Even good guys like Eugene Robinson write drivel like this:

The depressing nature of this endless campaign went beyond negative ads, however. Examine the messages that were delivered by the two parties and then try to find a reason to be filled with hope about the future.

. . . The Democratic Party had the advantage of having been out of power during the whole Iraq misadventure, which gave every Democratic candidate an even simpler message to transmit to voters: Look, I'm not George W. Bush.

In terms of politics, that was smart. But "not George Bush" doesn't qualify as much of a vision for America's future. At some point, it can't be enough just to list all the problems the Republicans have created or failed to address. What are the solutions?

"Not George Bush" is a very compelling vision of the future. The solutions will come in the GOVERNANCE, not the politics. This endless whining from a Media that does not even UNDERSTAND the issues, much less cover them (can we have ANOTHER story on John Kerry's botched joke please?) is the most sanctimonious hypocritical load of crap of all.

It was the kind of story Dateline loves: set up a camera outside a house to film the perp as the police arrest him and march him off to jail. The police love these stories, as well, because they give visual evidence to local residents that law enforcement is doing something productive.

The story didn't end as Dateline expected. Instead of surrendering himself to the police who pounded on his door, Louis Conradt Jr. shot himself. Conradt, a prosecutor, had been set up by Perverted Justice, a group of people who lurk in chat rooms, posing as minors, hoping to lure adults into a seemingly illicit chat. Conradt allegedly agreed to meet a chatter posing as a 13-year-old boy.

Dateline considers itself blameless. Its voyeuristic obsession with sex crime arrests didn't have anything to do with Conradt's suicide, it claims, because Conradt didn't know he was about to be filmed. Maybe, or maybe a neighbor called him to ask why a film crew was hanging out in his yard. In any event, it isn't Dateline's job to shame a presumptively innocent internet chatter by filming his perp walk as police show up unannounced to haul him out of his home. This is tawdry theater, not journalism.

TChris wrote about the Wisconsin robocalls earlier. Josh Marshall is following all the developments (20 districts so far) and explains how they work.

Crooks and Liars has some CNN video about the scam.

Is this what Karl Rove meant when he said he had special plans for 72 hours before the election?

I'm in Washington, D.C. for the CNN election night blogger party coverage which will begin at 5pm ET. You can view it live at CNN Pipeline (14 day free trial required) and you may see us from time to time on CNN's Situation Room. CNN internet reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton will be with us. Pipeline has four feeds you can watch simultaneously, the bloggers will be one of the channels most of the night.

Big Tent, TChris and maybe even Last Night in Little Rock will be blogging at TalkLeft as well.

I got in around 5 pm today, hooked up with John Amato from Crooks and Liars, and Christy, TRex and Pach from Firedoglake. We went over to the Tryst, where we'll be tomorrow night. It's a large, very cool, very funky coffee house with high ceilings, great food, tables, couches and a bar.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow, so many races are just so close. Bottom line: We get the Government we elect.

I do not know how they come up with this stuff:

Some Democrats worry that those forecasts, accurate or not, may be setting the stage for a demoralizing election night, and one with lasting ramifications, sapping the party’s spirit and energy heading into the 2008 presidential election cycle.

“Two years ago, winning 14 seats in the House would have been a pipe dream,” said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic organization. Now, Mr. Bennett said, failure to win the House, even by one seat, would send Democrats diving under their beds (not to mention what it might do to all the pundits).

“It would be crushing,” he said. “It would be extremely difficult.”

Mr. Cook put it more succinctly. “I think you’d see a Jim Jones situation — it would be a mass suicide,” he said.

Who in the heck told them this? This is nuts. Sure I and most Dems would be disappointed. We expect to take the House and should. But crushing? For crissakes.

The Washington Monthly has an interesting series of articles providing a pre-mortem on the elections. The idea is to take the two outcomes, generally Dems win and/or GOP wins, and give advice. A lot of the articles are good but I really like my friend Ed Kilgore's piece, and am taking it to heart:

First, share the credit and forget about blame. Inevitably, some in the party will interpret the victory as a vindication or repudiation of one theory or another about how to win elections. . . There’s never one path to political success, and there’s no guarantee that the political landscape in two years will look anything like it does today. . . .

Mark Green vacated his congressional seat to run what appears to be a losing campaign to unseat Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle. A rabidly conservative state Republican legislator, John Gard, is running for Green's seat against a surprisingly popular Democrat, Steve Kagen. The race is close, so the dirty tricks should come as no surprise.

Repeat calls to the same home with the same message are being made in the 8th Congressional District, where Kagen is locked in a tight race with Republican John Gard, said Kagen spokeswoman Stephanie Lundberg.

"People are getting incessantly called," she said, noting that similar complaints had cropped up in other competitive House races around the country. The calls describe Kagen positions in ways Gard and Republicans have portrayed him, for example, saying he favors raising taxes, Lundberg said. Kagen supports rescinding some of the President Bush tax cuts for "the wealthy."

The president can still find enthusiastic audiences for his "stay the course but adapt to win" and "Democrats want the terrorists to prevail" messages. He found one in Pensacola, where he had kind words to say about Charlie Crist and Katherine Harris. Harris was in the audience (if you were the president, would you want to share a stage with Katherine Harris?), but not Crist.

[Crist] said he considered the Pensacola area so firmly in his camp that it made more sense to campaign elsewhere as the race tightened to replace outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush.

Translation: I think I'm winning this election, and I don't want to blow it by sharing a stage with President Bush or an audience with Katherine Harris.

Update: The FBI is investigating.

original post:

The last-ditch campaign to save the Republican Senate may be underway in Virginia:

The Virginia State Board of Elections has received complaints of several instances of alleged voter intimidation and suppression in multiple localities in the commonwealth.

The Virginia State Board of Elections is investigating complaints that voter suppression tactics have been unleashed in African American and Democratic neighborhoods. They include telephone messages like this one:

“This message is for Timothy Daly. This is the Virginia Elections Commission. We've determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote on Tuesday. If you do show up, you will be charged criminally."

Other voters have been told -- falsely -- that their polling place had changed.

Apparently Republicans believe they constitute all whites:

Congressman John Lewis, Former Mayor and Wal-Mart star Andy Young, and current Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin have up a very vile ad attacking white people, which you can listen to here.

As a listen to the ad demonstrates, it is an ad criticizing Republicans, not white people. What does Michael Steele think of this Red State idea that Republican = white?

BTW, the idea of the author of the vile Georgia Voter ID law lecturing JOHN LEWIS on racism is rather sick.

Gawd help us, let's hope SUSA wins the polling sweepstakes this year. First Webb up 8 and now:

Since Survey USA began polling likely Missouri voters months ago, the cliffhanger race has see-sawed frequently. The day before the election, Survey USA, in a poll exclusively for KSDK in St. Louis, found that McCaskill had opened up a lead, getting support from 51% of likely voters in Missouri, and Talent getting 42%. This is the first time one candidate has been deemed to have a lead significantly outside the margin of error (+/-3.3 in this poll).

The "shrill" Josh Marshall:

Atrios has this right. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and Fox are each ignoring the GOP's nationwide campaign of false-flag robocalls meant to harass voters and fool them into thinking the calls come from Democrats. If it were Dem on GOP, if it were on Drudge, the cable nets would be on it wall-to-wall. As it is, they're content to ignore it.

That's because the powers-that-be in the mainstream media are in the tow of the Republican party. The Halperins and Crowleys of the news biz are all part of the same corruption.

Like Halperin says, Drudge rules their world.

You have to understand that and absorb that before you can set about doing what's necessary to change it.

Well, we get to hear a bunch of "pundits" spout nonsense about the "state of the race." So newsworthy.

UPDATE: ABC covered it on its nightly news. I am sincerely shocked. Good for ABC.