Josh Marshall at Talking Points correctly notes that history is prologue, and what we hear from the Republican Party before, about vote fraud, we have heard before, for years and should be evaluated in that context.  The same Party now claiming fraud bent the law and manipulated the law enforcement process to prove their point.  When the proof was not forthcoming, the US Attorneys who had shown themselves to be insufficiently pliant--"on the program"--were fired.  Administration operatives,  mindful of the legal and political perils of their course, lied about it, but the lies have been exposed and a Special Prosecutor has been appointed.

    This is one episode among many in the determined struggles of the Republican Party over the years to prove "fraud" and justify measures to prevent against it. It stands out in this history because of the seriousness of the abuses of power to which Republican operatives were prepared to resort to accomplish this mission.  That a Special Prosecutor is now looking into the matter should be more than enough to persuade media and other observes to entertain only warily the new "fraud" campaign now underway.

    Yet the Republicans and the McCain campaign understand that their daily calls will (as they must) be covered and that repetition--simple, committed, ceaseless repetition--can eventually force its way into a relatively generous share of the media space.  The repetition carries farther and wider if the material conveyed is sensational.  This is the strategy:  apocalyptic pronouncements issued on a carefully plotted schedule, built into a press routine.

    There are three objectives that Republicans have in view as they implement this strategy:

  1.  To give the appearance of solidity to the windy claims of fraud.  If the allegations are asserted over and over again, an audience might be assembled to belief that there is a serious danger of massive illegal voting. 

  2.   To impute responsibility for this state of affairs to the opposition, scoring a political point and rummaging around for the vote or two that might be won by making these charges.

  3.  To promote the impression of an electoral process in breakdown, with the hope that voters will be frightened or discouraged.

  4.  To position themselves for a challenge, should they wish to bring it, to the integrity of the election.

     On this last objective: no one will be fooled.  A country with 80%-plus popular belief that the country is headed very much in the "wrong direction" might have reasons for seeking a change in governance.  And the disingenuousness of this line of attack won't be lost on anyone either: in 2004, the Republicans warned darkly about fraud, until the election produced a second term for George Bush, satisfying Republicans that it must have represented the true will of the people and a mandate for governance.

    But the Republicans will stay on this march, believing in the power of the Daily Call and the savage Talking Point. Of the dwindling assets remaining, the one yet to be exhausted is the call on press attention; and if unlike the l980s, when the courts ordered an end to the practice, they can no longer send into the polling places militias--"pollwatchers" with armbands, guns and two-way radios--they can try for some effect with discouraging words for the voters, driving perhaps some away from the polls, just by working the phones.

Bob Bauer