The Final Rallies Tell Quite A Story [View All]

[Edgewater_Joe]

I wanted to compare the final rallies of each campaign -- and boy, do I see some good stuff from our perspective! There is much you can learn if you know the fundamentals of stage management. Let me explain:

After that 200,000+ effort in my home town of Cleveland for Kerry's final rally (and how cool was it for Springsteen to dedicate "Thunder Road" to Kristin Breitweiser?), I see C-SPAN and notice that Bush's final "rally" -- which is in Dallas (he couldn't slip it into a battleground state?) -- is either in a tiny, tiny hall that seats 5,000 max, or worse is packed into the narrow end of a basketball arena (sort of where the backstage area usually is for a rock concert). And well past prime time, to boot (you can bet Kerry's appearance is still being played throughout Ohio's 11 p.m. news).

If this is the Repubs' idea of inspiring their people the night before the election to get out and vote, then either they're supremely arrogantly confident about tomorrow ... or they already know it's over, because this doesn't look to me to be the kind of last-ditch campaigning of an all-out campaign that is ready to win.

I've been acting on the assumption that both parties' internal polls are telling a story we aren't privy to because they have a better gauge on likely voters and new voters. I've also seen Dem campaigns end on the kind of vaguely hopeless note that it looks like Bush is acting on. So I'm thinking, we're in GOOD shape based on these little rallies.