Before I begin, PLEASE get involved in the GOTV effort.
Find out where to go at Do More Than Vote, dial from your home through MoveOn's Call for Change, or work for the candidate of your choice.
I am very hopeful about this election and very concerned about the Republican dirty tricks. 30 hours from now I will know. I have my hopes and fears, but I'll spend Tuesday working my ass off to GOTV in Maryland.
For two years I have posted Diaries to expose the growing Abramoff/GOP scandal. For the last six months, I have been working with many campaigns and outside groups to use this issue in this cycle. I've also worked with quite a number of journalists who have reported on the scandal. It has been a second full-time job (with lots of overtime).
And regardless of the outcome, I know that I only have a moment for a smile or a tear. By Wednesday it is time to start working on the next battle.
Join me on the jump...
This is a long-term struggle. Get ready for more hard work.
We will not take this country back in one two-year cycle--regardless of the outcome.
If we win big on Tuesday, taking both the House and the Senate, I will be very happy, pleased and relieved. If we take the House, but miss in the Senate I will still feel great. In either case, it is only a step. It is only a small victory.
There is plenty of work left to do.
And if the Republicans steal, suppress and cheat their way to hold on to the House and Senate, I will still be very proud of our effort. If Rove pulls this off, he will remove any remaining shred of legitimacy from the Federal Government under the Bush One-Party rule. Our Democracy will mostly be a memory. Our job will be bigger; our liberties will be under greater threat; our times will be far more dangerous; and the fate of America will depend upon our resistance to one-party rule and the destruction of our Constitutional Democracy.
Any outcome will require us to be serious about what we do next.
Fortunately, that Doctor from Vermont was right, we do have the power.
At this point the best the Republican Party can do is delay their demise. They are like the one-party rulers of the Soviet Union. They are doomed. But they are cornered and very dangerous. They will not relax. They will not admit any defeat. Regardless of any outcome they will claim a mandate.
If we win and relax, they will keep fighting and find a way to co-opt any victory. I am tired by this struggle and wish that a victory could let me relax, but I know that a win on Tuesday will only provide us more resources for the next battle and the next and the next...
When I get discouraged, I think of all of those who have fought for justice before me. They give me courage, hope and inspiration.
I joined the Daily Kos community back on March 31, 2004. Since then I have posted quite a number of Diaries and most have focused on Jack Abramoff and some aspect of his still exploding scandal.
Many of these Diaries focused on Jack's work with the Congressional Republican Leadership to protect and reward (with earmarks, favors and funds) a system of sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion on the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US territory in the Western Pacific.
It is a dark and nasty tale.
Stories like this need a Hero. And fortunately this story has one.
Her name is Wendy Doromal.
She has been working to end this abuse since it began back in 1986. Tracking it, reporting it and advocating for justice for the victims of the abuse.
In the course of my work on this issue I have met Wendy and consider her a friend. I have rarely met a braver person or a person with her integrity.
Like thousands of others who have confronted injustice, Wendy has not let up. Despite years of set-backs and the united opposition of Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party's elite in unholy partnership with the Hong Kong based sweatshop owners and their allies in the Mariana Islands government, Wendy has fought on to extend US laws and justice to our rogue American Territory.
On Wednesday morning I will wake up and get ready to continue this fight. The Election may make some thing easier, but a new battle begins on Novemebr 8.
I want to use what I've learned in this cycle. And I want to be ready to provide the information so that we can keep using the Abramoff scandal as a club to whack each Republican weasel tied to the culture of corruption.
This story is not going away with the election. In fact, it will heat up.
In Peter Stone's new book, Heist there is this revealing statistic (emphasis added):
During the course of its two-year investigation, the [Indian Affairs] committee issued more than seventy subpoenas and other requests for documents and received over 750,000 pages of records.
Less than 7,000 pages of those documents have been released.
And those records do not include the e-mails, faxes and invoices from Jack Abramoff that were collected to support the November 2001 audit of lobbying expenses conducted by the CNMI Office of Public Auditor (OPA) for the Marianas government. That is another 5,000 pages given to media organizations and others. Only a fraction of these documents have been released to the public.
So far, all of the damage to the Republican Party from the Abramoff scandal has come from this small sample of these documents. The most damaging documents were not mentioned by the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee; John McCain intentionally only chose documents that would protect his Party, and direct the blast of the scandal to damage his enemies. He has reduced the scandal to a casino caper screenplay. It is so much more.
My point is that there are thousands of stories, crimes and facts waiting to be reported in these documents. And that does not count what the Department of Justice has in their Abramoff files. It may be twice the number of documents that the Indian Affairs Committee collected. No wonder Abramoff has a desk at the DOJ.
And no wonder the GOP is so scared of Henry Waxman as Head of the Government Reform Committee. He won't bury evidence like John McCain did.
Indictments are coming.
There will be special elections to fill the seats of those who follow DeLay, Cunningham and Ney into disgrace. And there will be dozens of 2008 Republican candidates closely tied to this scandal and cover-up. We need to be ready to exploit the Abramoff affair in ways we did not exploit it in 2006.
On Wednesday, I will start working on this. Perhaps we need an Abramoff wiki research site or some other way to focus and sharpen the research. Any ideas are welcomed.
But now, it is the last 24 hours in the 2006 cycle.
PLEASE get involved in the GOTV effort.
Find out where to go at Do More Than Vote, dial from your home through MoveOn's Call for Change, or work for the candidate of your choice.
And then be ready for the hard work of the next battle.
The GOP One-Party Rule gang will wake up on Wednesday plotting to increase their power. No time for joy or tears, we have to be ready to shut them down.
We have a Country to take back.
The time is now.
Let's do this.
Cheers!