From a Small Acorn...

One of the reasons Bulimo Charisma is going to win the final lap of the Quadrennial Horse Races is because of an excellent and well coordinated campaign -- which, by the way, is an indication that, assuming a Bulimo administration is allowed to assume power, it will also be an excellent and well run administration.

This contrasts strongly with the Mad Cain campaign which, although in many ways well coordinated, instead of "excellent", deserves  the adjectives "dirty", "smear", "untruthful" and even "dangerous"

One the reasons that the Bulimo campaign gives us a glimmer of hope is that it has energized the young people and people who haven't been voting.  The reason that people haven't been voting is a political apathy in the USA which is startling in a western democracy -- a democracy which fancies itself as being an example and light to the world.

There are a number of reasons for this apathy which might be better termed political paralysis.  One of the main ones has always been difficulty, in fact obstacles in getting registered to vote and then actually casting a ballot.  Now there is nothing wrong in itself that citizens need to actually need to make an effort to vote.  However, there is a long tradition of keeping people from voting or having their votes counted when those people are of an ethnic, income or racial group likely to vote for the "wrong" party.

The classic example is of course the Dumbrats in the southern USA where poll taxes, literacy tests, registration fees and "good old boys" hanging around the courthouse were all intended and did keep those we now call black but then were known as "nigras". 

However, in today's USA it is the Repugnant party which has updated, modernized voter suppression and out right fraud in order to put a heavy thumb on the scales which they could not otherwise win.  Some of these methods are high tech things such as programmed computer "glitches" in electronic voting machines transferring votes to the "correct" party's candidate.  "Caging" of voters can also be high-tech in that computer models are used to select people to be struck from the voting rolls who are of the wrong income, ethnic or racial group.

Other methods can be much more crude but none the less effective for that.  The most effective is probably the smear campaign based on half truths.

An example, is ACORN (Association of Community Organization for Reform Now).   This is an umbrella organization with many activities among the poor and economically oppressed and, as to be expected, has received a lot of flack from Repugnant organizations and media pundits.  The focus this year has been upon their efforts to register voters who have difficulty it getting to register -- the poor and the elderly.  Why do the poor and elderly have difficulty?  The poor and elderly are more dependent on public transportation then others.  Public transportation the USA generally sucks.  

Another group that has difficulty are invalids, such as those in the Veteran hospitals and people from ACORN seeking to register invalid war veterans have been refused entry to the hospitals.  

But that is a small thing.  The law says that private organizations collecting registration forms must deliver all forms to the registration committees.  This is of course a great idea -- otherwise, they could throw out all forms that registered for the "wrong" party.  

What ACORN does do is triage the forms -- they divide then into three piles.  One pile is labeled as being okay as far as they know.  A second pile is labeled as doubtful. The third pile is labeled as being suspicious, that is probably incorrect or even specious.

However, what Repugnant organizations are doing is taking the third pile (which ACORN must, by law deliver) finding a lot of incorrect application forms and calling "voter fraud" -- and their media pundits scream it from radio and television.

This is a most effective smear campaign and has the effect (intended) to bring the results of the (s)elections in November in doubt.  They figure they are going to lose are already gearing up to attack a coming Bulimo administration.

Into this mixture is an element of hate which already exceeds the vitriol poured on the two Flintstone administrations.  

The bottom line is that Bulimo, whatever else I might think of his politics is a very brave man to wade into this maelstrom