the thing that bothers me most about the venezuela referendum is that it brings up my years old beef about these kinds of referenda. when there's an issue that closely divides an electorate, opinion polls will fluctuate by a couple of percentage points over time. that means if you keep referenduming it, eventually it will pass.
even if this vote otherwise met the gold standard of "free and fair", the referendum was a fix. a year ago, chavez lost a referendum that would have removed the term limits on his presidency. if he had won that vote last year, there wouldn't have been another one. but because he lost, he did it again. and if he lost this time, he probably would have done it a third time, and a fourth, fifth or sixth, if necessary. it's like "heads i win, tails we flip again." the two sides in the vote were not on equal footing. it's simply not fair to the people who wanted to keep the term limits.
i write this post as a person who isn't particularly concerned with chavez, thinks that right blogistan greatly overreacts to a guy who is more of a clown than threat to the u.s. (although their overreaction can be funny sometimes), and generally doesn't believe in term limits. the issue for me isn't about chavez or term limits, it's about what is a real election and what seems like a fix. this seems like a fix.
