It's clear now more than ever that the GOTV efforts around the country, and especially in the swing states, are going to decide this election. I was at the rally in Madison yesterday and was amazed that I got some questions from people -- even there -- who wondered how they could vote early.

We have many, many supporters on our side. The majority of Americans are Democrats, after all. But it takes people on the ground, and on the phone, to help encourage people to get to the polls. GOTV matters, it works. There are so many initiatives going on this weekend and on Election Day. I hope you are able to find one.

ACT 4 Victory

Driving Votes

Volunteer Center

Call from Home

Here's another confirmation that Michigan will be solid Blue this year.

The poll shows Democratic Sen. John Kerry with a 48 percent to 43 percent lead among all Michigan voters, a decidedly different result from the 53 percent to 40 percent lead President Bush has over Kerry in Indiana.

The Michigan poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday and queried 600 likely voters without regard to party affiliation. The margin for error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Sadly, Bush's biggest lead in Michigan is in Flint (Flint!). What could they be thinking?

There are only three weekends left before the big day. I'd love to hear how people are helping. Tomorrow I'll be in Wisconsin. It's the last weekend we'll really push for absentee ballot applications from all of those UNLIKELY voters.

Sunday afternoon I'll be phonebanking to voters in swing states. The campaign seems to have identified "undecideds" and it's those we're mostly talking to. It feels great to tell people about a point of Kerry's plans (healthcare is a biggie) that they did not know before.

In case you still need ideas for how to help:

http://acthere.com

http://moveonpac.org

http://volunteer.johnkerry.com

http://drivingvotes.org

This is it, folks. This is where the cornered animals really start to show their teeth. They are not going down without a fight and plan to bloody up Kerry day after day, if they are allowed.

Today we have faux outrage about Mary Cheney followed by another Nightline devoted to the Swift Boat lies. This time they'll be talking to Viet Congs who claim to have been there at the same time as Kerry -- and Koppel will have O'Neill on hand to help out. Next week is the Sinclair event.

They are desperate, so I'm guessing we haven't even seen the worst of it yet. I plan to dig in and help prove that we will not be deterred. We're going to get out the vote and remove the worst president in modern history.

In the last two weekends, I have personally talked to five voters who told me they had just rented F911 and were now definitely voting for Kerry. And you have to realize, they offer the information spontaneously. It's definitely not a question we ever ask. Other canvassers at the same events said they'd had similiar conversations with some voters.

The people the movie rental seems to be swaying are those who don't want to spend $20 bucks to see it in the theaters -- they just aren't that passionate about political issues. They are fence-sitters and they are not great at making it to the polls every election. These are people who do not vote strictly on wedge issues like abortion (those are a lost cause) -- they're just regular folks who pay some attention to the election but not much, and their decisions come down to things like the debates and Michael Moore's movie.

I was both encouraged and surprised, because I thought F911 would only help our cause at the edges. Now I'm seeing evidence (anecdotal, but not just my anecdotes) that I was wrong. This movie is moving -- really moving -- "soft" supporters and undecideds. As one woman told me yesterday, "My aunt still thinks she's voting for Bush, but I'm going to make sure she sees that movie."

Update [2004-10-10 21:48:24 by lapis]:

I'm guessing the Dark Side has polled the F911 effect also -- and part of their response is the Sinclair atrocity.

Apparently the Kerry campaign has extended a kind invitation to the Senator from Vermont to attend tonight's debate. He'll be sitting in the second row in the sight of our esteemed Vice President.

According to Joe Lockhart, they understand how stressful the debates can be so they want to be sure Cheney sees a friendly face in the crowd.

(the poor GOP are whining, "No fair! They did that last week when they seated Terry McAullife right behind Laura Bush!"  boo-hoo)

There is a great article in yesterday's Chicago Sun Times about the bus trips Dems are making every weekend from Chicago (and Evanston) to Wisconsin. I hope this will inspire those in solid blue/red states to travel to swing states on the weekends. We can make a difference. In Illinois check out the Illinois for Kerry site.

I also wanted to share my favorite part of the article:

Yes, Repubs! Stay home and work for Keyes and Bush...there is still a chance.

We spent another Saturday canvassing in Wisconsin this weekend -- and each weekend is better than the last. This Saturday over 150 people from the Chicago area took a Kerry-sponsored bus trip to Wisconsin to seek out votes. Some of us went to Madison (see DrSpike's great report here), others to Beloit. Beloit is where we landed.

cont'd...

I know, I know. We thought they never would. Of course the first speech they decide to fact check is Kerry's, but I guess you have to start somewhere.

Their Pentagon correspondent did a piece on Kerry's statements about Rummy/Pentagon and compares his statements with the "facts." I won't go into the whole piece, but the reporter's very last line (after telling us we are "entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts") is that "Shinseki was never fired or forced to retire. Those are the facts."

Well, that's a blatant lie. I know there are a lot of notes to the media to send out, but I've made it easy in the extended box -- and the bonus is that the person who yelled the loudest about the "unprecedented" retirement was well-known Kerry supporter BOB NOVAK.

Please go ahead and send them a note.

There is a great piece on him by Craig Crawford, who as we know frequently pops up on MSNBC. It seems he decided to actually follow Edwards around for a few days to see if the skeptics were right. (And he gives his colleagues a couple of digs about how they only cover a candidate from four-star hotels.)

My favorite line: From what I've seen of Edwards, he would have to set himself on fire to generate more heat in his campaign appearances.

Here are a couple of passages, but the whole thing is a good read.

I don't think the message of Bush's health plan as it relates to his "ownership society" is really getting out, and it's a big, big issue.

Bush's healthcare plan calls for the elimination of employer-funded health insurance.

Let me repeat: Bush's healthcare plan calls for the elimination of employer-funded health insurance.

Did you know that?

Indeed it's true. All his talk of increasing the limit on health savings accounts (the tax-free money people can put aside for health care costs) is because he wants people to pay for 100% of their health care out of that savings - the insurance, the copays, the prescriptions, all of it.

I saw this ABC News report last week, and its analysis was just confirmed tonight by a writer from the National Review (yes, the National Review) when he said, "Why isn't Kerry telling the public that Bush is going to take away their health insurance? That by 'ownership society' he means you are going to have to pay for it all." From the ABC report:

It is a great piece. There are many specifics on his plans including outsourcing, healthcare, stem-cell research, and the deficit. There is a strong emphasis on fiscal discipline, going so far as to say only security and education will be allowed to grow at rates larger than inflation. He begins with the case for how Bush has failed miserably and continues with the case of how he will fix the "mess." He takes the approach that the country needs a new CEO and we, the citizens are the shareholders.

[more...]

Honestly, today's NYT story with a photo montage of all those who spilled their guts was not enough. Tonight, we have yet another story detailing a 90-minute phone call from Kerry to Clinton yesterday (while Clinton prepared for open-heart surgery, mind you) on the state of his campaign.

I think it's clear that the Clinton folks are back and involved. How the hell else would the whole world know every move of this campaign -- the same campaign which managed to keep the VP choice a secret until hours before the announcement?

I'm a big Clinton fan and I'm glad some of his folks are now in this campaign, but I HATE the incessant leaking that was so pervasive during his term. Why is it so hard to keep information such as private conversations close to the chest?

They have a great, full-page ad in today's NYT (in the special RNC section) which you can see here(pdf). (boy, is that a lily-white group, or what? We're talking Republicans, I guess...)

According to their email, they are going to start airing five of the spots in nine swing states today. And they are trying to raise $1M in 24 hours to keep things going. I'm a huge fan of this campaign. It was very effective with Apple, and I think it could make a difference in this election.

Moveon PAC poll-tested the ads as well and according to them: Our testing shows that the MoveOn members featured in these ads are genuine, compelling, and different enough to cut through the noise.

I hope they're right.

Today on CNN Howard Kurtz shamelessly -- shamelessly! -- compared MoveonPAC's ads to the SBL ads and even outright called MoveonPAC a 527 group. I find that particularly astounding since he said "PAC" himself:

KURTZ: Now, MoveOn.org PAC, the liberal group, has been running -- has made ads with celebrities, including Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who picks up a Republican in her car and convinces him to vote against Bush. I guess they're going to send it to all 50 states.

I mention MoveOn, because there are a lot of liberal groups, as you know, Debra Saunders, these 527s -- have there been a double standard in the media in not trying to make Kerry denounce the liberal ads, while reporters ask the president every day, why won't you disassociate yourself from the swift boat ads?

Honest-to-God, he knows better. We know he knows better, and still, on a show about how the media is doing, he spews a blatant falsehood to his audience, reinforcing the idea that MoveonPAC ads are from a 527 and should (and would if Bush had is way) be outlawed. That is a false statement.

You can write him here (unless someone has an email address for him).

Rubin is admitting he screwed up in saying that Kerry "in all probability" would have gone into Iraq. It's late, but here it is in the Post:

A top national security adviser to John F. Kerry today said that he made a mistake when he said the Democratic nominee probably would have launched a military invasion to oust Saddam Hussein if he had been president during the past four years. [snip]

"To the extent that my own comments have contributed to misunderstanding on this issue. . . . I never should have said the phrase 'in all probability' because that's not Kerry's position and he's never said it," Rubin said in a statement. "That was my mistake." [snip]

In an interview today, Rubin said it is unknowable whether Kerry would have waged the war. "Bush went to war the wrong way," Rubin said. "What we don't know is what would have happened if a president had gone about it the right way."

In the uproar of SBL, I haven't seen any significant mention of a prominent story in today's NYT -- Buchanan has a new book out this week called "Where the Right Went Wrong" taking on Bush and the other losers who got us into the mess in Iraq, the deficit, etc. The release date and surrounding publicity is specifically timed for just before the RNC in order to have the greatest impact.

We need to do what we can to see that his book and criticism of Bush is not swallowed up by more SBL nonsense.

"He has a following in conservative circles," said Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer. "It is not what it once was just because the religious right is not particularly enamored with him. But it is going to have an effect."

In an interview, however, Mr. Buchanan said publishing a book during the campaign was the best way he knew to inject what he considers important ideas into the debate. "The reason I wanted it out now is, it addresses big issues that are not being addressed in this campaign: the massive and growing deficit, the disintegration of the culture and a Wilsonian foreign policy that means war ad infinitum," he said.

He's not endorsing Kerry, of course, but all criticism of Bush by the Right is most welcome.

Well, Joe Conason has the scoop on the forthcoming anti-Kerry, We-can-be-F911 too, "documentary" from RNC friends, Citizens United.

You remember them. They were the same ones who gave Moore all that priceless advertising on the eve of the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 where they demanded that the FEC shut Moore down from advertising his film on television.

Now they plan to release a feature-length documentary -- including many of the allegations of our esteemed Swift Boat Veterans for Revenge -- saying that Kerry is a scumbag. Oh, and that OBL wants him to win.

Conason's most important point: This "film" is made by people with clear and close ties to both Rove and the RNC (they are making two shorts for the RNC convention) and they may, in fact, be in violation of the same laws they claimed Moore was violating. (More friends of Rove involved in obliterating Kerry. Who'da thought?)

If the movie poster Salon has up is right, it's a keeper -- Kerry right next to OBL and SH with our beaming "Mission Accomplished" president hovering above (see below, but beware of gag reflex).