Venezuelan Presidential Election 2012

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stretch run, election is in a week.  the polls look kinda scary but who knows what to believe.

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The irony is that even without all of his shenanigans, Chavez enjoys genuine popularity and would win handsomely.

He enjoys genuine popularity within about 1/2 population, and genuine loathing within the other half. Without shenanigans it would have been truly too close to call. Of course, given the degree of administrative control he exercises, Capriles Radonski would, probably need at least, 55% of the actual votes cast to win.

this is unsubtantiable, and even if it were it's no different than what goes on in the US with disenfranchisement of poor and minorities.

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At any rate, whatever happens, definitely hoping for a Capriles victory here next week.

well aren't you a red blooded American.  who believes in God and Senator Dodd.

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Anyone who says "it's the same as in the US" does not know what s/he is talking about. There is a crucial difference - the United States has genuinely split control of the government. So, here and there nasty things may and do happen - but nobody can order sh**t to happen nationwide.

I don't believe that, I reject it on principle.  there is traded power between (D)s and (R)s, who are backed by a fluid but otherwise exactly the same coalition of interests.  the policy differences between the alleged two factions are vanishing to zero.. this is quite unlike the situation in a place like VZ, where actual skin remains in the game: IMF, World Bank, and privatization/expatriation of profits on the one hand, and a genuine populism (how genuine can always be argued) on the other.

and I was not talking about the "occasional abberation" such as a Florida 2000 -- I'm talking about the systematic exclusion of minorites and the underclass through the decriminalization of black and urban poor life, which excludes millions from the nominal political system.

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quite blind stuff -- the 'fat greasy thumb' has had its grip for a decade or so, the bloody hand that preceded it lasted centuries.

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my personal favorite.  I was at this game June 9 1999

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BK the reference was actually to Thomas Dodd.

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a good site for election news.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/

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Capriles is walking the fine ideological line pretty well, I think.

yes, except for

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7238

Capriles plans to privatize, allow for foreign takeover of finance (equal to loss of national sovereignty - see Greece) allow profits to be expatriated, etc.

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The New Republic Reports

what else would you expect from capitalist homosexual Zionists?   /Chavez

of course the Western-capitalist media is salivating at the (remote) possibility of a Chavez defeat, and, failing that, the possibility of his death by cancer.  meanwhile the Venezuelan opposition is making its plans to reject the results of Sunday's election, something the Western-capitalist media will surely report ad nauseam in the aftermath.

the exaggeration of the closeness of the race sets the stage well for challenging the legitimacy of the results when they go the wrong way.

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Are there any reports of irregularities yet?

there won't be until the result comes in showing a 10-15% Chavez win

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the main reason people want to deduce Chavez is a despot is because he is an egomaniac with a flair for the dramatic -- as much as the red-blooded Americans may hate Morales, Kirchner, Correa, etc., they don't make any allegations.  (American rightists may well, but they're so far off the map there's no accounting for it.)