Plan B: October/November Surprise'

[Clinton Crusader]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/102704.html

Robert Parry: 'Plan B: 'October/November Surprise'
Date: Friday, October 29
By Robert Parry, Consortium News

Back in the sunnier days of September, George W. Bush's political team was hoping that his lead would grow, as John Kerry was bedeviled by Swift boat ads questioning his Vietnam heroism and by taunting chants of "flip-flop." But Bush's clunky debate performances and weakening poll numbers mean it's time for Plan B.

Bush's Plan B looks to be a kind of "October/November Surprise," a coordinated strategy to suppress the vote in battleground states like Ohio and especially in Democratic strongholds. The heart of the plan will be to swarm the polls with Republican activists who will use challenges against individual voters to tie up the process, lengthen voting lines and cause time-strapped voters to give up and go home.

To some political historians, the scheme has the offensive smell of Jim Crow tactics used during the days of the segregationist South to keep African-Americans from voting. But the strategy has a more recent precedent, the disruption of recounts in Florida in November 2000 as Bush was clinging to a tiny lead.

To make sure that the recounts didn't change that result, the Bush campaign flew in Republican activists from Washington to stage noisy disruptions. One demonstration in Miami became known as "the Brooks Brothers riot," for the preppie clothes the rioters wore. With Republican demonstrators roughing up Democrats and storming the doors of the Dade County canvassing board on Nov. 22, 2000, the vote counters hastily abandoned their recount plans, effectively throwing out 10,750 uncounted ballots.
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