I know this is a hot topic today, but I'll post anyway to see if I can add something to the mix. To summarize:

• Morality-based voting may have killed us. It doesn't make sense to us, but it's true.
• Obviously we have to re-connect with our own values and develop a more inclusive platform that gets more of America excited.
• We celebrate our differences.
• We have to identify what we have in common with the religious community.
• We must understand what we are up against, and where our assumptions about voting are incorrect.
• Let's look at some steps to become more inclusive and create some alliances with some potential partners.

Details below the fold.

However: They are stealing it again.

Look at this. What the SCLM learned last time is that if they can spin this game the right way, their employers and their employers stay happy.

If we challenge these results, especially in Ohio, it's likely already a pre-ordained reality that the Democrats are "trying to steal the election." Fox calls Ohio for Bush. Others follow suit. We might still win it; but unless the media shows some rare balls, we will lose the battle of perception. They learned this in Florida.

Okay, this is a bit of a general rant, but I also want us to keep an eye open for this.

Via Josh Marshall, this is the kind of thing we need to be looking for from Karl Rove in the last weeks of the campaign.

As has been said here again and again, we need to focus on the issues that matter (especially the Bush Forgot Osama meme), and avoid trapping ourselves in tar-pits like the Mary Cheney nonsense. But one other crucial action we have to be ready to take is to quickly and assertively deal with crap like this. The caption reads:

Voting for Bush is Like Running in the Special Olympics -- Even if You Win, You're Still Retarded.

It'll brighten your day if nothing else.

I think Tim Ryan is my new hero. We've been watching this in the office over and over again. Let's all give him some Turkee/Props.

222 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-5261
Fax: 202-225-3719

The teaser for the poll story on the front page right now (6:30 PM PT) has this to say:

The GOP is fucking with us. They know it. They know that by putting obviously non-representative speakers up there, that by going on-camera and lying their faces off, and by enjoying the inevitable post-convention bounce, they will send us into apopleptic seizures. Conniption fits. And mortal dread. They are doing it on purpose, because a) due to the bounce, it'll be a no-lose proposition for them, and b) anyway, it's part of the greater War on Liberalism.

As Atrios puts it: I'm starting to think that every dozen years ago the same bunch of corrupt idiots, or their intellectual progeny, get into power and proceed to screw things up until they get caught, at which point the "establishment," with which they're intimately intertwined, demands leniency, letting them go lurk underground until they're ready to pop up and screw things up all over again.

It's to the point where the old incompetency defense just doesn't cut it anymore. Somehow, these warlocks from the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century keep getting put on our payroll. And we keep paying them to do their best to instigate global clusterfucks wherever they can. It's the same goddamned cast of characters over and over again (you can see them here—scroll down to the bottom for the rogues' gallery of signatories). They seem to just take turns being the fall guy, since no one ever seems to pay a real price for any of these, er, High Crimes Against The State. Why do we put up with this? (The Wikipedia has a nice rundown of this Special Episode in our recent history.)

Today's question is, "What is the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?" The choices are:
A dirty front for the Bush campaign (currently at 45%);
A sign we need new campaign laws (2%); and
A group of patriotic vets challenging Kerry, which has stormed into the lead over the last couple of hours at 53%.

This would be a pretty strange trend for SFGate readers, to say the least. One would be correct in assuming that polls at the 'Gate generally tend to sway skeptically to the left on just about everything. Plus, since I frequently check in with the local news during the course of a normal day, I notice these silly polls more than I want to.

Obviously, it's easy to get around vote limits on these things (deleting cookies, multiple logins, etc.). But does anyone out there know about a freeper community that would give enough of a fuck to spam a silly ol' SFGate poll?

Paul Waldman at the Gadflyer points out that, just as they did in the 2000 election, the Bush league is slyly attempting to set expectations for Bush's performance in the Presidential debates so low, and his opponent's so high, that anything short of an outright nervous breakdown by Bush will leave the impression that he held his own, hung in there like a champ, or some such nonsense. Conversely, anything short of inter-galactic brilliance on the part of Kerry will be a disappointment.

The New York Times props some above-the-fold hackery this morning about how the "G.O.P. Blames Clinton for Intelligence Failures." Not surprisingly, Dennis Hastert and stooges are doing what they can to make sure that the spin on the 9/11 Commission report is good and proper.

It's important that House Democrats loudly call bullshit on this move right away.

Basra Car Bombs Kill 40, Wound Scores

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 40 people were killed and scores wounded in car bombings that hit three police stations in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Wednesday, a Reuters correspondent said.

He said he had counted 40 bodies at one Basra hospital. Among the dead were many children who had been traveling to kindergarten in a minibus that was caught in one blast.

If the Iraqis didn't hate what we've wrought upon them before, they sure do now. Sure, we didn't do this; but we sure brought it on.

There are no cute jokes or ironic statements about bad planning on the part of the neocons that can do this kind of atrocity justice.

When is the UN going to move in and take control of the US of A? We have created a menace that threatens everyone.

I am not a religious man, but have to say: God help us.