Hillary's Felonious Fundraiser

Right Wing News points to a story about a prominent Hillary fundraiser convicted of extortion and racketeering, and tossed from office because of voter fraud. No, it's not Norman Hsu -- it's Raul Martinez. His convictions occurred in 1991, while he was Mayor:

"Mayor Raul Martinez, was convicted of extortion and racketeering...after a jury found he had accepted $1 million in cash and property from land developers..."

In 1993 he was seemingly re-elected while serving time, until a judge threw out the election due to voter fraud. And Martinez's sister-in-law may have abetted the effort to produce those fraudulent absentee ballots -- while she was an official at the Department of Justice:

Martinez was counted in by 273 votes, which was all the more remarkable because, at the time of the election, he was a convicted felon sentenced to 10 years in prison for extortion and racketeering. (The conviction was reversed on appeal three years later) Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles refused to intervene, saying that the people had spoken, and allowed Martinez to be seated despite the mayor's conviction.

Juri refused to give up. He had held a slight edge in the polls going into the election, and he was the absolute winner among the machine-tallied ballots. But the Martinez organization had produced a 2-1 advantage in absentee ballots, and the same tactics currently at issue in the Carollo-Suarez Miami election were obvious in the Hialeah election. Juri pursued his case in court, and in 1994 Dade Circuit Court Judge Sidney Shapiro held that the election was affected by substantial fraud, threw out the absentee ballots, and ordered a new election.

As I've said multiple times, the greatest threat to Hillary's campaign is the fact that all things being equal, voters don't want to go back to the Clinton years. Sure there was economic growth, but there was inattention to the growing terrorist threat, there was shady financial dealing, there were personal failings. If given a credible alternative, and reminded of what they didn't like about the Clinton years, Hillary is going to lose.

Via Soren