"DON’T FORGET TO NOT VOTE!"
With desperation in their eyes and flop-sweat on their brows, the official Bush surrogates headed to the TV studios this past weekend to spread their message of victory and cheer. Denying the cautious report of "apprehension" in the Bush camp in the Washington Post that morning, the ever-on-message robotron Ken Melman and head geek John Gillespie both denied panic in the ranks.
But, the Bushies will do anything to maintain their tenuous grip on power. They don’t have to "stoop" to low tactics; they’ve been there for years. Rove is nobody’s fool, however, and he realizes that the usual tactics of voter suppression – ugly campaign smears; deliberately slanted phone "polls"; dark rumors about the sexual persuasion or drinking habits of one or another of the candidate’s family or entourage (Drudge floated a one-day trial balloon featuring Teresa with one beer in each hand) – that kind of stuff just isn’t going to work this year. The anti-Bush sentiment is too strong and too smart. So, with their dismissive attitude toward a silly notion like "democracy", the Bush forces are going to let the dogs out at what they think is the last and most important moment.
The army of thousands of Kerry supporters that have been out in the field every weekend for the past month all over Wisconsin have been shocked to see little grass roots activity on the other side. It’s obvious the Bush forces are saving their energy for Election Day, where their storm-troopers will come out in force. Not to vote, but to intimidate you from voting and/or making sure your vote does not count. Here in Wisconsin, local GOP operatives are handing out fliers offering good money to act as a "poll-watcher" for the Bush campaign. In Ohio and Florida, the story has leaked out of the extremely secretive Bush operation that thousands of their drones will show up at the polling places, supposedly to "prevent vote fraud", a solution in search of a problem. They will really be there to intimidate, to challenge and to make the process of voting so difficult and inconvenient that people waiting in line give up and go home. It’s the same beyond-the-pale behavior we saw in Florida in 2000 and will now have the benefit of seeing all across the country.
Of course, nothing the Bushies do would be complete without a faulty premise to attempt to justify it. The wingnuts’ primary radio clown in Milwaukee, Mark Belling, was literally screeching yesterday about "voter fraud" and the sins of the non-plussed (and, not coincidentally, African-American) city election commissioner. All this in a state where, if your registration process fails or is challenged, you can register at the polls. Why were felons allowed to register voters? Why didn’t MoveOn.org screen their workers for felony records? Who cares? I know radio squawk-hounds have been sent out by Rove & Co. to propagate this fraudulent "fraud" canard to support the Bushies’ planned heavy-handed mischief on election day, but, in Wisconsin, the claim rings more than hollow and false.
The lesson for everyone voting is: Expect long waits at the polls. Bring a book. Hang in there and VOTE. The Kerry forces should be telling everyone to vote early if they can and plan to hang in there if they vote on election day.
The Bush surrogates have also been floating another way to suppress the vote. Guess what. You are not smart enough to vote. I heard a fifth-rate local weekend radio wingnut (how low can you go?) on a formerly dignified station here in Milwaukee (WTMJ) cite columns by the repulsive Mona Charen and the ridiculous Jeff Jacoby for the proposition that people who have not educated themselves sufficiently on "facts and policy" should not vote. Talk about elitist. It’s a direct plea to the undecided to think, if they haven’t made their minds up by now, they are too stupid to vote.
It’s a classic case of the wingnuts becoming what they most criticize. Bush’s entire campaign has been run on irrational fear of the presumed failings of a Kerry presidency, with little or nothing in the way of facts an policy to back it up. And, isn’t it the wingnuts that are constantly painting the false caricature of the "elite liberal", looking down their nose from their Chardonnay to the rest of us poor slobs who don’t know what’s good for us? The rank hypocracy of the say-anything-do-anything Bushies is exceeded only by the failure of the mainstream media to point out these blatant manipulations of facts and logic.
This is all the last gasp of a dying campaign, one that knows its record of radicalism and failure is just too much for most Americans to validate with their vote. The Bushies know it’s all slipping away and will be cleaning out the closets in this last week, trying to convince voters to either stay away or hold their nose and vote for Bush.
But Junior is starting to lose one of his most valuable assets in the campaign: the perception that he is definitely going to win. As even cable squawkers start hedging their bets – speculating on who Kerry would put on his cabinet, the Supreme Court, etc. – Bush is finally losing the last of the natural, but unearned, advantages of his illegitimate incumbency – the sense that he is going to win. Given the glacial climb of Kerry in the polls since he trashed the hapless president in the debates – especially in the battlegrounds – it is becoming increasingly more likely that we are going to throw the Bushies over the side next week.
All the October surprises – mostly having to do with the grim situation in Iraq – have favored the need for change. By the time November 2nd rolls around, Bush will already have one foot out the door and with wingnuts will be cranking up for the Clinton model – eight years of complaining about the success of another Democratic president.
7:46:48 AM 
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