(One) Exit Poll Shows Hugo Chávez Losing [Update: Poll is Wrong. Chávez Wins]
As polls close in a heavy-turnout election in Venezuela, a Spanish pollster is calling the race for challenger Henrique Capriles.
Here's a report from Spain's ABC.
Various bad translations are floating around of the poll by Variance (Venezuelan media were not allowed to conduct exit polls). Here's a cleaned-up one from the Daily Caller:
The candidate of the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), Henrique Capriles, is leading against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in the presidential elections held on Sunday … according to exit polls by consultancy Variance prior to the closing of polling stations. The time set for the closing was 12:30 a.m. Spanish time, however, and because of the long lines in some of them, polls have remained open without a definite closure time.
GloboVision, the one Venezuelan TV network not controlled by Hugo Chávez' United Socialist Party of Venezuela, is offline.
Update: And that was a whole lot of nothing. Chávez wins. Danny Glover's Toussaint L'Ouverture movie still greenlit.
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I can only conclude from this that Chavez has fucked up Veneuela's economy so badly that he can't even pay his goons anymore.
-jcr
The post says Capriles, the alt-text says Cariles. Should we call the whole thing off.
Here is what I am scanning - http://www.eluniversal.com/ and, in English, http://devilsexcrement.com/
http://caracaschronicles.com/ also a good source
"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Josef Stalin)
"We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people's will, but nevertheless we still think we are within a democracy." - Roberto Viola
Nice.
I would be surprised to see Chavez voluntarily relinquish power. Something is gonna happen -- ballot stuffing, outright lying of results ...
He's let elections go before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V.....ndum,_2007
That was relatively minor compared to this one. He could always bring up the same "reforms" in another referendum whenever he wanted to. If he loses today, it's over.
If it is at least a couple of percentage points difference, it will be difficult to cheat. Of course, there is plenty of incentive to cheat. It is not just losing the perks and power. The biggest problem Chavez and gang have with losing power is potential exposure of where the money has been going really.
By the way, for spanish speakers, here is a live TV signal on the elections:
http://www.telesurtv.net/el-canal/senal-en-vivo
Various bad translations are floating around of the poll by Variance
"If Hugo flushes the chicken, all of the yard will Ricky!"
Mamboo dogface to the banana patch!
I can't stop laughing at both of these, god I needed that
I thought Cesar Chavez was dead?
Ohhhhhhh - the OTHER Chavez. Right.
Never mind....
Let us pray this is the end.
Come on tumor!
It's not a toomah.
/Arnold
Also not Lupus.
/House
You'd think this would be a landslide for Hugo, what with the endorsements of Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Barack Obama, and Joe P Boyle.
Hey, for 18 mil, you expect a little support.
http://www.variety.com/article.....efCatId=13
No way. Ugh. I haven't felt this kind of disgust, for as long as I can remember.
There will be a spot waiting for Hugo at the Kennedy School of Hegemonic Collectivism.
If Chavez wins I hope the Kochs will fund a right-wing insurgency spiritually led by Cato and the ARI. For Maximum Evil in liberal eyes.
If Chavez loses, look for the US Military to intervene. They love them some moar warz
You are strange, sad little man, and you have my pity.
Market failure.
Senator Dianne Feinstein also asked the Federal Trade Commission on Sunday to investigate the cause of the price increases.
"California's consumers are all too familiar with energy price spikes which cannot be explained by market fundamentals and which turn out years later to have been the result of malicious and manipulative trading activity," Ms. Feinstein, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the commission's chairman.
Those bastards at the CBOE. They're to blame for everything.
We didn't trade crude at the CBOE, I think that's at the NYMEX.
Or he could just, you know, lift that 35.3 cent per gallon gasoline tax that the state of California collects.
Hugo Ch?vez Fr?as 54.42%
Henrique Capriles Radonzky 44.97%
a million vote difference
ah, well.....
And do we believe those results? They're possible, but I am skeptical.
I doubt anybody believes those results. Chavez supporters included.
Appearantly Chavez won.
What a shocker.
This is almost as bad as Chiefs fans cheering Cassel's head injury.
Interesting that this happened on Putin's 60th Birthday
And joe breathes a tiny little sigh of relief.
At least the Lions didn't lose this weekend.
*blink*
I see what you did there
*blink*
Apparently, Law and Order: SVU's newest episode is inspired by 50 Shades of Grey?
Is it called 50 Shades of Black Death, about someone trying to use the bubonic plague and bondage in a grim homage to the book?
As far as I can guess from the promo, it's about a person whose politically incorrect lifestyle comes under investigation by the Special Victims Unit when a murder is linked to the fictional version of Fifty Shades.....
My best guess is that the perpetrators go to an upscale prep school. That seems to be the most common criminal on that series.
The foreign housekeeper tips off the cops?
"Tell us what happened, or we get immigration to ask some questions"
My version sounds more interesting.
Chavez wins third term
Pfft. Big deal.
I don't think his pass defence can stop the Patriots.
Both the Broncos lost and Chavez won today.
Though I suspect it's less bloody if Chavez wins but dies very soon anyway. He's not looking good and I just can't see him lasting a whole lot longer.
He really hasn't left anyone else, or a coherent plan for the "Bolivarian Revolution". And they can't blame the US or the rich if he just dies in office. He'll be President for Life, but it won't be a long one.
What do you mean they can't blame the US or the rich for his death. They will claim they gave him cancer.
Patriots vs. Broncos, today: 193 yards passing, 251 yards rushing.
That was meant for Pantsfan.
A Broncos loss? I'll have another bottle of bubbly.
It'll be interesting to see how this run-balanced/no huddle approach works for the Patriots.
Have they finally found an offensive scheme that won't backfire on them in the playoffs?
Chavez needs to die.
Slowly.
A Chavez sympathizer speaks:
"If you took a poll around the world to find the most trusted and respected leader in the world today, Chavez would come out on top by a long shot. It wouldn't even be close. If you took a poll to find the leader who is the biggest fraud and disappointment Obama would score very well in that poll.
Chavez, a man of his word. Obama, a man of the system."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com...../comments/
More:
I know. There are actually people who think that way. Scary is that some of them probably even voted for Capriles.
Chavez is that nuts.
Was that a secret recording of Obama at one of his fundraisers?
Well at least they had one good paragraph in there. More than I can say for a lot of people
Yeah, that gold standard stuff is sort of out of nowhere (compared to the rest). When people like that realize the gold standard can't be easily manipulated by the government either, they'll probably change their minds.
Ah, The Globe and Mail, Canada's NYT.
He has cancer. The CIA has already dealt with Chavez.
We need to watch who we root for down there because replacing a Communist with a Fascist is NO SOLUTION as far as I'm conserned.
It's an improvement, especially considering Chavez's sponsorship of degenerate movements in the region.
Fascism socialism
They're pretty close to being the same. In either case the business-owners and the government are the same people. Socialism would say that industry is owned by the people, but "the people" certainly aren't the ones in control. They're both corporatism, just with different perspectives.
I was trying to make a comparison but HandR ate the 'greater than' comparison.
Fascism is like socialism where the socialists have given up and outsourced the socialism to 'private' 3rd parties. More or less.
From blogger in Venezuela, Daniel Duquanel
"The people who reelected Chavez today know exactly what they voted for. They know about crime and violence. They know about inflation and scarcity. They know about vulgarity as a way of life. They know about political prisoners while the most corrupt cast of our history roams the streets free. They know about power outages that will never be solved, about public services getting worse everyday, starting with the vaunted governmental misiones. So, why did they vote for Chavez? For a free washer? For the promise of a cheap and low quality housing for which they will not have good utilities and no job to keep it up?
People who voted for Chavez voted for him because of Capriles... voted against Capriles because they were reminded that education matters, that to get ahead in life you needed to improve yourself, respect some rules, respect thy neighbor. And they cannot do so or are unwilling to do so, same difference in my book. Chavez in 14 years has transformed into virtue what were the vices of Venezuelan society and thus, as I wrote more than once, Chavez was the true conservative, reactionary, candidate that you vote for because you are afraid of change. People vote for Chavez because even if they have no running water or electricity, they feel good about themselves because the president of the country is as flawed as they are, and in the mean version of flawed. He is the one that will insure that you may remain a sinverg?enza"