November 6, 2006
At last we know why smirking Republicans like Ken Mehlman can go on national TV and say they're fully confident they're going to win this election. It's because they have a plan to win using tactics that are probably illegal, or if not, should be (ahh, the beauty of the criminal mind). The key to their diabolical scheme is that any negative repercussions for the Republicans occur after the election is already decided. They're perfectly willing to take a little heat after the election as long as they get maximum effect for their little tricks.
It appears that this election cycle they are trying to frustrate non-Republican voters, principally independents and waffling Democrats, by making multiple annoying pre-recorded calls to voters' houses, as many as 18 times in some precincts and typically at dinnertime, calls in which the caller appears to be a supporter of the Democratic candidate asking for their vote. Eighteen times in an afternoon. Nationwide these calls are being made and paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee.
It's not as if we haven't seen these kind of tricks in the past three elections, where Republicans use illegal or not-yet-illegal tactics to bollox up their opponents' voting. In addition to voting machine hanky panky, Republicans, in a concerted effort around the country, have conducted voter registration hijinks where voters (in all these schemes they are primarily poor, high percentage Democratic) are scrubbed from the rolls for having names similar to those of felons, voter photo-ID laws making it harder for voters to vote, a voting precinct shell-game where voters have to guess where they vote because the precinct has been moved but it was inadequately publicized where it moved to, and one of their all-time favorites, inadequate voting resources on election day so that voters wait in line for six to eight hours to vote. All told, hundreds of thousands of eligible voters are kept from the polls, maybe millions. Whether it's illegal or just clever tactics, there is no doubt that Republicans are dangerously out of step with the principles of democracy.
Democrats and people who actually believe in the principle of "one man, one vote" have few good options. They can try to change the laws to prevent these things from happening in the future (too late) or they can join Republicans in a race to see who can demolish our democracy better and faster (too despicable). In fact, neither of these stratagems is going to help us make our country safe for democracy. Passing laws will only give the Republicans new guidelines for their dirty tricks, and meeting them on the battlefield with better dirty tricks will only hasten our demise.
The only thing that will work is if Republicans can be made to understand that this country will not tolerate their anti-democratic activities. It is time for all Americans who still believe in the principles of democracy to make a stand against the Republicans' unprincipled and deeply destructive tactics. And the best time, perhaps the only time, for that to happen is today and tomorrow.
Today, Monday, November 6, 2006, is the day before the election. Today we must convince the press that this and all Republican vote-suppressing duplicity is intolerable. Do anything and everything in your power to reach the top - call Bill Clinton and tell him to get on the horn with his buddy Rupert Murdoch. Write letters, call your influential friends, your representatives, demand action. This story is about the subversion of democracy, and while on the local level it seems like childish pranks, as a national strategy of the major party in power, it is utterly craven and reckless. This crap has got to stop now. With press coverage (I know this sounds like pie-in-the-sky, but that doesn't make it wrong or unachievable), Republicans will know that attention is being focused on their despicable tactics.
And then tomorrow, at the voting booth, we who care about the ideas and principles that made this country the great inspiration it once was to the entire world must refuse to support even one single member of the disgraceful party that would subvert our nation's principles, the Republican party. We must sweep these criminals into the dustbin of history.
Ted Bucklin