**First of all, the corporate media, which shamelessly ambushed Al Gore in 2000 ("inventing the internet"), and John Kerry in 2004 ("Swift Boat Vets"), this time is giving the Democratic candidates fairer treatment. Not "fair," but "fairer," as campaign coverage is once again cluttered with trivia and, in the name of "balance," outright GOP lies are equated with Democratic errors and simplifications. **Due to the fairer and more transparent media coverage, the essential issues are being reported, along with the incoherence and disorder of the McCain campaign and the appalling incompetence of his running-mate. **Newspaper endorsements, which were roughly evenly divided between Bush and Kerry in 2004, are now three to one in favor of Obama. **Many prominent republicans are endorsing the Obama/Biden team, while the GOP coalition of religious fundamentalists, economic conservatives, neo-con imperialists, is fracturing. While Sarah Palin is successfully solidifying the "family values" base, she is also alienating the center-right independents and establishment "paleo-conservatives," without which a national election can not be won. **The collapse of the financial markets and the ensuing economic chaos has taken place at the worst possible time for a GOP presidential campaign. **Consequently, national polls report a substantial and steadily increasing Democratic lead. In addition, the polls report that the Democratic candidates handily won all the debates, and that the strength of support for the Obama/Biden team is substantially stronger than that of the McCain and Palin. In the media, there is an increasing sense that an Obama victory is all but certain, absent an "October surprise" during the coming week.All this poses a daunting problem for the programmers who write the secret software that counts and compiles most of the votes that will be cast next Tuesday: In the face of what would be a Democratic landslide in an honest election, do they dare steal it one more time? Just imagine that next Monday, the final polls show Obama/Biden with twelve to fifteen point leads (i.e., beyond the "Diebold Zone") in the national polls, with double-digit leads in most of the battleground states, and with a solid projection of 350 electoral votes. Then, early Wednesday morning, the TV networks announce that McCain/Palin have achieved a narrow victory, due to upset wins in states using DRE machines and secret compilation software, and where, in addition, hundreds of thousands of intended voters have been denied access to the polls because of registration challenges by GOP attorneys and poll watchers. Will the public stand for this? If not, what follows? Massive protest demonstrations followed by suppression by the Army battalion recently assigned to "domestic duty" (in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act)? Sullen public acquiescence? If the latter, what remains of President McCain's capacity to govern? He will, after all, have to deal with a heavily Democratic Congress. How well can he cope with the severe economic crises directly ahead? Might we then at last see an end to the persistent refusal of the media and the Democrats to acknowledge, investigate and deal with computer-generated election fraud? Even if the Department of Justice remains in Republican hands, this need not put a stop to criminal investigation, prosecution and conviction for stolen elections. In the United States, national elections are administered at the state level. Accordingly, any aggressive state Attorney General in any state can launch a criminal investigation and carry it through all the way to the slamming of the cell doors. The anonymous programmers of the secret election codes are facing a dilemma: if Obama wins, it is likely that the Department of Justice will, at long last, investigate, indict and convict the culprits. But if the election is stolen again, despite a formidable Obama lead in the polls and overwhelming public and editorial support, the story of the "miracle" McCain victory will likely not be believed. The Congress will investigate. The media, beginning with the blogosphere and extending to the corporate media, will at long last take the issue of election fraud seriously. Then the state Attorneys General will get to work. We can only guess at what might be going on in the troubled minds of the programmers. There appears to be some reluctance among the corporate big-wigs to drop the management of the financial crisis in the hands of John McCain, a self-confessed economic ignoramus, or Sarah Palin, who proves her incompetence at every interview. Consequently, it is quite possible that the programmers have been instructed to cool it this time and let the public have its way. On the other hand, the stakes in this election are enormous. An Obama administration will, as promised, raise the taxes of the mega-wealthy, and perhaps attempt to return to the federal treasury some of the public funds looted by the oligarchs. Obama's Department of Justice might well prosecute some of the numerous crimes committed during the Bush/Cheney administration. Anti-trust laws, now "on the books" albeit ignored, may be reinstated, resulting in the break-up of mega-corporations. Election reform, with the ending of voter purges, cagings, stringent ID requirements, and, of course, unverifiable electronic voting machines, will lock in Democratic majorities far into the future. This late in the campaign season, the codes have been written and the voting machines and compilers are in place. Whose decisions will they report: those of the voters or those of the programmers? We will likely find out on November 5. In the meantime, watch the polls. If they show a closing race, be suspicious. Read the punditry with a critical mind. Perhaps the media might be softening us up for a "miracle upset." In any case, this is no time for despair. Instead, this is a time for renewed determination and effort to produce an overwhelming majority for Obama and the Democrats. In addition to the simple act of voting, volunteers must show up at polling places with video cameras, and voters who are denied access, or who find that their touch-screen votes are "flipped," should be interviewed. The Election Defense Alliance will be conducting exit polls. Contact them to see if they need volunteers. In the election of 2008, a sizeable majority of American voters, including a formidable number of opinion-makers, academics, scientists, diplomats, and even Republicans, want to see the end of Bushism and Republican rule. They are supporting in Barack Obama, a young, intelligent, learned and vigorous candidate. God help us all if a small coterie of anonymous computer programmers once again deny the American people their choice of a President. We have a short week to do our utmost to see to it that this doesn't happen.
End Note: As Michael Collins convincingly demonstrates in his article, "Election 2004: The Urban Legend," the 2004 presidential election was stolen in the big cities, where vote inflation is more easy to conceal. In the cities, where Bush and Cheney did not campaign and where the GOP issues were alien to the urban voters, the Bush/Cheney 2004 totals increased by 153% over those of 2000. Collins concludes: "This combination of events has never happened before in American history. It is unprecedented... and unbelievable." In 2006, despite a groundswell of support for the Democrats the DRE wizards connived to keep the Senate in GOP hands. The raw exit polls at the time confirm this suspicion. The target states were Montana, Missouri and Virginia. Instead, the voters overwhelmed the "fixes," and substantial Democratic wins, following "adjustments" by the secret software, ended up as "squeakers." While the Democrats gained thirty seats in the House, DRE rigging may have cost them as many as twenty additional seats. See also my The Fix Is In -- Again!, Why we must not "Get Over It, Has the Case for Election Fraud been Refuted? Election Fraud: Where's the Outrage? In 2006, Election Fraud is the Keystone Issue. Debunking the Debunker, and The Gulliberal Problem. Copyright 2008 by Ernest Partridge