<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"    John Weaver is a leading Republican strategist, having worked on a number of presidential campaigns and successful senate and gubernatorial efforts. He served as John McCain&amp;#039;s chief strategist for almost 11 years, and in this cycle worked for Jon Huntsman. We&amp;#039;re honored to have John joining us on The Politics Blog. You can follow him here in conversation pretty much every day, and on Twitter at @JWGOP. In the meantime, let&amp;#039;s pick up where we left off on Monday.... \u2014M.W. MARK WARREN: John, in Monday&amp;#039;s exchange, you liken me to Rachel Maddow as if that&amp;#039;s a bad thing. It&amp;#039;s the nicest thing anyone&amp;#039;s ever said to me. And while I am not Maddow&amp;#039;s publicist, I would pay American money to see her debate your standard-bearer Willard Romney. Of course, Romney&amp;#039;s no slouch, as I know going several rounds with Rick Perry is just like the Oxford Union, right?  Okay, a couple things have occurred to me (I am kind of slow): 1) Am I wrong to gather that Willard Mitt Romney is not your dream date? I sense trouble in paradise, John. And frankly, you&amp;#039;re far too sane and decent to be hanging with those mouth-breathers. Not that I am trying to get you in trouble or anything. And 2) We have momentarily reached an impasse on some issues! You might say we disagree. I might say you&amp;#039;re wrong. You might say... anyway, you get the idea. Turns out that this is why we have these different political parties in the first place. They have in the past been mature parties, with sort of a mutual-assured destruction arrangement to ensure that the nukes would never actually be deployed, lest everybody die. That arrangement assumes rational actors, but alas, your party lives in an asylum now. Yesterday you wrote: &amp;quot;...the president should look to Reagan and Clinton as models on how to work with Congress and foreign leaders for the advancement of their agendas.&amp;quot; You are a funny man, John Weaver. My coffee came out my nose when I read that one. Ah, yes, the relative bipartisan nirvana of the Clinton impeachment. Halcyon days, I tell you, and quite the high-water mark for your little band of hypocrites and lunatics.  Where were we? Oh, yes: You&amp;#039;re wrong on the issues. But let&amp;#039;s leave that aside for the moment. I have something else I want to discuss today \u2014 today being National Voter Registration Day \u2014 and that is all this rampant &amp;quot;vote fraud&amp;quot; fraud going on with you guys.  John, can you explain to me how a party that pretends to have some claim to the votes of blacks and Latinos has as an integral part of its electoral strategy a devastating plot to keep as many of them from voting as possible? This claim that these laws are meant to combat vote fraud, while offering zero evidence of such fraud, is perhaps the most hideous and pernicious and un-American lie being perpetrated on our civil society today. And these efforts are being prosecuted by hack elected officials who are supposed to be in charge of administering fair elections. It&amp;#039;s disgraceful, and scandalous, and there is no reason it shouldn&amp;#039;t be illegal. The truth is that these efforts are meant to keep people from exercising their right to vote in order to turn elections, plain and simple. John, I am from the deep south, where we used to have poll taxes and literacy tests and overt intimidation to achieve the same goal. How is the current Republican strategy any different? Not to hold you responsible, but I&amp;#039;m holding you responsible.  JOHN WEAVER: Hi, Mark. Greetings from Los Angeles. There are three things about Mitt Romney improving after debating Rick Perry. Oops. Never mind. You missed the entire point about Presidents Reagan and Clinton, Mark. Despite huge setbacks and personal attacks, Ronald Reagan never stopped trying to pass his agenda. President Clinton, despite the impeachment effort, continued to fight for his agenda and legacy. And, after listening to his inspiring speech two weeks ago, he seems damned proud of welfare reform, the balanced budget that was achieved, and other successes. All I&amp;#039;m saying is the president doesn&amp;#039;t try hard enough. On issues he cares about, go over the heads of Congress directly to the American people. Isn&amp;#039;t that better leadership than complaining about GOP intransigence and throwing his hands in the air? Mark, prepare to be shocked. Not only do I agree with you about the effort to suppress votes in this country, I urge investigations at every level of government into this contemptible, organized scheme. Great parties and great causes work at attracting voters and supporters. Causes without the infusion of fresh oxygen, of fresh support, begin to die on the vine and try to hang on through means that are morally bankrupt. We need to make the ballot box more accessible, with early voting locations convenient to all citizens, and, in fact, I support same-day voter registration. Why? Clearly we must make the voting marketplace mandatory for our participation. Only this will force us to accept, I suppose, what demographers already know about the make up of America. I&amp;#039;ve worked all over the country: in South Texas and the rural South, in Dade County and New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. While I&amp;#039;m totally supportive of legitimate ballot-security efforts, what is being sold to the GOP base, the media and the courts is complete bullshit. The days of widespread voter fraud, the kind that South Texas patrons and Mayor Daley used in 1960 to help the Kennedy/Johnson ticket, are long gone. Long gone. I&amp;#039;ve never seen widespread voter fraud, and certainly there is little evidence of it. The various GOP attorneys general should be ashamed to be part of this effort, especially as they&amp;#039;ve produced damn few true cases of fraud.  We should side on access to the ballot. Too many lives have been lost, too many troubled roads traveled, for us to walk back from a process that not only allows our citizens the right to vote, but easy access to it. Have we forgotten that bloody day on the Edmund Pettus Bridge?  I say we follow the money trail behind this national effort to suppress the vote. As soon as the election is over in November, the Justice Department should leave no stone unturned in pursuing this. The two worst programs that strike at the core of our Republic is the Citizens United decision and this program to subvert and suppress Americans from voting. And I have no doubt that funds hiding in the shadows of the Citizen&amp;#039;s United decision are being used in this program. Mark, did you faint? Follow The Politics Blog on RSS and Twitter &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a15950/john-weaver-voter-fraud-13067348/?src=rss>