never forget, never give up

While I am cautiously optimistic at this point, even after the polls here have closed and hope has triumphed here in Massachusetts at the very least (with Deval Patrick beating back Kerry Healey's nasty gubernatorial campaign), there is a bit of guardedness from having come of political age in the era of Bush.

Not wanting to be Charlie Brown going to kick that football, let's list just a few of the shameless tricks employed by the GOP in the past few days:

• The deceptive robocalls outlined in a post below, where the computer repeatedly calls back, sometimes at 2AM, while representing itself as from the Democratic candidate. More and more of these 'false flag' robocalls have shown up across the country, even as the mainstream media remains mute on this story. In Nebraska, the GOP even used the voice of the Democratic candidate (Scott Kleeb) to deceive voters and suppress likely Democratic votes through shameless harassment.
• In Maryland, homeless (mostly African-American) men were bussed in from Philadelphia, greeted by the wife of the Republican governor and tasked with handing out deceptive 'official voter's guides' in heavily Democratic areas, such as Prince George's County. It urged voters to support the two Republicans, Bob Erlich and Michael Steele, running for governor and senator respectively, while misleadingly identifying them as Democrats.
• In New Hampshire, having been smacked down by the AG in their robocalling of people on the Do Not Call list, the GOP turned to its classic 'caging' technique, sending postcards to registered Democrats and collecting all the cards returned as undeliverable, so as to challenge their votes later.
• In Missouri, the GOP passed a punitive law requiring photo ID from voters, designed to suppress elderly and lower income voters. Even though this law was struck down, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who led the opposition to the law, was repeatedly asked for photo ID, even after explaining this was not necessary.
• In Virginia, the FBI is looking into calls reputed to come from the Allen campaign threatening Democratic voters with arrest if they go to the polls.

With the likelihood of a petulant Bush blocking the victorious Dems from making any legislative headway, Speaker Pelosi (wow, that feels good to say) will need a shovel and not a gavel.

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