So...Laura called yesterday.

[trof]

Yep, Pickles herself.
Her recorded message told me how important this election was (no argument there) and pleaded with me to get out and vote for her husband.

OK...ho-hum...last minute GOTV effort.
Except...I live in one of the staunchest repug counties in Alabama.
Alabama has voted repug in presidential elections since Carter.
Although we've been working hard, registering and (hopefully) educating a lot of new voters, I would be very surprised if Alabama goes Blue on Tuesday.

So why are the repugs wasting time and money with the phone calls in a state that supposedly is solidly in their column?
Do they know (or suspect) something I don't?
hmmmmm

[aden_nak]

1. Rove wants to win the popular vote this time.

That REALLY sticks in his craw.

[apnu]

2. I think they are trying to solidify the base.

They are at a point where the whole union between moderates and fundies and the deep south is starting to break up.

Moderates feel betrayed by this extremist wing that's hijacked the GOP.

Fundies think that Bush isn't nutty enough.

The deep South is waking up to the idea that Bushco and the neocons do not have their best interests at heart.

The whole super-mass of GOP support is disintegrating before their eyes and that has them more scared than the 120K in Philly and the 80K in Madison at the Kerry rallies. Between your efforts on the ground and the huge ground swell they are sweating the Dems bad, but nothing like the potential loss of their base.

So yeah, Pickles is going to be campaigning separate from her monkey down the wire because they are desperate to cover as much ground as they can.

Just my .02 cents.

[wishlist]

3. Bushco are running TV ads and taped phone calls here in Western N.C.

Polls indicate Bush is supposed to be way ahead over 50% in Western N.C. but the Bush ads started back this week plus every day we get 3 or 4 pre-recorded pro-Bush messages.

In 2000 election, I got a pre-recorded call about midnight one night from a motherly sounding Barbara Bush asking for people to vote for her son- I have often wondered how many people were asleep and answered the phone half asleep and got a subliminal message implanted.

[jmowreader]

4. Because al-Qaqaa just put the entire country into play

Before Bush sent his troops across the border into Iraq, Saddam was sitting on 380 tons of mining explosives. Now terrorists have enough explosives to drop the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Gateway Arch and the Space Needle. They can wipe Mount Rushmore off the face of the earth. They can take out any state capitol building they care to. They can blow up a nuclear power plant, or the Mall of America--laugh not, the body count from dropping the Mall of America would dwarf that from the WTC attacks. Or anything. And they can do all this because not only did Bush leave the al-Qaqaa caches unguarded, Bush has underfunded security at our ports.

After yesterday, I will consider less than 400 electoral votes to be a failure even though all we need is 270. I think we can get 500. I doubt we'll get 535, but it's possible.

[MadHound]

5. Three words friend, newly registered voters

There has been a record breaking crop of newly registered voters, over twenty million. This is enough to break open even the most conservative states, for most of those new voters are going to vote for Kerry. Thus, Bushco cannot take any state for granted, and they are trying to turn out their voters, shore up their base. This is what is going to swing the election, and this is what has the 'Pugs running scared.

In addition, this week's news cycle has not been good for them, with the explosvies story highlighting Bushco's stupidity, and the FBI investigation of Haliburton contracts highlighting Bushco's cronyism. Two things that do not play well with anybody, even the most die hard conservative.