Fascinoma

There isn't much left to say about the candidates themselves. This disconnect between the sort of person even many thoughtful people believed John McCain to be and the lying shitweasel he clearly is, and probably always has been, is rather interesting. It raises some psychological and ethical questions like: is it possible for a basically good person to curdle into a total monster given the right temptations or conditions? If so, what do we do with that person once those conditions have been removed?

Personally, I think McCain has A. always been a complete asshole, and B. in any case has now gone so far into reckless narcissism, into heedless hatemongering that he should be expunged from public life forever -- except when his memory is invoked as cautionary tale or negative example. The Mark of McCain!

As for the rest of the GOP, an outfit which at least since Nixon has been the moral equivalent of the Klan, as with Bush, you can pretty much tell what they are up to by what they accuse you of -- in this case trying to steal elections. The Obama candidacy presents a fairly unique case, in that the GOP knows exactly what votes to suppress in order to win. And suppress they will. Why wouldn't they? It's worked perfectly in the past and they've paid no penalty, not even in the coin of PR, thanks to our supine media and the Vichycrat assholes of Capitol Hill. Again, why wouldn't they? They stand to lose everything, their Uber Alles dreams, their careers, their fortunes, possibly even their freedom, should an actual Justice Department spring up in this country. The sellers of the ACORN canard are , as they say, highly motivated. (Everyone should watch this pithy pushback from ACORN on all this.)

I have two suggestions for the Obama campaign:

1. They should do everything they can to put people on notice that the GOP will use cops and/or other gun toting or uniformed goons to intimidate people at the election place, and to warn cops who are tempted to go along that this may constitute "color of authority" federal crime.

2. Barack should tell people to bring a little pocket notebook or some index cards, dictacorder, or whatever, to the polling place, and record the particulars (take names for instance) of anything weird that to them happens in the polling place or polling booth. And they should carefully preserve those notes for comparison with others. He should hold up a 59 cent notepad and tell open and tell them about the power of pen and paper, "Get the details. Nothing is so impotent as a vague complaint." These two things might disembolden the Brownshirts a bit, and perhaps spare the Senatorial Vichycrats the burden of certifying another bogus election, as they did in the debacle of 2000 (and that has worked out so wonderfully).

A last question though, assuming McCain's cronies do suppress enough of the vote to fake a comeback, will the Democrats swallow this lie? Will the inner cities burn if they do? If not, why not?