Quick! For God’s Sake! Someone check and see if employees for the voting machine manufacturer Diebold have been ANYWHERE NEAR ITALY IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS!
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi overtook former European Commission President Romano Prodi in Italian elections and now leads in voting for both houses of parliament, projected results showed. The final outcome is too close to call.Berlusconi had a narrow advantage of 0.3 percentage point in voting for the Chamber of Deputies that would give him 340 seats in the 630-seat house, projections based on a partial count of votes showed. Berlusconi’s coalition also held a narrow majority in the Senate.
Initial exit polls showed Prodi winning the Chamber and a 20-seat majority in the Senate. Italians voted using a new proportional voting system similar to the one that produced 52 governments in 48 years until it was abandoned in 1994.
Official counting of the votes continues. With a third of the votes for the Chamber counted, that tally gives Prodi a lead over Berlusconi with 52 percent to 47 percent.
Oh! The humanity of it! Don’t these Repuglithicans have any shame at all? It’s all an eerie episode of deja vu – the first blush of victory for the moonbats in Italy as exit polls show a sweeping victory for the left:
Bad news for Berlusconi: according to the first exit poll, Prodi’s center-left leads 54 – 49 percent over Berlusconi’s center-right at the Chamber of Representatives. At the Senate, the situation is the same. But, consider that this is the first of many exit polls. Much can change.
As we all know, EXIT POLLS ARE NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER, WRONG!! Which means, there’s only one possible explanation in all the universe for this…this…this…perfidious turn of events.
Gotta be Diebold.
How low can ChimpyMcBushyhitler sink? And has anyone seen Karl Rove lately? This has got Rove’s pawprints all over it. It’s a Rovian operation, top to bottom I say!
I demand a recount…at least one. And by all that is good and holy, we will keep counting and recounting until by God the results come out the true way, the correct way, the way ordained by the Great God Gaia.
If I were those Italian commies, I’d start warming up the lawyers in the bullpen, getting ‘em ready to jump into court the minute the vote is official. It worked like a charm for our Democratic party here. Of course, they didn’t win. But by saying the election was stolen, no one will ever be able to say it was your loony ideas, crappy candidates, piss poor planning, and stupid strategy that was responsible for your loss.
And at the very least, it will make you feel better, right?
UPDATE
For a little more serious take on the Italian elections, see Chad Evan’s excellent stuff at In the Bullpen.
Also, PJ Media will be updating results all night as they come in courtesy of Stefania Lapenna.
UPDATE II
It appears that Italy will have a split government with the PM slot going to Prodi by virtue of a razor thin win in the lower house.
Actually, what my lefty trolls seem not to understand (no surprise – I wrote this piece in English, not moonbatese) is I wasn’t necessarily cheering on Berlusconi as much as I was pointing to exit polls that showed Prodi’s center-left coalition winning by at least 7 points. Obviously, this didn’t happen which gives the lie to liberal cants after the 2004 election that the contest simply MUST have been fixed because of the skewed exit polls.
And for the commenter who mentioned the Washington State governors race, almost to a blog, conservatives in the sphere urged the Republican to concede after the first re-count. This despite the laughably fallacious move by King County Dems to count 2500 votes that they suddently “found” 2 days after the election.
There’s the difference. After the 2004 election, liberal blogs like Kos and Americablog were not only calling for a recount in Ohio despite a margin of victory by Bush that was twice what state law called for, but also that Diebold hacked voting machines and gave votes to Bush that were actually cast for Kerry.
Sore losing has become a staple of the Democrats in national elections. I wonder what margin of victory in 2008, if any, will be enough to prevent Dems from screaming “cheater” like 5 year old little girls?
7:21 pm
snicker
9:43 pm
A too-close-to-call election in Italy
And we know what those too-close-to-call elections are like, don’t we? Via the BBC:
Italy’s general election is turning into an extremely close race, with early results pointing to a slender lead for PM Silvio Berlusconi.
Mr Berlusconi…
11:10 pm
Gee Rick,
A little premature ejaculation, no? Seems like Prodi did win after all.
And what are all those nasty comments about loony ideas, crappy candidates etc. You wouldn’t be referring to the guy who won the popular vote a few years back, would you? I mean, what would that make the guy who actually “won”?
1:20 am
Hmm, the guy that owns AC Milan is no longer Prime Minister…..
Prodi known as a man who has the same personality defects as Al Gore…...
Silvio Berlusconi is the man who has kept the Italian government together for five years which is the longest such period since after World War II. At the same time, he is mired in scandals.
Prodi is hated by anarchists. Oh yeah, Prodi isn’t a communist considering that the Red Brigade wanted to kill him.
http://italiansrus.com/articles/ourpaesani/redbrigade.htm
I guess Italy has more interesting politics.
9:08 am
So c’mon Rick, step up and be a man about it.
You blew the call, and (surprise surprise!!) the guy that came in second is demanding a recount.
Seems that this recount instinct kicks in whenever someone comes close, be that liberal or conservative. As if we didnt see that already in Washington State last year, or as if we didnt know that already because people are people.
Y’know, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You seem obssessed by acting far nuttier than you really are with these silly rants. And y’know what – you aint even really very good or creative when you are in rant mode. I mean,,,”ChimpyMcBushyhitler” ! How trite is that?
9:10 am
Only an idiot visits sites he doesn’t like.
11:02 am
Italy heads toward split parliament
Center-left leader Romano Prodi claimed a narrow victory in Italy?s election on Tuesday, but Prime M
4:18 pm
Hey Rick,
First off, I disagree that I am an idiot for visiting sites that I have a problem with. To me, it is a function of the fact that I don’t think that I know it all, and am willing to learn things, even from people that I have lots of disagreement with. Thats why I come here – and my criticisms of you arise from disappointment that you so often offer only stupid ranting and name-calling types of critiques of us libs. I would love to have more substance, which you do, occasionally provide.
Secondly, it seems you blew the call again. No split government.
Thirdly, you play silly games regarding the WA governors race. No doubt there are conservatives who advised Rossi to back down. But it is also the case that the overwhelming majority of liberals (even Kossites) were telling the Ohio-we-wuz-robbed people to shut up already. In other words, you troll for the worst of the libs and pretend that they represent all libs. You ignore the worst of the wingnuts and focus only on the best – and pretend that they are representative. Why can’t you accept the obvious? There are brilliant people, honorable people, mediocre people, nutty people and evil people on all sides of any political spectrum. Why keep us this silly pretense that you guys are somehow intellectually or morally superior. At least we dont have people like Savage or Coulter (ok, we have some, but fewer).
Finally, you gonna start calling Berlusconi (and while you are at it, all conservatives everywhere) a bunch of 5 year old girls? – given that it looks like he is going to contest the election. Or does that only apply if Prodi had done so?