"Sixty-one years after its publication, White’s siren song of 'a heroic senator defeating an unscrupulous partisan' has lost none of its seductive power, Gellman believes..."

"... esteemed historians remain in its thrall and in Kennedy’s camp. Taylor Branch, Robert Dallek, David Greenberg, Jill Lepore, Fredrik Logevall — apologists and idolaters all, in the author’s view.... Nixon has always had his defenders (including, not least, Nixon himself) and Kennedy his detractors.... Gellman adds nothing here but fresh outrage.... But the white whale here is proof of a stolen election. This book does not provide it. The case it puts forward is circumstantial —

and nothing new. Much is made of 'suspicions' in Texas and 'irregularities' in Illinois as if such charges are, in themselves, dispositive. In the wake of 2020, we should know better than that. And so should a political historian of the mid-20th century: If fraud was a feature of elections in that era, so were accusations of fraud, wielded as a political cudgel. In 1948, for example, a top Republican official charged three Democratic candidates for Senate with 'serious' campaign fraud — more than a week before Election Day. Four years later, pre-emptively again, the Republican National Committee chairman called on federal prosecutors to keep tabs on big-city Democrats — who, he said, would 'stop at nothing' to 'steal' the election. None of this is to deny that Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago had a history of ballot manipulation or that votes were likely stolen in Texas. But in recent decades, rigorous studies have underscored what judges and review boards concluded in 1960: To the extent that fraud occurred, it was not enough to change the result — least of all in Texas, where Kennedy’s margin exceeded 46,000 votes."

From "Did John F. Kennedy and the Democrats Steal the 1960 Election?" (NYT), a review of Irwin F. Gellman's book "CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY/Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960."

White is Theodore White, who wrote the incredibly influential book "The Making of the President 1960." They made a movie of it, which you can watch on YouTube in its entirety.

"If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case. It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics."

Said Michael J. Moore, the former United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, quoted in "Atlanta Prosecutor Appears to Move Closer to Trump Inquiry/The Fulton County district attorney is weighing an inquiry into possible election interference and is said to be considering hiring an outside counsel" (NYT).

"Even if you believe — as David Bernstein states above — that the election didn’t turn on fraud, you should be concerned that so many people do."

"It’s important... that elections not only be free of fraud, but trusted by the vast majority, even among those who lose. We don’t have that, and the huge number of stories about potential election fraud that were running in mainstream media right up until election day indicates that if Trump had been declared the winner, Democrats would be running around screaming fraud. We need a system that is obviously trustworthy enough that the vast majority of people will trust it, and we certainly don’t have that. Other countries do."

Writes Glenn Reynolds, pointing to this post — also at Instapundit — by David Bernstein. 

From Bernstein's post: "There is no evidence of widespread fraud that could plausibly be said to have cost Trump the election, nor even a single state.... And all that is why Trump’s lawyers lost every single case they brought before judges of all parties and ideologies.... Even if you accept any of the not-completely-crazy theories I’ve seen of how the election was 'stolen,' at best that gets Trump to a narrow victory in the Electoral College. Yet the president continues to insist not just that he won, not just that the election was stolen, but that he won in a 'landslide.'... If the election process is a total fraud, then violence is to be expected. Even in the face of the violence yesterday, Trump, while telling the rioters to go home, also continued to insist that he really won in a landslide, thus continuing to foment violence."

"Mr. Hawley’s challenge is not unprecedented... Democrats in both the House and Senate challenged certification of the 2004 election results..."

"... and House Democrats tried on their own to challenge the 2016 and 2000 outcomes, though without Senate support. ... Senator Barbara Boxer of California... briefly delayed the certification of George W. Bush’s victory... cit[ing] claims that Ohio election officials had improperly purged voter rolls... which Mr. Bush carried by fewer than 120,000 votes. Nancy Pelosi, then the House Democratic leader, supported the challenge.... The House voted 267 to 31 against the challenge and the Senate rejected it 74 to 1...  After the 2016 election, several House Democrats tried again, rising during the joint session to register challenges against Mr. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in various states. The Democrats cited reasons ranging from long lines at polling sites to the Kremlin’s election influence operation."

From "Hawley Answers Trump’s Call for Election Challenge/The Republican senator said he would object to certifying the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, a move that is unlikely to alter President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory" (NYT). 

So... in the last three decades, every time a Republican won, Congressional Democrats challenged the certification of the election, and every time a Democrat won, Congressional Republicans did not challenge the certification.

That certainly puts a different light on what Josh Hawley is doing!

Either challenging the certification is the norm or it is not. It can't be the norm for Democrats and abnormal when a Republican does the same thing. Either Congress has a role in looking into the workings of the state elections or it does not. It can't be that the role is to question Republican victories and rubber-stamp Democratic victories.

I can see — in the NYT write up — the basis for arguing that there actually should be a lopsided role. To fill out something I elided above: "In challenging those results Democrats cited claims that Ohio election officials had improperly purged voter rolls and otherwise disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in the state...." 

The argument that's hinted at is that there should be heightened scrutiny where the challenge has to do with discrimination against a traditionally discriminated against group. 

"But in continuing his campaign today, the Sanders 2020 campaign has become something entirely new in modern politics: A threat to public—and civic—health."

"And if he does not suspend his campaign, immediately, then he and his supporters should be shamed and shunned.... Joe Biden has beaten him in every type of state... among nearly every demographic other than 'people under 35'... in most places by wide margins....  But Joe Biden has not yet reached the 1,991 delegate threshold required to mathematically clinch the nomination. And since delegates are being awarded proportionally, he might not cross that line until the end of April—and even this assumes that the votes are held roughly as scheduled. As a theoretical matter, Sanders can keep campaigning until then by claiming that the race has not yet been decided. But it has....We are in the midst of a global pandemic.... In order to have an election, a bunch of volunteers—most of them well over the age of 35—get together in a firehouse or a school cafeteria. They then interact with a steady stream of people at close range for a day. These people hand objects to the volunteers (driver licenses, voting ID cards) and are then handed other objects (ballots or forms) in return. They stand within arm’s length of one another. And if the turnout is heavy, the voters stand in a line, waiting as a group.... There’s no shame in losing a campaign. There is a great deal of shame in what Bernie Sanders is doing right now. He is harming America. He should stop."

From "The Sanders Campaign Is a Menace to Public Health/Bernie Sanders can't beat Joe Biden. But he can force millions of people to risk being exposed to the coronavirus" by Jonathan V. Last (at Bulwark). There's a good account at the link about the actions of Ohio governor Mike DeWine putting off the primary and tangling with the state courts over the extent of his power to do so.

You know, I think Bernie understands this. I just checked to see if he's ended his campaign. I thought maybe he'd already declared an end. I found "Bernie Sanders To 'Assess The Path Forward' For Presidential Campaign After Tuesday Losses" (Deadline). I expect a concession today. This morning.

UPDATE:

It appears people misread an Axios report. He is “suspending” his Facebook ads. Not his campaign https://t.co/F6CFHpfRMM

— Sam Stein (@samstein) March 18, 2020