Republikaner verliert "totes" Rennen - Demokrat wird posthum Senator! - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Neemann]

Sehr tragisch - das gibts wohl nur im land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten
Die Begründung der Republikaner, ein Kandidat müsse Einwohner des Staates sein, und Tote könnten diese Bedingung nicht erfüllen, hört sich selbst für einen Rep-kritischen nachvollziehbar an.


Republican senator loses to dead rival in Missouri

November 8, 2000
Web posted at: 2:49 a.m. EST (0749 GMT)

(CNN) -- The late Gov. Mel Carnahan
collected enough votes to beat out incumbent
Republican Sen. John Ashcroft for the U.S.
Senate seat from Missouri.

The incumbent Ashcroft was left running
against a dead man after his opponent, the
popular sitting governor, died in a plane crash
on October 16. By that time, it was too late to
remove Carnahan`s name from the ballot.

No one had ever posthumously won election
to the Senate, though voters on at least three
occasions chose deceased candidates for the
House.

Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson moved up to succeed Carnahan. Wilson said he would
appoint Carnahan`s widow, Jean, to the Senate seat should the deceased husband
get more votes than Ashcroft.

Jean Carnahan said Tuesday night: "Abraham Lincoln never saw his nation made
whole again. Susan B. Anthony never cast a vote. Martin Luther King Jr. never
finished his mountaintop journey. My husband`s journey has stopped short too,
and for reasons we do not know or understand, the mantle has now fallen upon
us. We remain heirs of a legacy."

"On this night I pledge to you -- rather let us
pledge to each other -- we will never let the flame
go out," she told supporters by speaker phone.

Ashcroft held the lead in polls until Carnahan`s
death threw the race into turmoil.

On election day, no one could predict how the
sympathy factor would play at the polls. Jean
Carnahan used ads to make emotional appeals for
"the values and beliefs that Mel Carnahan wanted
to take to the United States Senate."

Ashcroft was supported by two thirds of the
voters who in exit polls said the federal budget
surplus should be used to cut taxes. A majority of the voters who supported
Carnahan said the surplus should go toward the national debt.

Republicans have vowed to fight Jean Carnahan`s appointment on the grounds
that a candidate must be an "inhabitant" of the state, a requirement a dead person
can`t fullfill. Her appointment must be approved by the Senate.

Both candidates were twice elected governor and had nine statewide victories
among them.

The freshman Senator Ashcroft has a very conservative voting record. He
favored term limits, was one of the first in the Senate to have his own web page,
and was one of the first to say charges against Clinton might warrant
impeachment.

[Neemann]

Ich überlege gerade, ob das Teil der amerikanischen Leitkultur sein könnte...

[METOX]

Hi Neemann, da möchte ich Dich korrigieren. Dieses Trauerspiel ist Teil der amerikansichen LEIDkultur...

MfG metox

[Neemann]

Ich nehme zumindest an, daß die politische Karriere des mr. Ashcroft am Ende ist - wer nicht mal gegen einen Toten eine Wahl gewinnt...