Customer Reviews

How to Steal an Election: The Inside Story of How George Bush's Brother and FOX Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Cour

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This is a brisk but comprehensive overview of the 2000 election. Despite the inherently democratic bias of the what the book is asserting, the book never comes off as whining and references are plenty. One of the author's main points is that the Fox News channel prematurely called Florida for Bush, and all of the other networks blindly followed suit to avoid being the only network to not have this information. Hours later it was clear the state was too close to call for either candidate, but because all of the networks had called Florida and thus the entire election for Bush, Gore's later contentions were perceived as those of a "loser" trying to overturn a result in his favor, when in fact the reality of the situation was that Bush had never "won" the state to begin with. Had the state never been called, the perception would have been that Florida would simply require some extra time to be tallied and there wouldn't have been the same sort of "Sore Loserman" public backlash to Gore's recount efforts. It's pretty convincing stuff.

Where the author failed to convince me of though was that the "Bushies" made a concious effort to "steal" the election. The author describes what happened as George Bush's cousin John Ellis being encouraged by Florida governor Jeb Bush to call the state. This, of course, turned out to be foolish, but ultimately FOX was sticking their neck out in the call. The author's tone suggests that this was some grand scheme planned out from the beginning, that the Bushies somehow knew exactly how the scenario would play out and that their move would turn public opinion against Gore.

Ultimately though, this was a compelling book and at less than 150 pages, worth anyone's time.

The pitifully low amount of reviews and rating on Amazon do David W. Moore and his book a great injustice. "How to Steal an Election" is not the incoherent rambling of a leftwing conspiracist, but a meticulously researched and well-written account of the role the media played in the travesty that was Election 2000. In case you don't know, Al Gore actually won Election 2000. So how did George W. Bush end up getting into the White House and turn America into a sinking dictatorship for eight years? Moore doesn't go into every aspect of the Election 2000 fiasco, but he goes into great detail about the most overlooked guilty party in the story: the media. Did you know the guy who made the erroneous call in Bush's favor on Fox News was actually the cousin of George and Jeb Bush? Did you know that Voter News Service was urgently advising all networks that the race was too close to call when Fox went ahead anyway, causing the other networks to follow suit? It's a fascinating story about the inefficiencies of America's media and a warning to what inept journalism can cause. The media screwed up, so we got George W. Bush as president. What more of an incentive does anyone need to do a better job?

This is one of five books I have read on the subject of how the USA year 2000 elections were manipulated to place Bush2 into the White House. The book has pluses and minuses: overall it is not the best of the five.

Americans will remember many instances of balloting fraud and voter intimidation tactics used by the RNC during the election; they will also remember the Congressional hearings on the subject, where a handful of employees from Diebold and Global Election Systems, testified that they had rigged machines to steal votes from the Democrat Party. What most Americans may not recall are the details in the theft of the presidential election, and this book will provide those details.

Instances of "missing voting machines" were common in predominately Democrat voter districts, where in many cases, in many states, voters were required to stand in line for many hours to vote for Al Gore, but in pro-Republican districts the wait was usually a few minutes. The book explains why, and how, that was allowed to happen.

Instances of ballots being pre-punched for George Bush2 were also common, and reported. Voters who noticed and objected were given tiny stickers to place over the pre-punched holes; voters who did not notice and who voted against George Bush2 had the ballots invalidated because of the extra hole.

There are several instances of balloting fraud that the book should have included but did not. Such as the districts that never had their pro-Gore votes counted; such as voters registered as Democrats being told on the telephone that they would be arrested if they voted; such as the "challenged" Democrat voters who were allowed to vote but their ballots were not counted, pending "challenge review."

All in all this book is a good introduction to the treason committed by the Republican Party at the time, and the overwhelming evidence produced, but there are better books on the subject.

This book is idiotic. Does this author realize that NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS all called Florida originally for Gore, with less than 75% precincts reporting, which cost Bush literally hundreds of thousands of votes in Florida's pan handle? And that this early call for Florida in Gore's favor cost Bush perhaps millions of votes nationwide?

Book lacks obvious research and uses vague references to come to the conclusion that the author hoped to arrive at - that somehow the media and Jeb Bush stole the election for Bush. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thinking how U.S. found itself in the Iraqi quagmire? Well, the 2000 Florida nightmare, of course. This book is a good rundown of what happened then and why, from the vantage point of where things actually started ticking: the tv screens which projected Bush winning, following the lead of Fox and - guess who? - Jeb Bush. Moore can be repetitive, but, if you are interested in politics, his account of the inner workings of pollsters and statisticians behind the screen in electoral nights is a must read.

I would like to make a point about the ultimate person who would be running for the democrats as President in this election if Gore had not had the election stolen. It would have been Liberman, basically a Republican.