(Updated) Jackboot Feminism: New Details Emerge On WVWV Voter Suppression Scandal
May 2nd, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
“Hello, this is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter registration form when it arrives. Thank you.”
That is a transcript of the robocalls that voters in predominately black districts, which is to say Barack Obama-leaning areas, received in a ham-handed voter suppression effort by Women’s Voices Women’s Vote that was clearly intended to try to help Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the May 6 primary in North Carolina.
WVWV president Page Gardner has apologized for any “confusion” caused by her group.
But it is obvious that Gardner is playing the news media and others for suckers because the more we learn about the high-tech suppression effort the more obvious it becomes that it was black North Carolinians whom the women’s advocacy group was trying to confuse in the service of getting one of their own elected — a proclaimed feminist who like them has mastered the manly art of dirty politics.
It is minorly ironic that Jeff Fecke over at Shakesville has been one of the bloggers to depants Gardner in providing details of WVWV’s jackbooted approach to electoral politics. Ironic because certain Shakesville contributors expend considerable bandwidth pushing back against the perceived enemies of feminism, often in locker room language.
Anyhow, Fecke details the insidiousness of the WVWV effort, which is now under criminal investigation by North Carolina authorities:
* The robocalls made no allowance for people who already were registered to vote, merely stating that the recipients of the message must sign and date a packet mailed out by WVWV and returned so they would be able to vote.
* The calls did’t note that the packets had zip to do with registering for the primary.
* Primary registration already was closed when the packets were mailed out and calls were made.
* The calls contained no identifying information such as a call-back number or mention of who was underwriting and making the calls, which is one of the several violations of state law perpetrated by WVWV.
So who the heck is Lamont Williams?
A “professional voice talent,” according to WVWV. And whether a real or made-up person someone with a more typically African-American name for a reason even a “confused” person would understand.
Judging from her photograph, Page Gardner looks like she is an okey-dokey gal . . . er, woman who one can only hope won’t have to trade in that smashing rust red outfit for a prison jumpsuit.
Now no one really expects that to happen, because she might cry and need the assistance of Sister Hillary, who has not disavowed WVWV’s thuggery.
Speaking of ironies, there is none larger than the fact that North Carolinians of a certain racial persuasion and vintage could be forgiven for comparing the tactics used against them by women so desperate to succeed in national politics that they’ll do anything to the tactics that the white cracker establishment used for decades when they tried to vote.
Facing South, which has been ahead on the story from the jump, reports that WVWV has used tactics that are at best questionable in no fewer than nine states this election cycle. In addition to North Carolina, they are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Facing South asserts that the group’s modus operandi is the same in each state:
“Deceptive claims and misrepresentations of the law — sometimes even breaking the law. Wildly inaccurate mailing lists, supposedly aimed at ‘unregistered single women,’ but in reality reaching many registered voters as well as families, deceased persons and pets. Tactics that confuse voters and potentially disenfranchise them.
“For such a sophisticated and well-funded operation, which counts among its ranks some of the country’s most seasoned political operatives, such missteps are peculiar, as is the surprise expressed by Women’s Voices staff after each controversy.”
Finally, a personal note: It really burns my ass when a virulent anti-feminist like Michelle Malkin and I agree on something and she uses my stuff to help make her point. At least my pain would be somewhat mitigated if Page Gardner was given the hook.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 6:28 am and is filed under Scandals, Newsweek Blogitics, North Carolina, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Gender, Race, 2008 Elections. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
