Here is a news article about something that is clearly wrong (whatever happened to standing silently while security threw the bums out?) and a looney request (does anyone need to request election monitors for US elections, sounds strange to me, but 13 members of Congress did). Enjoy the read and try not to vent too much venom, depending upon your politics.
**************************************************************Politics
08/05/2004 16:40:21 EST N.M. GOP to Continue Asking for Pledge
By RICHARD BENKE
Associated Press Writer
RIO RANCHO, N.M. - Republicans in New Mexico say they will keep asking some people who want to attend Bush-Cheney campaign events to sign an endorsement pledge before receiving tickets.
"If we feel our event will get disrupted again, we will use the same method to make sure it's a positive event," Republican Party spokesman Yier Shi said Thursday, defining positive as "without interruption, without debate - just (without) disruption, period."
Shi said the GOP campaign plans to correct errors and omissions in the pledge: "I ... herby (sic) endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States." Besides correcting the spelling of hereby, it will make clear what office Bush is running for, Shi said.
Last week, some Democrats who signed up to hear Vice President Dick Cheney speak Saturday in this town near Albuquerque were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush. The Bush campaign described the measure as a security step designed to avoid a disruption it contended had been planned by anti-Bush activists.
The Kerry campaign and an anti-Bush group, America Coming Together, denied it planned any disruptive protests.
Bush campaign spokesman Dan Foley said people calling for tickets from an ACT telephone line underwent screening. Others seeking to attend the speech but giving false names were denied tickets, Foley said.
A representative for ACT, Courtney Hunter, responded: "To the best of our knowledge, no one called from our office misrepresenting themselves. These types of evasive tactics are occurring all over the county as the Bush-Cheney campaign refuses to allow Americans into their events."
Two men who had sought tickets were presented the endorsement pledge when they picked up their tickets two days before the event. One of them, John Wade of Albuquerque, said he signed the pledge but then changed his mind. He returned the tickets and took back the pledge, he said.
"I got to thinking this is not right," Wade said. "They're excluding people - that's what has me so upset."
The other man, Michael Ortiz y Pino, said he refused to sign the pledge and was refused tickets. He said he was asked if he associated with veterans, pro-life, gun rights or teacher groups and was asked for his driver's license number, told it was for "Secret Service stuff."
Kerry campaign spokesman Ruben Pulido Jr. said the Kerry campaign had not attempted to screen Bush supporters out of Kerry's appearance at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque in July. About a dozen Bush supporters attended, waving flip-flop beach sandals over their heads and chanting "Viva Bush."
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The Bush administration has invited a team of international observers to watch the presidential election in November.
Paul V. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, reported the invitation in a letter to Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, who led an effort by 13 House Democrats to request U.N. monitors for the elections.
The Democrats, who released the letter Thursday, want to avoid a repeat of the civil rights violations and disenfranchisement of voters they say characterized the 2000 election in Florida and elsewhere.
"Our elections certainly should be fair and free and transparent, and we know the last election was not," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., one of the group.
It's not quite the United Nations, but Kelly wrote that the Bush administration has invited a team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 55-state security organization. OSCE also sent a small group to Florida in 2002 for that year's elections.
"We anticipate that once again the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will deploy an election observation mission to the U.S.," Kelly wrote.
Lee welcomed the move while saying she and others would continue to push for U.N. monitors.
Details of the mission, including its size, have not yet been determined, according to an OSCE spokeswoman.
Last month the House passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill barring federal officials from using money from the act to ask the United Nations to observe the Nov. 2 election.
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The Republican National Committee chairman says the party's national convention later this month will have its most diverse delegation ever - but he won't release the identities of the delegates.
While Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie was boasting about the gains the GOP is making among blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans, he said the national party has left it up to individual states to decide whether to publicize delegates' identities.
His reason: Web sites that invite protesters to "show them the kind of welcome they can expect in New York."
Of the 4,788 delegates and alternates to the convention, Republicans said 171 delegates are Hispanic (297 including alternates), 165 delegates are black (290 with alternates) and 76 delegates are Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders (104 with alternates).
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Associated Press Writers Erica Werner and Will Lester in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
