Karl Rove's Strategy is to Frustrate Voter Turnout (Surprise!)

[Writer]

Hello. Writer here, back from a break from DU. Actually I've had to quit DU because of personal obligations, but I felt that I needed sign in one more time to post these thoughts before the election.

Karl Rove is going to lose. He knows it. We know it. The media know it. Voters know it. The only means by which the GOP can maintain Congressional control, he figures, is to make sure that as few voters make it to the polls as possible. From my backseat perspective, it appears that his attempts to rally his base are failing. Many conservative voters still cannot remove the image of New Orleans from their minds - an antithetical image to the White House's Christian posturing. Many traditional Republicans are realizing the folly of Iraq, but even more to their frustration, do not understand why Bush and Rove back off from this fantastic blunder for the sake of the party. In a sense, they blame their party members for not keeping these boobs in check.

So, Republican voters may not show up on Nov. 7th because of their own disillusionment. This leaves a swath of angry Democratic and independent voters to steer the election to a Democratic takeover.

So what can Rove do? Encourage independent voters to stay at home. I believe he is trying (read: DESPERATELY trying) to accomplish this through two different means:

1. Make participating in this year's election unattractive and distasteful. Now, much hay was made about the RNC's racist ad attacking Harold Ford in Tennessee. And indeed it was racist, but not only that. If you take a step back and study it, it was also incredibly silly. Puerile in message and rather infantile in its delivery. The young blonde woman claiming that she had "met Harold Ford at the Playboy party" sounded almost Vaudevillian. Nothing about the ad, at least to my assessment, seemed effective to me. So why would they have spent money on something like this? Desperation? Perhaps, but I've seen several of these sex-attack ads across the country paid for by the GOP or by individual campaigns. The overall effect is almost stomach-churning. While media analysts ask if this year's attack ads have stooped to a new low, I see a few voters becoming alarmed, disgusted, and discouraged by their messages. The ads, by offending viewers, are inferring that they should stay away. Don't vote.

2. The ubiquitous discussions on voter disenfranchisement. Voter disenfranchisement has been a fixture of US elections since Reconstruction, if not before. I think many here will claim, however, that the electronic voting machines that have produced many irregularities over the last several years have heightened the concept of voter fraud to a new level. In our African-American communities, the sensation of democratic disempowerment is at its highest, it appears. Love her or hate her, Donna Brazille discussed today that a majority of black voters don't believe their vote will count, and in doing so, she worries that they'll stay at home on Election Day. In the general American voting community, discussions of Diebold and vote tampering are gaining traction. Yet while these discussions are tantamount to any hope of rescuing democracy from fraud, another message lingers: Don't have hope this year. Don't bother to vote. Your vote won't count. That is dangerous and I think plays right into Rove's strategy. I think the lesson here is: It won't be perfect. It won't even be great. But if you have any doubt, you must at least try to give it a chance. No vote is as about as good as a miscounted vote in this election.

So that's my two cents before I scuttle off back to my personal life. Take from it what you will. 'Tis only one perspective of many this election season.

Writer.

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. Perfect analysis. K & R. nt

[elehhhhna]

2. I was denied a provisional ballot in 2000.

Payback time for the same elections judge on 11/7.

I'm a pollwatcher.

I've caught some doozies so far during early voting. The proper authorities have been notified.

CALL YOUR LOCAL DEM HQ & Volunteer as a pollwatcher. NOW. Super-easy training and if you're lucky it'll be a boring day at the polls.

[tulsakatz]

3. about the anti-Ford commercial...........

...when I saw it, it occured to me that there really wasn't much to it. It looked kind of like a home movie, in that it didn't even look like a professional commercial. And the things it suggested, didn't even seem to be serious allegations.

Sure the girl said she met him at a party but so what? You meet lots of people at parties but that doesn't mean you intend to sleep with all of them.

Mostly it seemed to suggest it was worse than it actually was! Now maybe it seemed worse in Tennessee but it was basically filled with suggestions and no actual proof of anything.

And as Larry O'Donnell said last night on Olbermann, that commercial prompted Ford to make a commercial of his own that referenced God and country.