In case you were wondering about this bogus argument that “the Democrats did it first” regarding the planned objections on January 6th:
In announcing that he will join a challenge to the electors, Hawley cites Democrats who did the same in 2005 after George W. Bush won reelection. He is right that a small number of Democrats in both houses objected then and forced a debate in both chambers only the second time that had happened since the rules were adopted in 1877. The difference is that objectors said unambiguously that their goal was not to overturn the results but merely to prompt a discussion of what they saw as irregularities.
And in that case, the losing candidate, John Kerry, disavowed the effort, conceding that he lost the election and acknowledging that the irregularities were not substantial enough to have changed the outcome even though he was closer to Bush in both the popular vote and the Electoral College tally than Trump was to Biden.
https://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/06/electoral.vote.1718/
Originally tweeted by Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) on December 30, 2020.
John Kerry had conceded the day after the election!
Secretary of State John Kerry, who lost a close election to President George W. Bush in 2004, believes he was right to make a timely concession for the greater good of the country.
“I believe today I did the right thing. It was important for our nation to not question that and to move forward,” Kerry told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files” podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.
Kerry, whose narrow loss to Bush in Ohio cost him the presidency, said there were some who advised him to withhold his concession of defeat.
“You know it was very hard, obviously…because it was so close,” he recalled. “It was one state and we weren’t sure how many thousands of votes had been cast…and counted.
“But what I decided is that it was important for the country to know who their president was and to be able to move forward.”
Kerry had far more reason to raise a fuss than Trump did. There were a lot of questions about Ohio. But in the end he realized that he would not be able to successfully contest it and rather than have a hissy fit he stood down. Maybe he should have fought harder but he wouldn’t have won. And frankly, most of us backed him because Bush won 3 million more votes in the popular vote. Clearly Republicans can’t understand such deference to democracy.
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