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Farhad Manjoo,
While I admire your tenacious fairmindedness (it gives me hope)and agree, generally, with your conclusions regarding the RFK Jr Rolling Stone article, I must point out the absolutism to which you, and indeed RFK Jr., succumb and warn you not to let such things cloud your judgement.
The game, in Ohio and elsewhere, isn't baseball, where deliberate actions result in scores which cannot be ambiguous. The game is poker played at the margins and where a precious few percentage points either way can move large amounts very quickly. It's about the margins.
Intriguing as demonstrated disenfranchisements are, they provide only half the story. The other half, I'll warrant, lies in the far subtler ways in which GOP voter efforts were greased and smoothed. Democrats were disenfranchised indeed, while Republican voters had a veritable red carpet to the polls. It is only necessary that small amounts need be disqualified if some amount of empowerment occurs in the other direction. Your argument, as I understand it, seems predicated on the notion that, indeed, some amount of disenfranchisement did occur, but not enough to sway the outcome. I agree with this assessment, but think that it is incomplete. This is a subject worthy of your acuity and interest and I would ask you to look into it.
Also, you buttress your arguments with reference to the 2002 and 2000 federal elections. This you cannot do without skepticism. Surely you cannot think that Blackwell and other GOP operatives learned whatever skills they employ in a vacuum? If you admit to the fact that some underhanded play occurred then you must see the logical fallacy in your reference to previous, shady elections. The system did suddenly break in 2004.
Surprisingly little efforts can yield decidedly big rewards in competitions where the margins are so very slim. Again, it is not neccessary to engage in wholesale denial of your foe if you provide an enabling hand to your friends.
