I wonder what precisely Mr. Auster thinks should be done now that we are where we are. I think he would want people not to vote for either on principle and that would give us Kerry.

So I am going out on a limb, not knowing all of Mr. Austers positions, but is he saying that a Kerry presidency is preferable despite all of his serious shortcomings because Bush is botching up the erroneously titled war on terror?

What is it, Bush or Kerry and does it really matter as the American train is in full runaway mode?

Mr. Auster writes:

“What’s a vote for Bush for, based on his current record in Iraq? It’s a vote for four more years of thrice-weekly mass murders of Iraqis by jihadist and Baathist terrorists”

With all due respect Mr. Auster, Iraqis are not babies and we are not their mommies. Either they are willing to defend themselves and establish a resemblance of normalcy or they are not. We removed, not cleanly of course, their dictator and gave them guns. It is up to them.

And I (and I suspect 70% of americans) don’t really care what they do to each other after we gave them guns.

And no matter what will happen on Nov 2, killings will continue, at least for awile.

And if we leave, killings will continue, at least for awile.

Our blogsphere host seems piqued at the President over his Johnny Appleseed axioms used to describe the current conflict. Sadly, this truly is a Jack Nicholson moment; “you can’t handle the truth”, much like the Archie Bunker line when hijacking became an national issue in the early 70’s. “Arm all the passengers”, oh, sophisticated people laughed in derision at the Catholic pretending to be a Protestant, in response to the meathead a Jew pretending to be Catholic. It suprised me how those words popped into so many peoples minds on 9/11. So here we have it, the best advise comes from a fictional character, Archie Bunker was referred to right more than once that fateful week.

W is pretending to be compassionate, Herman Munster is pretending to be an 89 day war hero. CNN, ABC, NBC, XYZ pretend to be neutral.

CAN’T, WON’T Handle the Truth…

The distortion of reality, like to corealis effect progressively twists rational thinking by the inertia of a generation of intellectual delinquents. It has reached the point were every notion, ideal and assumption is about collapse under the gravity of its own contradictions.

Hey Mik

The United States didn’t give the Iraqis guns. In fact, they had them long before the country was invaded. Saddam allowed private ownership of firearms in Iraq. Strange dictator, he.

“…Iraqis are not babies and we are not their mommies.”

You should have had this attitude BEFORE the war.

I think Bush is going to lose. Kerry has the big states. Plenty of others are in play. When an incumbent can’t reach 50% in the polls, he generally loses on election day.

Every day, the nightly news shows a mess in Iraq. GWB shows not the slightest indication that he even knows what is going on. Kerry seems to have more enthusiasm on his side. It’s mainly anti-Bush rather than pro-Kerry, but it helps the challenger. If it happens this way, I won’t be shedding tears for the rah-rah Bush crowd.

“”…Iraqis are not babies and we are not their mommies.”

You should have had this attitude BEFORE the war.”

Unless you are a mind reader, how do you know what attitude did I have?

I had exactly the same attitude: remove Saddam, install a semi-sane strong man - a Pinochet-lite type, and retreat into Kurdistan.

Make Kurdistan a gravity center of our Central Command and watch troublemakers closely. Establish a principal that at the sign of trouble bombs will dropping within 2 hours and paratroops will land in 4 hours.

Much more cost effective and efficient approach to the problem instead of current naive goo-goo waffling.

Well, well, well. Looks like the Great Pumpkin did his work a little early this year:http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_303162722.html

So, Mik, you’d have us remove the one block to Iran’s expansion in the Gulf Area, then hole all our troops up in a landlocked area, and have them set up a statelet guaranteed to piss of our strategic ally Turkey.

Yeah, that’s real brilliant.

My own guess is that Bush will lose outright for three reasons A) He’s stupid B) a heavy vote will favor the Democrats C) at the last minute many Nader supporters will break for Kerry as the lesser evil. It seems to me that the worst case scenario is not a clear victory for either side, but a repeat of the 2000 situation, in which the courts award the victory to Bush. The Democrats will regard this as a license to go even more insane, while the Bushites will pretend to themselves that everything is all right and there is no reason to question the policies of Our Great Leader and the Country Club Republican domination of the GOP will continue.

Let me suggest we try to find a grain of truth in others’ arguments, admit it, and if there is a decisive fact that others have overlooked, refrain from bludgeoning them with it. There will be lots of liberal nominalists to bludgeon. It is also usually best not to respond in kind to merely one single personal attack; of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Heck we don’t even know one another personally.

You wise guys don’t think it can get any worse? Well it can, and if John Kerry wins you’ll find out how bad things can be.

Blech!

John Ring writes:

“The United States didn’t give the Iraqis guns. In fact, they had them long before the country was invaded. Saddam allowed private ownership of firearms in Iraq.”

We gave Iragis guns and jeeps and helos and training, etc.
That is the difference between a bunch of guys with Kalashnikovs and armed forces.
We are creating Shia armed forces. Kurds already have one, Sunny, it appears, never lost ability to fight.

If Shia have guts, they can have themselves a very rich state in Arab Iraq. If they are smart they may even be able to keep Kurds in a loose federation. If Shia don’t have guts, God help them, no one else will.

Bush wins thanks to a rally-effect over the OBL tape……though I think he would have pulled it out anyway.

The best outcome— and one which sure ain’t agonna happen in Aught Four— would be a narrow Bush win in the wake of an overwhelming Republican romp in Congress. In that (fantasy) world, Bush would be the puppet, not Congress.

But then, that runs up against the gypsy moth/boll weevil paradox— the seats you pick up are mostly in the middle of the spectrum, and your new ally is likely to dilute your resolve. On the other hand, it would lessen the temptation of a slim majority to bribe the electorate into keeping them in power.

Shi’ites do indeed “have guts.” Their cult-worship of Husayn ibn ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib — Muhammad’s grandson — is what makes Shi’ites what they are. It’s what convinced millions of them to march to their deaths against Iraq in the 1980s. The whole concept of martyrdom and suffering pervades Shi’ism. I don’t think they’re about to let themselves get screwed again into a situation that they view as unjust.

A general uprising of Iraqi Shi’ites would mean the rapid expulsion of US forces from that country.

In response to the first comment in this thread, by Andrew 2, no, I’m not urging that anyone vote in a particular way. If you’ve read any of my various comments on the election over the last year, you would see that I’m tortured by the whole situation. The choice I make with my own vote this year is not done in the spirit of the categorical imperative (i.e., my choice is according to a principle valid for everyone): it is a frankly personal choice.

I write the criticisms I write of Bush, not to urge other people not to vote for him, but to speak the truth about Bush as I see it. Others can make up their minds accordingly. For example, they may agree with me about Bush, but still decide that he’s less damaging for the country than Kerry. And somehow in the last week or so I feel my understanding of Bush has come into sharper focus, which is appropriate, since the country is now deciding on his re-election.

Also, I agree with what Reg Caesar says. That would be my one hopeful scenario in this election.

I think that Mik in his comment of 11:43 AM misses the point. How one feels about Iraqis killing and being killed is not the point. The point is that Bush has made the democratization of Iraq the very essence and test of his “war on terror” (isn’t that amazing—a fiction being the proof of a misnomer?), that we have shown no will or ability to stop the actual terror war there which renders any stable democratization impossible, and that Bush keeps acting as if everything were just sailing along lovely.

To Dennis W, of course I think things can get much worse. I have said over and over that Kerry presidency would be a disaster for the country, which I described as Carter to the nth power. But remember: Carter was followed by Reagan. By the same hopeful logic, Carter to the nth power would be followed by Reagan to the nth power!

Mr. Auster,”Hopeful logic”, is an oxymoron.

When considering the unchartered territory America has navagated itself into, the only logical conculsion one can draw from basic observations is that the social environment of America is not of the same quality as it was when it produced a man like Ronald Reagan.

Carter was rejected because the population of America was in my opinion significantly less imbibed with moral relevance, etc., had had greater moral clarity.

The dumping of mass numbers of the untouchable “multiculutral” caste into the American population stream has ensured only further loss of the American identity, for which I would sadly but objectively argue is lost forever.

Andrew2 is thinking pessimistically, if not irrationally. Things are bad, but we must persevere—so many victories have been won through perseverance: Moscow, Stalingrad, Iwo Jima, Battle of the Bulge, Khe Sanh, etc. If you want to experience sacrifice, read Colonel Hackworth’s Brave Men.

Paul Henri,

Thinking Pessimistically for sure, but not irrationally. The historic battles you reference were fought by men who were rightly called the greatest generation. Their victory was won on the battlefield in a time when war was not ambigious.

The cold war was won by people who had a clear vision and objective, without the degree of public polorization now seen in battling Islamism, argubly the greatest threat in world history.

The new war is a social/cultural battle where demographic trends demand the eventual extinction of the very culture that gave rise to the victories you reference.

Andrew 2 is of course correct that logic in itself cannot be hopeful, in the sense of being full of hope or characterized by a quality of hope. Yet logic can lead to hopeful results.

He is also correct that we are not the same country we were in 1979 and that there is no Reagan-like figure on the horizon. My hope for a second Reagan is of the same order as, or rather is an expression of, my hope for a restoration of traditional Western and American culture—something which is not supported by the immediate evidence, yet which we feel within is, which animates us, and which may lead to positive results which cannot now be seen. Reagan’s own achievements transcended ordinary logic: who could have foreseen that cutting taxes while increasing military spending, and thus vastly increasing the deficit, would so transform America and the world that in 15 years the deficit would be wiped out?

I think that by design or by pure luck ( I bet on latter) there is a good chance, may be 50% or so, that we will stumble into a relatively acceptable outcome in Irag.

Shia at long last will locate their sorely missing guts that John Ring is convinced they have in abundance. With newly found guts Shia will crash Sunny and establish a semi-sane regime. A small plus for the US achieved at tremendous cost.

And while we all hope for a breakthrough, second coming of Reagan, the more reliable and realistic approach is to move in small steps by supporting candidates on all levels with some good ideas. And even more importantly, try to punish bad pols.

I still remember fondly crashing and burning of immigration-Uber-Alles Senator Abraham, Repub, Saudi Arabia, facilitated mainly by FAIR.

A small positive note. In my, uber liberal, state representative district a RINO multi-multi millioner (maybe billioner?) runs against old Dem who is to the left of Fidel Castro. For about 6 months RINO was running goofy commercials showing him reading book to Mexican kids. Suddenly, 2 weeks before elections, he is running commercials where he is against driving licenses for illegal immigrants (that’s the term RINO uses!) while Castro-clone is for them.
I think it is very important to encourage such small things.

Mik wrote:

“And while we all hope for a breakthrough, second coming of Reagan, the more reliable and realistic approach is to move in small steps by supporting candidates on all levels with some good ideas. And even more importantly, try to punish bad pols. I still remember fondly crashing and burning of immigration-Uber-Alles Senator Abraham, Repub, Saudi Arabia, facilitated mainly by FAIR.”

If you liked the smell of Abraham burning in the morning, you should feel even more strongly that way about Bush. Bush and Abraham are at one on immigration.

Andrew2 touches upon the fact that our civilization is really in a two front war: one from within and one from without. The reason we have been only marginally effective in opposing the jihadis lies with the fact that at least 1/2 of the Western populace has ingested liberalism’s Kool-Aid to one degree or another. That’s why Bush can’t see anything wrong with importing Muslims into the US. His vision of America is one of global propositionalism. He sees that the jihadis are a threat to this vision, but only to the extent that they reject liberalism.

Kerry and the left, who he represents, have a different view. They see the remaining shreds of Christendom as the greatest evil facing humanity, and actively seek its destruction, even to the point of open alliance with the jihadis. I can certainly understand sympathize with the idea that Bush, with his Evangelical jargon (at least one of his spiritial mentors is a ‘social-gospel’ liberal Methodist), is ultimately more harmful to Christendom’s remnant than Kerry, who is an open enemy.

So let’s stare into the abyss before us. What would a Kerry regime mean for the survival of the remnant? Kerry would have increased powers to use against his domestic enemies thanks to the panic-driven legislation passed in the wake of 9/11. A Dept. of Justice filled with Marxists would waste no time in declaring VFR, VDARE, and any number of conservative organizations as terrorist hate groups. Think the Republican weasels in Congress would mount serious resistance? Look how they stood up the treasonous sociopath Bill Clinton. After four years of Kerry, the US will be like Sweden. Pastors will be sent to jail for speaking against homosexuality and ultimately any church or synagogue that refuses to perform gay marriages shut down (the real objective of the gay marriage movement). At that stage, we may very well consider an alliance of our own with the jihadis.

We may very well end up as Sweden writ large with Bush and his gang of liberals as well, albeit more gradually. There are a few signs of life, though. The disgusting RINO Drier, one of the most powerful members of the House, is in a real battle for his seat which was assumed to be his personal fiefdom. Mr. Henri is right, we must fight on until they come to lock us up. We may lose anyway, but if we don’t resist defeat is guaranteed. The question for me, and I’m still far from completely decided, is which of the two awful candidates before us will be most easily thwarted in his destructive ambition.

To Mssngrs Levine, Mik, jhagan, Carl and Reg Caesar, hello! I have been waiting for this post to come back since Mr. Auster re-opened it.

Hope and reality (what will happen on Nov. 2nd and beyond). Will they intertwine? Conservatives are still divided on the choices before us—Bush, Kerry, The CP (Hi, Clark!) and other third parties, a write-in or a non-vote. My significant other cast a “non-vote” absentee the other day. I am voting Tuesday. I have only picked ONE winner in all the years I have voted (36)—not a very good record! But that is because I always voted for the man, not the party or “the one expected to win”. I was always “the oddball”. I marched to my own drummer. I voted for the man because I believed in him. Today, I am not proud of some of those votes, but then, I wasn’t a conservative then. The important thing is, I believed in those men. I don’t anymore. They are has beens, or dead.

Mik writes about “small steps” as the best way to get our goals accomplished. Bay Buchanan’s TeamAmerica is doing just that, and they have some small successes with Congressional candidates in the Midwest. They are “committed”, and that (eventually) pays off, if they can stay in business. I applaud what they do—they have stayed out of the Presidential fray and have been instead “focused” on small races, not big ones. The problem with small steps is you often lose a lot of people who can’t wait because many of them have been waiting since ‘88 for another Reagan, etc. Pat Buchanan wasn’t the man, and no other conservative “leader” has come forth. They are all either RINOs who love open borders and their big business donors, or they are small folk like Rep. Tancredo who is fighting to stay in Congress without help from the GOP who hate him. But, as we have discussed many times at VFR in the past, Tancredo is intellectual, a nice man, and not “the street fighter” or charismatic leader true conservatives need. Peroutka isn’t the answer, either, in my opinion. That person is going to be a multi-millionaire from the private sector, a Steve Forbes without the pock-marked face, an eloquent speaker and NOT “a nice guy”!

Until then, we have to live with either 4 more years of Bush (which I will find extremely difficult to do, financially and emotionally with his phony, teleprompted speeches about how the economy is doing well, his carefully screened audiences al la Clinton, and his “It’s hard work” as our boys are being killed for his vision on Iraq/The Middle East) or 4 years of Kerry and possibly the rebirth of the Democrat Party, which for all intents and purposes was in a decline.

Those of you who wish to vote for Bush, go right ahead. I still respect you! Those of you who vote The CP, my blessings. Those who don’t vote? My further respect. None of you have mentioned the Supreme Court ill health(s). I am so sick of what has already happened to that court (going the R.B. Ginsburg way) that I have NO confidence that a Bush win will mean conservative judges—Pappa Bush proved that with Souter, a truly wretched selection. So my feeling is, what if Kerry wins and tried to put two to three liberals on the Bench? The Senate will not allow certain selections. The Senate looks like it’ll stay Repub. The point is, there are no guarantees that either man will nominate conservatives. I have completely lost my faith in Bush.

A Bush win, however, would codify the RINO stranglehold on the GOP. Conservatives will be shut out as they have the past 4 years of the decision making (Rummy will be gone, and he has made some terrible mistakes in Iraq. I do not consider Wolfowitz to be a conservative—perhaps a hawk militarily with our boys’ lives, but not a true conservative. Certainly Cheney is no conservative. Powell??? I know—he’ll be gone, too). Why waste another four years of our lives?

Small steps? NOT!! As long as the RINOs (who are nothing more than liberals in GOP clothing) control the Party and the money, nothing will go our way. A conservative third party WILL be formed, whoever wins—of that, I am certain. Who will lead it? Who knows. Who will fund it? Who knows. It will, I am certain, be a party based on legal immigration and the deportation of all illegals. It will be a VERY different party than the GOP. There are enough strongly anti-open borders conservatives to make such a party strong and united.

I do have a question, though. Will Kerry as President dismantle The Patriot Act? Or would he let the courts do it?

I believe that there is a widely repeated myth, on this board and elsewhere, that a Bush victory means that the RINOs will be firmly in control, Bush’s policies will be vindicated, he can pursue his amensty agenda without caring what we think because he does not need to be elected again, etc. The GOP needs funds, and the amnesty issue cost them a LOT in fundraising, and not just from small donors. The reliable $10,000 per plate fundraising dinner attendees having been telling the GOP to take a hike.

Take a look at a comment I posted last July, with its documentation: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002384.html#18172

I realize that despair seems more popular in some quarters, but I really think people have no idea of the powere over the GOP that they hold.

Mr. Coleman seems to be getting increasingly irritated with others on this board, I’m not sure why.

First, I was not predicting total disaster if Bush is re-elected. My initial posting in this thread dealt only with Iraq policy. I said that a vote for Bush meant a continuation of the current disaster in Iraq, in which daily mass murders of Iraqis and Americans are accompanied by the repeated assurances by Bush that our policy is a “remarkable success.” This is one of my principal reasons for not voting for Bush. Since Mr. Coleman is also not voting for Bush, I don’t know why he’s now annoyed at the notion that a Bush victory would be bad news.

Second, my own view of the election prospects has not been not uniformly negative. As I wrote in “A Suddenly Hopeful Scenario for the Election,” on September 17th, a strong Republican victory, by incapacitating the left for a while, might have the effect of freeing conservative Republicans from the imperative to maintain unity in the face of the left, and thus might lead to real conservative resistance to Bush within the GOP and the Congress.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002566.html

My recent posting was mostly in response to the statements by Mr. Levin, such as “A Bush win, however, would codify the RINO stranglehold on the GOP. Conservatives will be shut out …” and “As long as the RINOs (who are nothing more than liberals in GOP clothing) control the Party and the money, nothing will go our way.” I was not referring to anything Mr. Auster has written.

Yes, I am getting increasingly irritated at pessimistic statements, because it seems to me that if people were politically active, they would be more aware of the resistance to Bush that is being presented from within the GOP. For example, GOP representatives in the House have repeatedly defeated Bush’s wishes on immigration in recent months.

As I’ve said many times before, it would avoid misunderstanding and assist the discussion if when posters have a disagreement with someone, they make clear exactly whom and what they are disagreeing with. I don’t find unspecified criticisms of “pessimism” to be helpful, for example.

I think Mr. Coleman is making a good point about the actual and potential resistance to Bush within the GOP. I saw some of the Senate subcommittee hearings on the Bush immigration proposal last Spring and the Republican senators in attendence made mince meat of it. My own feeling, contrary to that of many conservatives, is that Congressional GOP resistance to Bush’s immigration madness will continue even after a Bush victory.

There will be no Bush win or I will eat the paper it’s written….oh forget it.

President Bush will loose. My New York vote matters not a bit, it was intended to be an act of rejection of all that Kerry represents.

I would like to know how Kennedy feels about supporting Mondale over Reagan (for example) and now Kerry over Bush. Kennedy the godfather of the democratic syndicate will always vote along party lines even when it is detrimental to do so for the country. Speaking of criminality, he got away with the murder of Mary Jo Kopechne.

Is it possible the architect of the 1965 immigration and naturalism act would privately view the mess this disastrous piece of legislation caused to the health of the republic with serious reservations? Probably not, he lives the life of privileged elite and probably does not see the reality or gravity of the situation.

What makes Andrew so certain that Bush will lose?

In my humble opinion, I believe Bush will lose due to the fact that on a conservative website, conservatives are debating whether they will even go out to vote, let alone vote for Bush!

Here in Pennsylvania the Kerry people are working over time. Sierra Club, moveon.org, DNC call me *every* day. Liberals are foaming at the mouth. Here in downtown Philadelphia there is a person holding a Kerry/Edwards sign on every corner waving at cars. 8 out of 10 cars honk and honk repeatedly. Moveon.org and DNC people are everywhere.

Liberals think Bush is the anti-christ. This furor, combined with some classic Richard Daley-esqe voter fraud, is going to push Kerry over the top.

Mr. Auster,

Several things convince me Bush is a goner, all pretty standard. Example, the closeness of the race, the polarization of the nation and the excellent organization of the Democratic Party which covered its bases from the MTV get out the vote to class envy to fear mongering the draft and so on.

The disgraceful overseas propaganda campaign managed by Kerry’s sister Diane, managed to produce an good number of overwhelmingly Kerry absentee ballots which might put Kerry over the top in several key states. The republicans on the other hand I believe hold the more moral, principled position. But consider the values of the new society, just turn on your TV to see the value of morality today our nations moral compass cannot be relied upon. Even in the area of overseas ballots the US military has not been effectively utilized.

But my primary reason to predict a Bush loss has to do with my observations of the general public in America and in Europe where I am currently residing. I see that the anti-Bush disinformation campaign was greatly successful. Never in my life have I engaged so many ideologues who despise Bush on the basis of the all the media lies—logic, reason and facts don’t seem to matter to an astounding number of otherwise intelligent people.

I cannot explain this phenomenon except to say the hatred of Bush has polarized as never before voters who are of the university age, recent citizens who immediately vote democratic no matter what (except possibly the Cuban community of Miami) and those who just are desperate to get 9-11 behind us are an army for Kerry.

Finally the vast fortunes of some of the most powerful individuals like George Soros, Theresa Heinz spread cash all over the place and their desperation not to lose again guarantees all manner of outright fraud to not suffer the humiliation of 2000.

For the democrats, it is all or nothing. Their lawyers are at the ready to dissect the election, their operatives are busy preparing to carry out fraud (guaranteed voter disenfranchisement claims and racial instigation) and a court decision in Bush’s favor would be unlikely a second time because the court would be very sensitive to charges of republican partisanship.

Bush will not win barring some miracle in my opinion.

Consider the Republicans seeming inability to support the overseas vote from the US military (heavily republican) to see how this might bite them. The democrats have covered every front and especially the overseas one very well.

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/10015789.htm?1c

I’m fascinated by Andrew’s and Mark’s comments, which make similar points. In effect, your prediction is not based on the usual political calculations of polls, past election history, and so on. You are arguing on the basis of what you perceive as the _essence_ of the Democrats. You’re saying that they have a passion and a fury and a drive to win that will carry them to victory.

My own view, from last winter until recently, was also essentialist rather than based on polls. I looked at the kind of man Kerry was and said that this man had no realistic chance of winning, regardless of what the polls said. At the same time, I acknowledged the possibility of a different paradigm, which is that America has changed so much in recent years, especially with the Clinton fiasco which undermined whatever was left of public morality in a large of the country, that _anything_ could happen now, including the election of an unrepentant quasi-traitor like Kerry. Still, I continued to be believe the first paradigm and thought that Kerry had no chance. That has changed in recent weeks and I think Kerry could win. But I still think Bush is the favorite, by 4 to 1.

Speaking of Mondale:

“….Until this year, the record-holder for journalistic praise went to Walter Mondale..”

Bush is no Reagan but Kerry has the good fortune in his case to be running against a hated incumbent within a culturally transformed society.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041101-122452-4025r.htm

In response to Mark’s first point, this site is atypical and you can’t judge anything about the election from it. We are not mainstream conservatives, but traditionalists who are critical of much of the modern conservative movement. If you went to more mainstream sites, like Lucianne.com, you would see the pro-Bush passions that drive the Republicans and that are certainly equal to the passions of the Democrats, especially as the Republicans adore their candidate while the Democrats can barely stand theirs.

The historic precident of this election is that there are enormous elements of emotion and irrationality which do not follow any previous campaign models.

Therefore I think an arguement based on stastics and electorial trends which give the president the advantage will prove wrong in their obvious inability to gauge the irrational climate of the country.

Mr. Auster,

In regards to this site, you are correct: it is tradionalist and not mainstream. However, when one reads articles on National Review, the gist of the articles center around a feeling of “Hey…you think our guy’s bad? Check out that liberal flake from Massachusetts over there!”

I fear that Bush has destroyed the heart of conservativism. His fundamental flaw is not that he’s stupid; it’s that he confuses Wilsonian internationalism and locker room banter with conservatism.

Regardless of the polls, I think a lot of conservatives will either 1) stay home or 2) vote third-party. The Democratic furor is mind boggling. Here in Philadelphia, the DNC and moveon.org people are on every other street corner. They’re mobilizing; they’re foaming at the mouth. I walk the streets of this city everyday, so help me God I have not seen *one* Bush/Cheney ‘04 sticker.

On Saturday, a woman knocked on my apartment door. (Note: She wasn’t supposed to be in my building; but the front desk woman gladly let her in.) She was from moveon.org. She was looking for volunteers. She had a copy of my voter registration card in her hand! She demanded point blank: “Who are you voting for?”

I know I’m beating a dead horse here:

The moveon.org people just knocked on my door for the second time. They wanted to know what time I was voting tomorrow and if I could “check in” with the moveon.org representative (who will be wearing a orange jacket) to let them know that I was able to vote.

These people are motivated.