Why they chose Palin & what to do about it

[HomerRamone]

long but REAL IMPORTANT:
http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-they-chose-sarah-palin-and-what-to.html

Strategists say that Mr. McCain can now count on a more motivated social conservative base to help him in areas like southern Ohio, where the 2004 race was settled.
--The New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008, A1

In investigating the 2004 election in Ohio--examining pollbooks, talking to pollworkers and election officials, as well as reading local newspaper accounts --we could find no data of a late surge to the polls by born-again Christians. What we did find is certified voting totals in areas favoring Bush that didn't match the number of voters who officially signed-in on the poll sign-in sheets.
--Email from Bob Fitrakis, Sept. 7, 1008


To understand how Team McCain intends to get away with stealing this election, we must recall how Team Bush got away with it four years ago. (Those aren't two different teams.)

The plan for stealing this contest has everything to do with the ostensibly surprising choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP.

Here's why:

1. Election Day, 2004: The Myth of Bush's Christian "Surge"
<...>
2. Election Day, 2004: There Was No Christian "Surge"
<...>
3. Election Day, 2008: Another Christian "Surge"?
<...>
4. A Word to the Wise
<...>
And there you have the reason why the GOP must, once again, deploy its giant criminal machine: to cut the Democrats' vast popular advantage. And it is happening right now, as you sit reading this, as each day brings in new reports of voters purged, machines "malfunctioning," ballots slyly misdesigned, and other measures meant to benefit McBush's party. (The fraud is not occurring "on both sides.") Such evidence is far more solid than the nervous speculation that Americans might vote on racial grounds--or the fantasy that Sarah Palin's co-religionists could really win it for McCain.

The theft of this next race is only possible because the Democratic Party and the media, and principled Republicans, have shut their eyes to this regime's crusade against American democracy. And now the only way to stop it--or, if it does happen yet again, resist it-- is to face it at long last, and talk about it openly. It's therefore not enough to raise more money for the Democrats, and not enough to get more voters registered, and get them to the polls; and not enough to spread the word about McCain and Palin, or to try to get the media to do a decent job; and not enough to fight the smears and lies about Obama, and to demand that he and/or the Democrats get tougher.

While all of those activities are crucial, they'll amount to nothing if the race is finally rigged, and most Americans don't know a thing about it. And so, whatever else we're doing, we must also speak out loud and clear about that possibility. Otherwise, if that disaster should befall us, we will be as much to blame for it as those Republicans who pulled it off, and all those Democrats who let them get away with it.

[yellowdogintexas]

1. kicking nt

[rdavidow]

2. Palin is the story that shuts the media up

Especially if Obama is ahead, they have to have a story to explain an unexpected McCain win - to distract the media and the country. Pre-Palin, I figured they'd use race - people lied in the polls, but in the privacy of the voting booth they voted against the African-American.

But Palin allows them to go back to the 2004 fiction: surge of the fundy base. This is an easier, more attractive pill for the media to swallow and talk about.