Just what does it mean for liberals when a "marriage protection" bill gets slapped on the ballot? Read between the lines...the Christian Coalition has just targeted your state as a "swing" state for their favored candidate. They are going to drive their minions to the polls by the fear of gay marriage. Or maybe with the threat of "gun confiscation" if you see some gun regulation bill on the ballot. This is a big, waving red flag at high mast. It means you have one heck of a battle on your hands and you don't even see the half of it.
They are preaching over the pulpit that anyone voting for a liberal candidate is sure to burn in hell. They are holding voter registration at church during "Citizenship Sundays" to drive the evil of liberalism out of "our?" country. They are target-mailing a tsunami of the worst, and ugliest stuff all across every county, but you, unsuspecting liberal, will probably never see it.
In their efforts to target religious conservatives, the RNC and the Bush campaign identified volunteer coordinators within congregations, collected thousands of church membership directories and cross matched the names within their registered voter database, all to deliver customized persuasion and mobilization messages steeped in religious and moral themes.
Other avenues of mobilization, like phone calls, door-step conversations, and church sermons, were also employed in the 2004 campaign.
Gay Marriage a Wedge Issue in the Presidential campaign
Gun Guys: "During this legislative session, House Republicans from suburban Chicago have made decisions on the gun issue based on calls from a vocal and intimidating minority."
Slate: They (the NRA) and other like-minded groups have historically found state legislators easier and cheaper to lobby than Congress because state elections' generally low voter turnout heavily favors candidates who appeal to the die-hard partisans and single-issue voters.
For the 2008 election: Ohioans For Concealed Carry: GunVoters need to look beyond the national media circus and to pay attention to matters closer to home: to the primary elections for the House, Senate, governor, and state legislatures. GunVoters’ chances to make a difference in the presidential primaries has come and gone with the result being no candidate that we can get excited about supporting. We must make sure the same thing doesn’t happen in congressional, state, and local races as well.
If GunVoters fail to get involved in the primaries, there might well be no reason to get involved in the general. Left with the choice of voting for Tweedle-dumb or Tweedle-dumber up and down the ticket, many GunVoters could end up voting with their feet by going hunting or fishing on election day instead of going voting. The fact is that voters’ power and influence is much greater in a primary election than it ever is during the general election simply because fewer people participate. In most states, less than 30 percent of eligible voters will cast a ballot in a presidential primary while in others less than 10 percent vote. In most states the Congressional primaries are held on a different day than the presidential primaries and the voter turnout for the Congressional and legislative primaries is typically even less than it is for the presidential primaries.
Congressional Leaders Meet with Religious Right to Plot Strategy
Church & State, May 2006
Congressional Republicans are clearly worried about President George W. Bush's plummeting approval ratings and are looking for ways to shore up his evangelical Christian base. The conservative magazine, Weekly Standard, reported that GOP leaders told the Religious Right activists that they would work to "schedule some votes on controversial issues that may help drive the party's base to the polls in November."
Frist has already announced that the Senate will vote in June on the so-called "Marriage Protection Amendment," which would ban same-sex marriages in the country. The Standard's Fred Barnes wrote that this spring and summer; Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress "plan to bring up a series of issues that are popular with the Republican base of voters. The aim is to stir conservative voters and spur turnout in the November election."
Remember the election of 2004. California 2004 Massechusetts 2004
California 2008 VoteYesMarriage.com - it's heating up the RR voter base all over again.
When all else fails: "I was a sports reporter so I was used to dealing with numbers. And the numbers made no sense." - Keith Olbermann speaking about the 2004 Presidential election anomalies.
Election results questioned outside of the US.
The Guardian (UK)
One person, one vote. Count the totals. The one with the most wins. The beauty of democracy is its simplicity and its inherent fairness. It equalises everyone, even as it empowers everyone. What could go wrong? In America, it turns out, quite a lot.
Everyone remembers the debacle in Florida, 2000. The recounts, the law suits and the eventual deciding of a presidential election - not by the voters - but by the Supreme Court. The memory still causes a collective shudder to America's body politic.
Which makes the fact that America's system of voting is now even more suspect, more complicated, and more open to abuse than ever before so utterly shocking. Across the country a bewildering series of scandals or dubious practises are proliferating beyond control. The prospect of a 'second Florida' is now more likely not less. There are many - and not all of them are conspiracy theorists - who believed it may have happened in Ohio in 2004.
US allies say 2004 Presidential election 'did not meet democratic standards':
Eastern bloc observers noted that balloting in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida did not meet Ukrainian standards, but applauded America's attempt to restore democratic institutions after the overthrow of elected government in 2000.
Defend your values while you still can
The Fourteen Points of Fascism
Buzz it up
