Republicans Love Democracy

Just look at how much respect they have for the Democratic process!!

In 2004, the GOP used numerous dirty tricks to either rile up their base (pamphlets telling Southern voters that if Kerry won, he'd legalize gay marriage federally and ban bibles) or to suppress minority, and therefore likely Democratic, turnout (leaflets sent to poor neighborhoods 'reminding' them to vote on Nov. 3, when the election was actually on the 2nd). Similar incidents have been reported this year as well.

One such incident was an attempt in Southern California's generally conservative Orange County (except for that ol' liberal Sandy Cohen) to scare Latino voters away from the polls. According to the L.A. Times, a letter, written in Spanish, was sent out "warn[ing] that immigrants will not be permitted to vote in the election. It also warns that the state has developed a tracking system that will allow the names of Latino voters to be handed over to anti-immigrant groups." A state attorney general's investigation is focusing on the campaign of Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen. He, of course, denies the charge.

Expect to hear of more incidents like this in the next two weeks.

(PS- On the official campaign front, Republicans are back on the 'If you vote for Democrats, Al Qaeda will KILL YOU' train. A new RNC ad "shows footage of terrorists training set to the ticking of a time bomb. After flashing quotes from Osama and other terrorists promising doom to America, the ad concludes: 'These are the stakes. Vote November 7th.'" This is all the ads says (nothing of substance) before ending with the date and a link to GOP.com. Fearmongering = democracy! You can view the ad on Powerline with the requisite approval from its cult-like webmaster. How reminding Republicans that bin Laden remains a free man and a low priority for the party in charge is supposed to benefit the GOP is beyond me, but I say let 'em go nuts. Their false bravado this time around seems to be backfiring.)