California, the Swift Boat Vets, and the plan to steal the Presidential election

[kpete]

California, the Swift Boat Vets, and the plan to steal the Presidential election
by dday
Tue Sep 04, 2007

We've been talking a lot both here and on Calitics about the Republican dirty trick that would change the way California apportions its electoral votes at the last minute and give up to 20 EVs to the Republican nominee in 2008. This is an unbalanced fake "reform" that is designed simply to help Republicans hold the White House. And now, the San Jose Mercury News has delved deeper into the connections between the GOP law firm pushing the dirty trick and past ratfucking operations of years past. At the top of the list is the key financier from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6791610?nclick_check=1
Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk's (Arnold's former personal lawyer --ed.) law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago.

The Perry-financed committee in California, the Economic Freedom Fund, continued to spend money this year, mostly on legal expenses tied to an ongoing legal dispute in Indiana over phone calls made to voters in 2006. It lists the Sacramento law office's address as its home and its Web site directs contributions to the firm, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk. In addition, Bell serves as the committee's treasurer.

......... Perry also financed the major dirty trick of the 2006 election: numerous illegal robocalls to voters in swing districts, pretending to be from Democrats. So the same law firm trying to split California's electoral votes have taken cash from the major Republican dirty tricks operations over the last several years.

........................

Here's Digby on the power grab.

They really couldn't be more obvious.

I suspect this is as much mind fuck as anything, and perhaps a simple desire to force Democrats to spend money on something they don't want to spend it on, but you cannot take that for granted. These people have no compunction about cheating. They've shown that. Look what it got us in 2000. And if they succeed again, the press will just laugh and giggle about haircuts and cleavage and tell everyone to get over it. Just like last time. And the time before. And the time before that.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/swift-balloting-2008-by-digby-in-case.html

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/4/141355/6752

[WCGreen]

1. I hate to play the devils advocate...

But just a little while ago, people here on DU were cheering a North Carolina proposal to divvy up electoral votes proportionally...

[AtomicKitten]

2. They will never stop.

Democrats better be prepared to fight tooth and nail.

[mitchtv]

3. Not gonna happen

last time, it was a texas style redistricting, didn't work
this time even less so