount?

Anonymous wrote on October 4, 2007 7:53 PM:

Short answer: it appears Edwards has said as much, which makes sense, as he was sent out Election Night to promise to fight for every vote, and then it was over the next day.

Anonymous wrote on October 4, 2007 7:55 PM:

GOODMAN: Are you saying, Mark Crispin Miller, that John Edwards did not want to concede?

MILLER: Absolutely not. I spoke to a relative of his who was with him when the phone call came from Kerry.... Edwards himself, just four hours before, had been on national TV promising righteously to count every vote. Now he felt he was being made to look like a fool and he argued with Kerry. Vehemently... ... Mark is right. Kerry's caving in like that gave an enormous gift to the right wing. They could even claim, Well,even their candidate doesn't think it was stolen!

B2 wrote on October 4, 2007 8:14 PM:

I was at an Edwards house party on March 28th this year. John held a live conference call with house party guests across the country. The first thing he talked about was the 2004 election and how he wanted to fight the results at that time. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Kerry and the political consultants.

Ni Daye wrote on October 4, 2007 8:51 PM:

This is silly. Had Kerry won Ohio and won the election by losing more than 2 million votes in overall population, this whole electrol college system should be declared dead, dead, and deader. I was very unhappy that Gore was declared loser in 2000, as he was clearly the winner of popular vote and FL. When Kerry lost, I felt not as bad as clearly more people voted against him. No question about that!

hwc wrote on October 4, 2007 8:53 PM:

This is just a minor attack. Edwards campaign strategist Mudcat Saunders said on MSNBC tonight that "Bill and Hillary Clinton screwed America when they were in the White House."

The Edwards campaign is going to stop at nothing in their desperate attacks.

Tom Paine wrote on October 4, 2007 9:31 PM:

I and a friend from Virginia worked on the 2004 elections in Ohio and the presidential election was stolen from the Democrats by exactly the causes mentioned by Mark Crispin Miller and throug voter suppression tactics in black communities on election day.

It was obvious to every sighted person in Ohio and no one could believe it when Kerry conceded.

jeanruss wrote on October 4, 2007 9:32 PM:

the fact that the ohio votes have 'mysteriously' disappeared gives credence to the fact that Kerry probably won Ohio-I always felt that Kerry was sort of a caricature of a candidate, so that people would think there had actually been an election-the elites in this country are outnumbered of course, and can only get what they want by stealing elections-Edwards has been a superb candidate-I think Markos' tirade is ridiculous-he seems to be genuinely screwing Edwards over, which is really shocking-are we going to get Hillary because of him? I am thrilled to be supporting Edwards and he will make an outstanding President-if he is out of the race, I think millions won't bother to come out for Hillary-most voters have her number and know she's a phony-the public can sense it because they see the same kind of person in her, that we now have in the White House-she's the status quo candidate-if you want more war, fewer jobs and poor judgment, she's your girl!

pacpallez wrote on October 4, 2007 9:34 PM:

Desperation? Flagging endorsements? Fundraising woes? Pleeeeeeze. These "primaries" are being shaped by meaniningless polls, money, and whirling pundits. Need I remind everyone that no one has yet cast a vote in this campaign?

TomPaine wrote on October 4, 2007 9:43 PM:

Quote: 'The only way to win elections is to win them outright."

A good theoretical idea, but when votes are stolen and voting by minorities is suppressed, how can any election be won outright by a Democrat?

You need to get out and work an election!

MarcNYC wrote on October 4, 2007 10:33 PM:

Untill this routine I still had some interest in Edwards as a candidate. Not anymore. It seems that his best talent is second guessing and saying what he would have done if only he had a vote. Enough.

John Crandell wrote on October 4, 2007 10:35 PM:

Very courageous Elizabeth.

Now if you two would just take on the issue of impeachment and then AIPAC,
John would get my vote. I've never before gone over to supporting a fringe candidate.
But this is an extraordinary time in American history and this Vietnam veteran just finished watching an interview with former senator Mike Gravel. I support him one hundred percent. I want to urge everyone who reads this to follow the accompanying link and listen to Gravel's thoughts and reflections. After all, there is the history of his having stood on the floor of the senate and reading at length from the Pentagon Papers, while Nixon fulminated. What more of such a legacy do we need?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18503.htm

vivek wrote on October 4, 2007 10:49 PM:

Greg, I still remember Edwards saying after the 2004 elections that we will fight for every vote to be counted. I was hoping so. But out of blue Kerry came and conceded. I was shocked. Mrs. Edwards is correct in my opinion. But again in your text , I don't see her attacking Kerry. It makes an impression that it was an overall decision which mr. edwards did not favour.

I blame kerry for not learning how to steal spotlight. He may have ideas of governing but his body language and PR skills are poor IMHO

phil james wrote on October 4, 2007 10:50 PM:

"The only way to win elections is to win them outright. This means that you need to nominate a winner, and then have your side fired up and ready to flock to polls E-day."

This is exactly the kind of fairplay BS that keeps the thug party in power. Both Gore and Kerry were "winners" according to their nominating conventions and flocking to the polls isn't enough if the game is rigged by the politicized DOJ.

Kerry wussed on the swift-boating and wussed on counting every vote. He fought by "gentleman's" rules which is what gentlemen do in the Senate and he lost to a bunch of thugs who play by only one rule--win any way you can--exactly as had been done in Florida. Kerry brought his knife to the gunfight and lost. Edwards wanted to bring out the guns and Kerry quit.

Anonymous wrote on October 4, 2007 11:02 PM:

Both the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen, and neither Gore nor Kerry fought hard enough to secure victory. They are both guilty of appeasement.

The battle is still going on: the Supreme Court will soon rule on Indiana's voter ID statute. These voter ID statutes are Republican attempts to purge qualified voters who tend to vote Democratic. These tactics are in violation of the Voting Rights Act, for which many civil rights workers suffered beatings and even gave their lives. They constitute a serious attack, not only on the American electoral system, but on the legitimacy of the government.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of these tactics,
people will cease to believe the elections are fair, and the entire system of government will gradually fall apart.

Watch the demonstrations in Myanmar. That is where this country will be someday if these assaults on our electoral system are not halted.

If the machinery of honest government fails, we will not get the country back by peaceful means.

Santa Monica Jeremy wrote on October 4, 2007 11:49 PM:

hwc wrote on October 4, 2007 8:53 PM:

This is just a minor attack. Edwards campaign strategist Mudcat Saunders said on MSNBC tonight that "Bill and Hillary Clinton screwed America when they were in the White House."

The Edwards campaign is going to stop at nothing in their desperate attacks.

Let me remind you how we do things around here.

We discuss and debate issues on the merits.

Calling something a "Minor attack" doesn't cut it. Calling something "Old news" doesn't cut it. Calling something a "Desperate attack" sure doesn't cut it.

Whichever candidate you're supporting - I'm presuming it's HRC, correct me if I'm wrong - you're not going to win folks over by this kind of trash talk.

There's plenty of that coming from the Republicans. Let's try to keep our side out of the gutter.

skeptica wrote on October 4, 2007 11:52 PM:

So St. Elizabeth speaks again. Too bad she didn't speak to her husband in 2004--or perhaps she did. When he utterly, totally, and completely failed to contribute anything to the campaign and let Cheney run over him so he could preserve his nice-guy, positive-guy, moderate image. And now they want us to believe they are the real fighters. Kerry's biggest mistake was selecting this glib windbag as VP--and if he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be hearing from him and his sainted wife now.

smalltowngirl wrote on October 4, 2007 11:53 PM:

It's complete rubbish that this is desperation from a flagging campaign. EE is just being her honest, and now unbridled, self. She and John honestly believed Kerry was going to contest Ohio.

I continue to wonder why Kerry caved?

daniel155 wrote on October 5, 2007 12:52 AM:

I remember reading a Newsweek article about the inside of the Kerry campaign. Just before Kerry was going to give a concession speech he asked Edwards to go out and give a speech to introduce him. Edwards was lobbying him not to concede and was something like this is not over, we could get a thousand lawyers on the ground. An exasperated Kerry just said to him several times, go out and speak John.

The paradox is that the more Edwards tries appeals to the far left in an effort to derail Clinton, the less attractive a general election candidate he becomes and he has been pushing the electability issue. By pulling stuff like this or having his wife do it for him, he is spoiling the electability issue.

DrFrankLives wrote on October 5, 2007 12:53 AM:

I've heard her say this before, and she wrote it in her book.

So don't try to pull this crap about it being new and she has't said it before.

She has, and he has.

He looked me right in the eye and said "if we had run like this in 2004, we'd have won."

dcshungu wrote on October 5, 2007 1:49 AM:

This is exactly the kind of fairplay BS that keeps the thug party in power.

Ridiculous. Fair or not we wound up with Bush. You have to turn out for you nominee, and not split your vote! Remember Nader? He and the fact that Gore could not even manage to win his own state cost him the election. If you win outright, like Cliton did, there is coulda, shoulda, woulda... Got it?

You can keep foaming at mouth and get near apoplectic because the election was stolen, I moved on as soon as the "winner" was declared, so I think I am the saner one...

Ciao!

bud wrote on October 5, 2007 1:57 AM:

Republicans don't split their vote?

Someone clearly forgot the benefit Mr. Clinton got from the candidacy of a certain Mr. Perot, I think.

Republicans are not some sort of uniquely electorally pure creature. If the right set of candidates were in the general election, it's just as likely that a crucial 1-2% of Republicans could peel off and vote for a nutball candidate as it is that Democrats could do so.

colonpowwow wrote on October 5, 2007 7:55 AM:

Now, John Edwards is a lawyer who has worked for clients who were conducting actions against large corporations with circumstances in dispute. I imagine Edwards was quite familiar with how to conduct an investigation. He also held some weight and had many connections and sympathizers as a (former) senator. Also, investigative reporters familiar with the issue (Greg Palast, Sydney Hirsch, etc.) would have lent a hand. And finally, Edwards has the financial resources to have pursued the matter.

So if he felt so strongly, why didn't he conduct his own investigation as a private citizen, or lend a hand to the citizens groups in Ohio that tried to investigate?

Just wondering.

colonpowwow wrote on October 5, 2007 7:57 AM:

Oopsie. Of course I meant "Seymour" not "Sydney."

gcs wrote on October 5, 2007 8:52 AM:

The Republicans must be scared to death. Every website, every blog, every online community I read these days is packed to the "virtual" rafters with Right Wing nutjobs, apologists, apparatiks, trolls, and other assorted losers all trying to spread their disinformation and make it appear that there's still any support at all for the conservative noise machine among people who actually use their brain.

Jesse Jones wrote on October 5, 2007 8:58 AM:

I heard John Edwards in Charlotte NC on the book tour say that he had urged Kerry to fight the election.

moondancer wrote on October 5, 2007 9:08 AM:

Seems to have been good reason to fight the results in Ohio. The depth of the criminal behavior of bushco is stunning.
The solace I take is Bush seems to really care about his legacy. Rove or his daddy aren't going to able to fix that for him.

alex wrote on October 5, 2007 9:22 AM:

don't taze me bro dude was on to something.

david knowles wrote on October 5, 2007 9:29 AM:

Saw her speak the other day, and tell this story. She's an effective advocate for John, but in the case of Rush Limbaugh's dodging the draft, I must differ. Read:

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/10/05/is-rush-a-draft-dodger/

Dalkenshield wrote on October 5, 2007 10:00 AM:

To all the dunderheads who think "moving on" is the right smart thing to do: when election fraud remains uninvestigated and the perps unpunished, you'll be "moving on" into the same fiasco as before. Read some books, why don't you? Or are you spending all your time working those two and three jobs the Preznit said "That's great!" about.

litigatormom wrote on October 5, 2007 10:47 AM:

anonymous said:

Both the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen, and neither Gore nor Kerry fought hard enough to secure victory. They are both guilty of appeasement.

I don't think you can compare them. Gore fought all the way up to the Supreme Court. There was nothing left to do within the legal system, and as awful as the Bush presidency has been, I can't blame him for deciding not to lead an armed rebellion. In retrospect, his campaign made some misjudgments -- not calling for a statewide recount right away, letting Joe Liebertoad agree that even late absentee ballots from the military should be counted -- but he fought for as long and as far as he could go.

Kerry chose not to fight. The totals in Ohio weren't as close as they'd been in Florida, and it probably seemed unlikely that they could make up the difference. In addition, one of the major problems in Ohio was not something you could correct for in a recount -- the fact that so many probable Democratic voters were effectively prevented from voting by the lack of sufficient voting machines. Kerry probably thought he was doing the "selfless" thing by not fighting -- after all, one of the few things Richard Nixon was ever praised for was his decision not to challenge the Illinois results in 1960, which many people believe were fixed and gave the presidency to JFK -- but after 2000, the selfless decision was the wrong one.

Robenoir wrote on October 5, 2007 12:07 PM:

Thing is, she is exactly right: Kerry promised to fight for a fair election outcome, and folded like a house of cards. I also believe that the inexplicable failure of Kerry against George Bush(!) carries a stench that continues to plague Edwards. I know that as much as I like the guy, I just can't help but associate him with 2004.

Anonymous wrote on October 5, 2007 6:48 PM:

Dcshungo pronouncement:
"Ridiculous. Fair or not we wound up with Bush. You have to turn out for you nominee, and not split your vote! Remember Nader? He and the fact that Gore could not even manage to win his own state cost him the election. If you win outright, like Cliton did, there is coulda, shoulda, woulda... Got it?

You can keep foaming at mouth and get near apoplectic because the election was stolen, I moved on as soon as the "winner" was declared, so I think I am the saner one..."

Guess you missed the point. Let me repeat. It's necessary but not sufficient to just play by the official rules, turn out, and vote for a Dem.
You must also assume that the Republicans as heirs to Rovian political philosophy, will stop at nothing to win. They will use whatever tactics they think they can get away with, including whatever it takes ON ELECTION DAY and in any recounts, judicial rulings other or post-election actions to have their thug candidate declared the winner, including turning Dem voters away from polling places, declaring Dem voters ineligible for any number of fraudulent reason, need I go on here...? They will do all of that and more. Expect it. Prepare for it. But don't expect me to accept a thug winner, "fair or not" as you put it. I would suggest perhaps that the only way to guarantee a reliable and fair vote count is to have a large portion of the thug party leadership preemptively incarcerated, although like any good mob operatives, I'm sure they would continue to give orders from their cells.

Oh, and by the way, the corrupt thug party in Florida and the rigged SCOTUS cost Gore the election, not what he did in his home state.

phil james wrote on October 6, 2007 12:32 AM:

Sorry. It is not Anonymous, it is I.

Anna wrote on October 6, 2007 2:35 PM:

Greg,

Why not follow up with people from the Kerry-Edwards campaign to verify the situation was as EE describes it? At least we would have two sides of the story. I doubt you would get a statement from Kerry himself since it wouldn't be his style to smack Edwards' wife, but others were on the scene who may be able to offer insight.

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