On 3 Nov 2004, Republicans awakened to the shocking prospect that the Democratic candidate for President had a 3 million vote lead and sufficient electoral votes to win the election.
After a few days of fact gathering it became increasingly obvious that numerous Republican voters were denied access to ballots and various academic groups began reporting studies that justified immediate investigation.
Disgusted by the reports of massive and systematic disenfranchisement of Republican voters in OH, by the discovery of discarded ballots in FL, by evidence of miscounts in and by numerous reports that Dem controlled vote tabulation companies likely had access to central tabulating databases in numerous States, the leadership of the RNC and every Republican member of the Senate and House of Representatives demanded a nation-wide hand count of every ballot.
RNC organizations in every State rallied to support their fellow citizens in OH, FL and elsewhere.
Claims from Dem partisan election officials in OH and elsewhere of `frivolous Republican maneuvers' were answered with searing, derisive responses from the Republican leadership.
Fox News, CNN, ......, began running, every 10 min, RNC and 527 sponsored ads with the simple, powerful message "Prove My Vote Counts, Now."
Interviewed on all the talk shows, prominent Republicans essentially delivered the same message ".....screw that 3M vote mandate stuff the Dems are spewing; just screw it! How do we know the Dems didn't program a bunch of machines to swap a few votes here and a few votes there and, oh my, we've got a 3M mandate -- bullshit, bullshit......"
Unrelenting, the Republicans badgered every interviewer and every Dem talking head with their demand that every vote would be counted and verified and, as one spokesperson put it, `the Dems can have all the wimpy observers they want in the room so we can prove it to them as well as all our fellow citizens that counting the vote accurately is the beginning, middle and end of what Democracy means.'
Republican pundits and strategists were uniform in their framing of the Constitutional crisis. Their message was simple and incessant - we must demonstrate to our base our unwavering commitment to an accurate count of the vote otherwise all the obvious reforms we will be pushing in the next 2 years, and beyond, will be compromised by the fact that we didn't take a stand now.
<end sarcasm, begin serious message>
Get with the program everyone -- focus, suck it up and behave like a Republican between now and 13 December 2004 and just watch what you can accomplish.
Give it a try. If nothing else you might actually find a few individuals emerge with the leadership skills to win by a landslide, legitimately, in 2008.
Thanks.
"It's about America" -- the one on life support and in need of immediate, unflenching, heroic treatment (even if it means wearing an elephant suit for a few weeks)