The dirtiest of dirty tricks

Maybe by now you've heard what the Republicans are up to. It's beyond despicable. Take a look:

In various key states and districts, Republicans have initiated this dirty "robocalling" trick. Here, based on preliminary reporting coming in -- and Josh Marshall's website (www.talkingpointsmemo.com) is right on it -- is how it works:

On an automatic-redial system, registered Democrats are called again and again and again and again, at any time during the day or night, to hear what appears to be a message from the Democratic Party in support of the local Democratic Senate or House candidate. The object is to harass and annoy the hell out of these voters, to the point that they'll take out their anger on the Democratic candidate by not voting for him or her, or maybe deciding not to vote in the election at all.

In other words, yet another version of voter suppression in tight races, reminiscent of what Republican operatives (with ties to the White House) were convincted of in New Hampshire last year. In that case, involving the 2002 Senate election, the Republicans automatic-redialed the Democratic Party headquarters' phone lines in the final days before the election so that the Dems' get-out-the-vote campaign was totally jammed and rendered useless. The GOP candidate won the election. (Check out the story at here. )

The point here is that these 2006 "robocalling" attacks aimed at Democrats are happening at the last minute, and many Democrats may believe them to be real and get thoroughly pissed off at the Democratic candidates and decide to not vote for them or to stay home and not vote at all.

How is it possible that this is not against the law? Perhaps it is and the Republicans don't care. All they care about is winning the election. Then they can worry about their legal troubles later.

The above excerpt is from an article by Bernard Weiner entitled "URGENT! URGENT! Karl Rove's Last-Minute 'Robocalling' Tactic to Steal the Election".