Spinning The Ratfuck

by digby

Wolf Blitzer: Let me talk a little bit with you about some of the reported glitches coing up in voting. Democrats are already charging the Republicans are engagin in some dirty tricks out there and they’re complaining about some of the activity especially some of those so-called robo calls that have gone out from the national republican campaing committee.

I want to give you a change to respond to the charge that your side is engaging in dirty politics.

Ken Mehlman:I’m not familiar with that Wolf. I thin that my goal is to get more Republicans and more Democrats and more independents. Everyone who is watching this show, I don’t care what your politics are, I want you to go out and vote.

Know this Wolf, in 04, we know two things. First, Democrats produced a playbook that they gave to everyone of their state parties. They said “if there’s not intimidation, allege that there is.”

Secondly, in 04 there were two states and it was Democrats who were involved— in Ohio it was about misleading voterrs about where they should vote and when they should vote and in Florida it was about threatening and harrassing people who wanted to hand out flyers at the polls. In Wisconsin we know that it was actually criminal activity, slashing tires of people who wanted to go to the polls.

I hope Democrats won’t do it again, but the fact is you’ve already seen some questionable activity. In Heather Wilson’s district, New Mexico 1, Republican precincts where people tried to vote, they were turned away because there weren’t enough ballots. As of earlier today, the Democratic county clerk hadn’t rectified that problem. I hope that’s fixed.

Rick Santorum held a press conference earlier today where he pointed out that a lot of the rural parts of that state, his supporters, were having a lot of problems working with the voting machines.

In Montana, we saw the same thing the Democrats did in 04, where people were misled about where and how to participate.

So, I hope we don’t have that problem.

Both parties’ goals ought to be more people participating, more people having confidence in the system, and more people being able to participate in a way they know their vote won’t be cancelled out by someone playing shenanigans. I don’t think people ought to cry wolf for the sake of gaining politically, particularly if they’ve been the ones, as they were in 04, who were engaged in inappropriate actions.

Wolf: Alright. I think all of hope that these elections today go very smoothly, as smoothly as possible but we’ve been reporeting there have been some problems, some glitches, some long lines, have already been reported. We’re going to watch this very, very closely here at CNN.

Yeah, I’ll bet.

I don’t know if my prediction is going to come true, but it looks to me as if they are at least giving themselves the option.

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