Fooled Again: On the 2004 Election

For Republicans, the 2004 presidential election was little short of miraculous: Behind in the Electoral College tally in the days leading up to the election, behind even on the very afternoon of the vote, the Bush ticket staged a stunning comeback. The exit polls, usually so reliable, turned out to be wrong by an unprecedented 5 percent in the swing states. Conservatives argued — and the media agreed — that "moral values" had made the difference.

In his new book, renowned critic and political commentator Mark Crispin Miller argues that it wasn't moral values that swung the election — it was theft. While the greatest body of evidence comes from the key state of Ohio — where the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee found an extraordinary onslaught of Republican-engineered vote suppression, election-day irregularities, old-fashioned intimidation tactics, and illegal counting procedures — similar practices (and occasionally worse ones) were applied in Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and even New York. A huge array of anomalies, improper practices, and blatant violations of the law all, by a truly remarkable coincidence, happened to swing in the Bush ticket's favor.

This pattern — not one overwhelming fraud but thousands of little ones — is, in Miller's view, the new Republican electoral strategy. This incendiary new book presents massive documentation that the election was stolen and describes the mind-set, among both the major parties and the media, that could permit it to happen again.

"In this belated exposé — and clarion call for electoral reform — Miller (The Bush Dyslexicon) accuses George W. Bush and his 'theocratic militants' of orchestrating electoral fraud to 'hijack' the 2004 presidential race. Miller relies on original reporting, secondary sources and unadulterated outrage to make his case, marshaling evidence (much of it circumstantial) of Democratic voter disenfranchisement, mysterious computer snafus and discrepancies between exit poll results and official vote counts. He is especially critical of the press for what he describes as silence in the face of Bush's and Cheney's denials of fraud. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is another target of Miller's ire, for ignoring warnings of coordinated Republican plans to cheat and for doing nothing to contest the vote counts, especially in swing states Ohio and Florida. 'Election-stealing' in Florida in particular presages a dark future for the entire nation: 'a system built specifically to disenfranchise an aroused and even militant majority, and to do so without leaving any traces.' Though Miller's sometimes unclear sourcing puts the burden on readers to separate fact from hearsay, he gathers enough well-documented evidence that anyone who cares about fair play should find this book revelatory." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A fascinating catalogue of impeachable offenses and prosecutable crimes." Kirkus Reviews

The author claims that thousands of election-day irregularities, Republican-engineered vote suppression, intimidation tactics, and illegal counting procedures have become the new Republican electoral strategy.

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media studies at New York University and a well-known public intellectual. His writings on film, television, propaganda, advertising, and the culture industries have appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Nation and the New York Times. He is the author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (2001) and Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order (2004). A frequent commentator on TV, radio, and the Internet, Miller has appeared on Frontline, The PBS Newshour, The O'Reilly Factor, Washington Journal, and Bill Moyers's The Public Mind, as well as many other television shows, and has been a guest on countless radio programs. He is a regular commentator on Air America, appearing often on Morning Sedition and The Al Franken Show. He lives in New York City.