Tips For The Coming Carbon-Poor Era -- And Other Things

The evening of the 2004 election, Son, D-i-L, and I sat down in front of the tv set with pizza and wine and got ready to celebrate. I had some very nice champagne chilling for later in the evening. We watched as the results came in. Then, all of a sudden, we saw film of reporters trooping into the WH and heard the announcer saying that this had never happened before, but that they were being invited up to the family quarters where Bush was watching the results come in. I took one look at Bush's face and knew right away that the game was up. He'd heard from Karl that their Diebolding in Ohio and Florida had worked and would throw just enough votes their way for them to pretend to have won. It took a few more hours for the "results" to be official, but there wasn't any doubt in my mind. If you, too, often "read" people's faces and body language fairly clearly, you know what I'm talking about.

I remembered how, shortly after her unflattering Bush biography had come out, Kitty Kelley had been asked what the Bush WH thought might happen if they lost the upcoming election and she basically responded, "They don't. They don't imagine for even a minute that they're not going to win." At the time, I remember thinking that they were either the best poker players in the business (all politicians believe that they need to act as if they are going to win in order to get those voters who like to be on the "winning team") or they know something about the voting machines that no one else knows. On election night 2004, I had my answer.

Over the past few weeks, I've wondered at Rove's inability to control the press; the more times Americans hear that the Democrats are going to sweep the upcoming midterm election, that Republican voters are less likely to even show up than Democrats, that even previously safe, incumbent Republican seats are now up for grabs, the more difficult I'd think it would be for the Republicans to steal this election in plain sight, especially without some October or early November "Surprise" that could be spun as having flipped just enough voters to make the theft credible. But I still don't expect the Republicans to allow Diebold to allow the Democrats to obtain a majority in either, and certainly not in both, houses. There are two reasons for this belief. First, they can't afford to allow the investigations that Democratic control of Congress would ensure. Second, why should they? They've gotten better and better over the past six years at stealing just enough votes in just the right voting precincts to ensure that they win. Why would they give that up voluntarily? They're not going to spend more years in jail for stealing one more election than they would for having stolen the last three, so why stop now?

So you can imagine how I felt this morning when I read this:

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

In the Senate, Rove and associates believe, a Democratic victory would require the opposition to "run the table," as one official put it, to pick up the necessary six seats -- a prospect the White House seems to regard as nearly inconceivable.

The Mark Foley page scandal and its fallout have many Republicans panicked, but Rove professes to be taking it in stride. "The data we are seeing from individual races and the national polls would tend to indicate that people can divorce Foley's personal action from the party," he said in a brief interview Thursday.

The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, "We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate."

The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence -- based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology [!] and other assets [coughDieboldcough] at their command -- or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, though they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides.

Of course, the WaPo, like the rest of the MSM and the entire Democratic leadership refuse to acknowledge the (you should pardon the expression) elephant in the room: Diebold. The shy reference to "technology" is as close as they're going to get. Bush isn't delusional (about this, at least) nor does Karl Rove have some psychic ability to predict things no one else can see. The Bush WH is confident that they'll win because they know that Diebold will ensure that they win. My guess is that they'll allow a few seats in both Houses to flip over to the Democratic side, but that's all.

Then, the talking heads will blather on about how voters just didn't like the mean, negative campaigns that the Democrats ran (you know, those same voters who were, supposedly, flipped by the Swift Boaters) and about how maybe now the Democrats will learn to be more like Republicans. The DNC will blame the nasty bloggers and rowdy netroots and promise to rid the party of our noxious presence. And on it will go. Conservatives will crow about owning the next 100 years and the Dobsons and Fallwells will rush for the cameras, trying to convince people that the Republicans own them big time. No one will dare to suggest that the Republican Party has become the party of voter theft. That just wouldn't be civil.

It's a great racket. Steal stuff in plain sight and count on the fact that if your theft is brazen enough, everyone will be afraid to point out that you just stole.

On another subject entirely, did you know that if you soak a big branch in water for a day or so, and then take an oil-soaked rag and wrap it around the top of the branch, you can light the rags and make a nice old-fashioned flash-light kind of a thing that will burn for a long time but not burn your hand? Also, on yet another unrelated subject, a pitchfork is a wonderful tool to use in the garden. It's especially good for burying manure underneath the garden soil in order to get a new gardening start in the Spring.