Is everything fair in love and war? The rest of the campaign looks like war to many of us. Guys may think they are in love with Sarah Palin, but she is a fighter who is willing to be unfair. Is negative the same as unfair? That the rest of the McCain campaign will consist of lies, distortions and veiled racist slurs, I would call it war and patently unfair.
What is fair for the Obama campaign? It is fair for him to fight back, but I doubt if it will be an unfair fight. Obama has too many of the "good guys" on his side to lose. And, if this elitist, then so be it: This news from Wired - Threat Level (9/26/08) headlines, "Burned by Bush, Skittish Nobel Laureates Rally Behind Obama#." To quote:
A trio of Nobel Laureates reached out to the media together with the Obama campaign Thursday to explain their support. They sounded haunted by the past eight years of the Bush Administration's unflagging record of fudging scientific evidence to suit political aims, and by its powerfully symbolic exile of its science advisers from the White House.
The deadline for many people to register to vote was the first of the month. Democratic strategists see a landslide in the making#, according to Thursday's Politico. On October 7, Jim Dean at Democracy for America said, "Our Get Out The Vote campaign will mobilize 3 million voters in 30 days to vote for Barack Obama."
"Is Your Vote Safe?*" asks Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Already there are a lot of stories out there about possible voting difficulties: According to this important story in the New York Times, "States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal." A "High Turnout, New Procedures May Mean an Election Day Mess," according to the Washington Post. This truthout story,* (and also more fully covered at Common Dreams*) is particularly informative. To quote:
Thousands of Americans will likely show up to the polls on Nov. 4 to find they are no longer registered to vote. That's an estimate based on past elections and the findings of two leading research groups that found state-sanctioned voter purges are widely inaccurate.
The lists used to delete voters are "riddled with inaccuracies," according to the report. The bottom line, writes Myrna Perez, the report's author: "States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation."
"The Bush League: How The GOP Rolled Back Federal Voting Rights Enforcement,*" is a terrific AlterNet article about how the Bush Administration's strategy on voting rights was to reverse the civil rights movement's gains. In Louisiana an angry voter threatened a Registrar# because he had not received his voter registration card.
Two stories about voter suppression from TPM Muckraker:
- From 10/2/08: "Flyers Aim To Keep Black Philadelphians From Polls," targeting people with outstanding arrest warrants or unpaid parking tickets.
- From 10/2/08 comes this story about this: "Montana GOP Challenges Thousands of Voters in Blue Counties," claiming around 1% of Dems voters are registered under incorrect addresses.
Other sources revealing -- "Not Another Voter Disfranchisement Movie" comes from the (10/2/08) ACLU Blog. It concerns the poor administration of felony and misdemeanor disenfranchisement laws across the country. The fact that 19 states have changed felony disenfranchisement policies may have a positive effect*, however. The "Election Protection Network," according to Wired-Threat Level, is gearing up with thousands of legal experts to make sure that election laws are followed and eligible voters are not turned away at the polls. And the Secretary of State Project is endorsing a slate of women running as clean election candidates. They are: Linda McCulloch of Montana, Kate Brown of Oregon, Natalie Tennant of West Virginia, and Robin Carnahan of Missouri.
For dessert I leave you with these wonderful resource -- The Democratic And Republican National Convention Speeches, As Seen Through Wordle, as well as Variety's interesting review of the new movie, "W."
Hat Tip Key: Regular contributors of links to leads are "betmo*" and Jon#.
View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)
My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.
Technorati tags: news news and politics politics 2008 election voting rights [mccain obama
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