ONCE AGAIN, THE GOP OPENS UP THE "KARL ROVE BOOK OF DIRTY TRICKS"

Karl Rove: prime developer of "Rovian" dirty campaign tactics

I guess it was inevitable, the only question was "when" would the GOP start their major political distractions. And now that question has been answered. Since the McCain campaign has no real and serious programs that address what the American people actually want and need, it´s time to make the election about stupid distractions such as lipstick, pigs, old fish and other items that keep them off the issues. But I´ll at least give McCain´s campaign credit for actually admitting that their election campaign is NOT about the issues.

In reaction to McCain´s campaign manager, Rick Davis' outspoken statement about the election "not being about the issues", the Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, released the following statement: "We appreciate Senator McCain's campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change."

McCain´s people are currently ecstatic at seeing their "bump up" in the polls since the convention, where they made the risky move (and thus far seemingly successful) by adding Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin to the ticket. However, if she continues to do as poorly as she did on the ABC, Charlie Gibson interview, that should hopefully shortened their time for celebrating. On the other hand, one should never under-estimate the Republican´s ability to distract the voter. (How else could Americans actually elect George W. Bush, not once, but "twice".) They also will pull-out all the stops to keep voters away from the polls or in committing illegal moves for changing the election results. We just cannot give the largest newspaper in London, another opportunity to once again print the headline: "How could 59,459,765 Americans be so stupid!?", as they did the day after Bush was elected a second time.

These illegal actions by the McCain campaign have already started. You might recall that in the elections of 2000 and 2004, for the first time in history, the exit polling results in certain battleground states did not match the final election results. It´s curious that over 95% of the time, the final results that did NOT agree with the exit polls, were when the exit polls said that the running Democrat had the most votes…? And it´s also interesting that the only places that this occurred were in those districts where they used electronic voting machines that did not provide a paper trail. This was also only occurring where the same electronic machines were also used to do any requested re-counts and to count the absentee ballots.

Don´t forget, that the Republican´s were the ones that decided to allow private companies to build the voting machines, program the voting machines and in some cases, actually "count the election ballots". For almost 30 years, election oversight has little by little been taken away from the American voters. In many places and in the GOP "target" locations, they are always susceptible to these classic "Rovian" dirty election tactics.

These, now classic GOP "tricks", have already started showing up in Wisconsin and other areas around the country. Just this week there were dozens of complaints from voters that had recently moved. They are now complaining that they have received unsolicited absentee ballot applications sent to their new addresses from the McCain campaign. However, the applications have as the "return address" of the county clerk of their "FORMER" address, which would make their vote totally invalid.

Voters from Florida and North Carolina have also called to report that they had received these same applications from the McCain campaign. A number have said that they were not registered Democrats, but had donated to Obama. So, it appears that the public donor lists were the McCain campaign's source of the names. This information then had to have been cross-checked with change-of-address info that is available from a number of public sources. The McCain campaign is currently saying that the "return address problem" was just a "mistake or mis-print". However, they have already sent out over 1 million "mistake" applications to potential Obama voters.

This "dirty trick" actually serves a dual purpose. First, the votes wouldn´t be counted. Second, and equally distressing, the inaccurate returned applications will be used by Republican state legislators to claim fraud by the Democrats. The republicans will then work to push through laws with harsh voter ID provisions. This would make it much harder for the poorer local voters to comply with the registration rules. In addition, this would obviously suppress the votes in future elections. And don´t forget that the GOP always has a better chance to win when fewer people actually vote.

Therefore, anyone who receives absentee ballot applications from the McCain campaign, or any unsolicited absentee ballot applications, needs (a) to not use them, (b) to publicize the problem as widely as possible including their state Democratic Party and the media, and (c) to demand an investigation.

NOW, WHAT OBAMA MUST DO:

It is imperative that Barack Obama must "stay the course" in selling his programs on the issues, while also having his campaign and his surrogates take on the slings, arrow and rhetoric that keeps coming from the McCain campaign. The TV and radio ads must lash out at the lies from the McCain 527 groups. Their efforts to take the discussion off of the real concerns of all Americans must be met. It must also be made very clear where McCain is not conducting the "clean" campaign that he said he was going to run. McCain´s "527" political groups are currently hard at work "Swift-Boating" for McCain. However, Obama has made some changes in his campaign in order to combat the millions of dollars being spent by these independent McCain political groups.

Obama's campaign will no longer object to the Obama political group´s independent efforts to hammer back at John McCain. Obama is now doing just the same as the McCain campaign has done by not objecting to those efforts targeted by McCain´s at Obama. "I am assuming that with their [McCain´s] 527s now stirring, some [Democratic] ones will as well," a senior Obama campaign official said.

The money is there. The top two 527s, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and America Votes, are liberal in orientation. The SEIU fund has contributed to other liberal 527 efforts, and America Votes has earmarked most of its money for what it calls the "largest grassroots voter mobilization" in history. Unfortunately, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the third largest 527 group, American Solutions Winning the Future, belongs to the Republican, Newt Gingrich.

According to the AFL-CIO Union today, it has budgeted more than $53 million for messaging and turnout efforts and has run a limited flight of ads featuring veterans criticizing McCain. However, up to now, they've shied away from larger-scale campaigns in part because they believe, or did believe, that the Obama campaign did not want them mounted. They are now freed to proceed full steam against the current flood of "untruths" from the McCain GOP campaign.

SAD,BUT TRUE:

It is amazing that both McCain and Palin are going around the country outwardly telling such outrageous lies about Obama, his campaign and his programs. It is as if they really don´t realize that it will all be on video tape. They must think that no one, including the media, will call them out on their lies and exaggerations.

>>> They are both currently telling the average American worker, using their "approved by John McCain ads", that Obama will raise their taxes. Both Obama and a number of independent organizations have said that Obama´s plan would actually "lower the average American worker´s taxes".

>>> They say that Obama´s healthcare plan would be "run by the government and would put a government employee between every American and their doctor". This is just a blatant, out-and-out lie.

>>> They say that Obama referred to Palin as a "lipstick on a pig", when Obama was actually referring to McCain´s program proposals. (But McCain has used this phrase many times and he did refer, during the primaries, in a Town Hall meeting video to Hillary Clinton´s healthcare plan as "Lipstick on a pig".)

>>> They have accused Obama of sponsoring a bill that would "teach sex education to kindergarteners", while the truth is, that it is a bill to help protect children from sexual predators.

It has gotten so bad with the McCain campaign, that even the conservative business publication, the Wall Street Journal has run a recent front page, above the fold article. The basis of the article was to criticize the McCain campaign for distorting the truth well beyond the acceptable political rhetoric that normally occurs during a hard fought political campaign.

Author's Note:

The GOP, the Republican Party and Karl Rove will never change their questionable ways for how they approach an election. Just remember that if you shake hands with McCain, Palin, Bush or Rove, "be sure to count your fingers afterwards".