Now the battle will be in the courtrooms and Big Media studios after the election:
Six so-called "SWAT teams" of lawyers and political operatives will be situated around the country with fueled-up jets awaiting Kerry's orders to speed to a battleground state. The teams have been told to be ready to fly on the evening of the election to begin mounting legal and political fights. Every battleground state will have a SWAT team within an hour of its borders.
The Kerry campaign has recount office space in every battleground state, with plans so detailed they include the number of staplers and coffee machines needed to mount legal challenges.
"Right now, we have 10,000 lawyers out in the battleground states on Election Day, and that number is growing by the day," said Michael Whouley, a Kerry confidant who is running election operations at the Democratic National Committee.
While the lawyers litigate, political operatives will try to shape public perception. Their goal would be to persuade voters that Kerry has the best claim to the presidency and that Republicans are trying to steal it.
Democrats are already laying the public relations groundwork by pointing to every possible voting irregularity before the Nov. 2 election and accusing Republicans of wrongdoing.
Or as Terry McAuliffe might as well put it, paraphrasing Bluto Blutarsky, "This election isn't over until we say it's over." The Democrats faith in, and respect for, the will of the people has reached a new low as the DNC has apparently started to substitute its own bathwater for Kool-Aid. They've been repeating the tired lies about stolen elections, a hopelessly corrupt electoral process, and RNC efforts to disenfranchise voters for so long that they now are acting as though no election result, except one giving them a victory, will be valid.
Remember, though, that while 2000 was somewhat ad hoc on the part of everyone, this time the chaos and complete lack of goodwill is premeditated:
Gore didn't plan for the legal showdown, though few could have predicted it before Election Day. And he watched as Bush seized political advantage during the 36-day recount by publicly discussing a transition to the White House.
Not this time, promise Kerry's advisers. If there is doubt about the results, they will fight without delay.
"...as Bush seized political advantage ...," as usual, their language betrays their true feelings. But I'm curious what the criteria for "doubt" might be, and in whose mind must that "doubt" must reside. But why would there be any doubt about the results? I mean, aside from the Angry Left's blatant efforts to sow discord, contempt, and fear in the electorate. Prepare to reap the whirlwind.
"The first thing we will do is make sure everybody has an opportunity to vote and every vote is counted," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.
Their respect for the process is touching. Or, rather, it would be if they weren't going out of their way to prevent the mailing of absentee ballots to those overseas, i.e., the United States Armed Forces, by waiting until the last moment to file their anti-Nader lawsuits.
But it's not as though they really accepted the results in 2000 either. In the next paragraph notice the rather smarmy neglect to note that every single announced result from 3 November 2000 on awarded Bush the election. Why wouldn't he act as though he won?
Amid the tumult of the 2000 recount, Bush sought to make his presidency appear inevitable time by leaking word of his national security team and bringing news cameras into his transition meetings. Gore and his staff were more reluctant to talk about the appointment process.
Folks, we really are on the verge of becoming a Banana Republic here.