Going to attack Iran prior to the election, I'd bet.

Desperation. Pure and simple. What other attitude can they express? Graceful defeat? No.
Hope for the best? No. They are lying cowards with no shame. They are brazening it out.
Full stop.

Probably a combination of tactics, including, as mf2112 implies, vote fraud and disenfranchisement, and (I think I read it here) ships massing in the Persian Gulf in preparation for some sabre rattling.

A proven track record of being able to fool enough of the people when it really counts? Messianic complex? Disdain for polls as a product of the Liberal media, or as an inherently liberal-biased obsession with facts?

I just think these guys are posturing to their base. If they show concern, the base will give up and stay home.

It's a bluff and from my observation, a pretty common political technique. Act like a winner to look like a winner to be a winner. Rove did a similar thing on election day '04 by excitedly talking on a cell phone in full view of about 20 news cameras. Granted, at that time he had reason to be excited, but I get the feeling he would have put on the same show if the news had been bad.

The reports that I read (NYT) said that Rove and Bush were expecting to lose 8-10 seats but not the majority in the House. If we expect that things will close somewhat by election day, I think the safest prediction is that the House will be almost evenly split (a 12-18 seat Democratic gain). Many prognosticators are predicting that the Dems will pick up 30 seats which seems just as unlikely. Yet we don't consider them delusional. I'm no Bush supporter. But his confidence is a good reminder not to count our members of the Democratic majority before they are hatched!

They know they can stave off loss of the Senate by redirecting money and attack ads to VA, TN, and possibly NJ. They can TRY the same tactic for holding a slim majority in the House, but even if they lose that, they can still ram SCOTUS and similar appointments through and stonewall objectionable legislation the House DOES pass. The mindset, therefore is, "Things could be worse. We could be in jail."

I'm not sure a military strike against Iran would be beneficial for the administration at this point. I would guess there would be a backlash given,what we all know, transpired prior to the Iraq invasion.

I'd be curious to know if anyone remembers how the Clinton administation was reacting when they were about to lose control of congress? Did the polls seems to reflect how badly they would lose and what were they saying in the press?

Voter suppression and electronic voter fraud gets my bet.

It's Bravado. If the polls are right and they lose no one really remembers or cares about their prediction. On the other hand if they do keep control of the House and Senate they look like geniuses. They become Joe Namath in '69 or
Mark Messier in '94 guaranteeing the win.

How, exactly, would they 'fix' 468 separate elections for Congress?

The opposition has to play their designated role in the political Theatre. Just like Alan Colmes. Any talk about election rigging opens them up to tin foil hat charges. When the polls are 90 to 10, it is hard to rig an election. But when the polls are 47 to 49--it becomes extremely easy. Our elections are easier to rob than Bank of America.

"If you talk about it, even the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible." -Herman Hesse

Bluff. Mostly directed at their putative supporters.

I've been wondering, by the way, how well their GOTV database is gonna work this time around. Their identification techniques (by periodicals read, products consumed, etc) may break down in this environment. The may turn out voters who are fed up and disillusioned rather than on board the wingnut bus, especially those who are not registered republicans.

They've had no time to do the work to adjust the models to reflect the Foley scandal.

Maybe this whole idea that Bush and Rove are so confident is just so much bs. Think about it: the only people who would know this are people who are pretty loyal to the Bush administration. Maybe the spin is being made to buck up the hearts of GOP volunteers in the face of so much bad news. That's the trouble with sources that won't go on the record, there is no way for us to judge their credibility.

If you have to ask that question--then you have not been following the issue very closely. And anyway, they don't have to fix 468--far fewer seats are in play--many of them quite close. As I type this,there is an ad to the right that says: Election officials try to steal another Florida election. Paid for by Tim Mahoney. Anyway, do your own due diligence.

"If you talk about it, even the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible." -Herman Hesse

I'm a programmer. The fix is in, and this is why.

1. Exit polls did not fit election results in 2004. This is flat out impossible to believe; those same exit poll operations were in danger of being shut down in the 90's because they were *too* accurate, and the western states were complaining that the preditions were so spot on that voters might be staying home instead of voting in an already decided race. Statistics don't stop working, suddenly, in contested areas only. One side doesn't just start lying to the pollsters. It can't happen.

2. Election results didn't match pre-election telephone polls in 2004. Again, impossible.

3. Documented case of media being shut out of an electronic recount in Ohio because of a "threat received from Homeland Security" that was never issued. Results in that recount swung wildly for the Republicans and Bush.

4. I'm a programmer, and I state categorically that there is no way to secure a computer system against intentional manipulation. And it seems that these machines are set up for manipulation; they weren't even trying to hide.

5. At least two attacks, one sanctioned and one independent with a machine somehow obtained from the field, showed that the machines can be manipulated so many ways, without detection, that my fingers would fall off trying to list them.

6. A very small number of people are needed to change the results. No actual human intervention at the machine or the agregator is needed. They can phone the changes in.

7. Exit polls have been discontinued because they are "inaccurate". Garbage. They are no longer being done because the exit polls will not match the coming election results. This isn't a prediction, this is a flat out statement of fact.

8. I'm guessing that someone in the Republican party is well aware of the fix, even if Bush and others are intentionally left out of the loop, and this explains why Rove is so very, very confident.

9. The Republicans will hold on to both houses, impossibly, by slim margins in the most constested areas. Recounts will be useless, as they simply feed the same doctored tabulations through the aggregators again.

10. The only evidence of the coming theft will be the results of the phone polls conducted prior to the election. Another prediction: the news outlets will discover that telephone polls don't work anymore, either.

I think it's less of a bluff than it is Rove keeping up appearances for his boss. Rove has built an inpenetrable shield of lies around Bush akin to the Matrix and he knows that a collapse of that facade would risk Bush actually seeing the world for what it is. The prospect of that moment must be too awful for old Karl to contemplate.

I would say they're bluffing. They've done this before. Remember back in 2000, Bush and Rove went on their victory lap the week before the election claiming they had a 3-5 point margin of victory only to essentially lose the election (if it hadn't been for dumb look and the Supreme Court, instead of being hailed as a genius, Rove would either be teaching at some state university somewhere or running some senate campaign somewhere).

They might know something we don't know, but I can't see where anyone at this point would think invading Iran, even if it were feasible, would be a good election trick. The Republicans look like they're going to lose this election because of the Iraq War, so the best way to prevent that would be by invading an even more powerful version of Iraq? Does anyone really think that's a good election idea? And even if by some odd chance it would work in 2006, such a strategy would almost certainly insure the Republican Party would go the way of the Whigs and the Federalists?

At this point, barring some major, unforeseen twist in the Republicans' favor in the next few weeks, if the Democrats don't win a substantial victory in November I would say we'll have to admit the paranoid fear that the Republicans are tampering with the computer voting booths is probably correct.

One last post, why isn't anyone talking more about the fact that the Hussein verdict is going to be announced 5 November? I don't see it having much of an impact on the election, if anything it might anger voters even more by reminding them yet again about Iraq. But I still think it's signficant and I think it's interesting that no one's talking more about it. Clearly the Bush Administration must have thought the verdict would help them in the election, what do others think about this.

But in order to pull this bluff off, they have to take the same positions in internal discussions. Any expressions of concern or uncertainty will leak. It's hard to tell whether keeping a confident demeanor disrupts strategy or not--they seem to moving their money around in realistic responses to poll numbers. In most endeavors, though, an honest assessment of your position is pretty much essential to any kind of success.

Voter suppression, Diebold, court challenges with claims of voter fraud, challenges in the HoR, rallying round the flag when they begin to bomb Iran.

Seems like a long time since we've had "major" terror arrests. I'd expect the ol' rainbow homeland security scale to be on red in about a week.

That's the only card they've got left - deflated gas prices aren't working - they'll play it up big time.

-----
Romani Ite Domum

It helps set the stage for allegations of massive voter fraud,probably with illegal immigrants as the culprits.

If they lose they will do everything they can to impugn the legitimacy of the election.

I, too, believe they will steal enough seats to remain in power. Before 2004 I kept thinking-looks good if it's a fair election, but why would it be a fair election?-and sure enough they stole it. This time around there's a new Republican disaster every minute hanging another albatross and another and another around their necks. And the country was already disaffected by the continuing nightmare in Iraq, New Orleans and anywhere else you care to look. Seems increasingly unlikely they would win in a fair election. But I repeat why would they let it be fair? And since so many people still believe they won in 2000 and 2004 it makes it that much easier to fool people into thinking they've won again. Bush has NEVER been elected president.
Why don't you ever talk about this, Josh? Jon Stewart doesn't seem to have it on his radar either. We count on you guys. Our election system is compromised. We need to raise a ruckus about this. I love your sight and you provide an invaluable service to those of us who want to understand what's going on but until our votes mean something what difference can we make? We've been neutered.

I happen to think that securing the accuracy and integrity of an election is foundational to a representative Democracy. There is no reason why elections cannot be made trustworthy--unless someone WANTS to game the system. And the system has been gamed--in every way--from the beginning. Until this issue is address--no other issue comes close in importance. We cannot begin to have policy discussions until we can guarantee the integrity of an election. It is the only political movement that counts, at this point.

"If you talk about it, even the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible." -Herman Hesse

Military action plus stealing a crucial percent of votes.

1) A few speeches by Bush around 9/11/06 created an approx. 5% spike in approval. They'll have the Saddam verdict two days before the election. What's your bet that will be accompanied by some speechifying? Ergo, probably a bump up in approval of Rethugs.

2) Military action in the ten days to two weeks before the election. Something like blockading the Straits of Hormuz, or maybe bombing some supposed nuclear installation in Iran. (Not N Korea, I think. That's just a huge embarrassment they'd like everyone to forget. But who knows?) There's still people out there who'll rally behind Dear Leader in a war situation, manufactured or not. Another 5% to 6%.

Even with a current approval rating for Republicans in Congress somewhere in the 30s, we're up to the mid-40s by now.

3) Steal the remaining 5.1%, as per usual. They have that system running on rails by now. Difficulties voting in Dem districts, isolated machine problems, fliers telling people to vote on Wednesday, and--crucial element--all the rest of us saying, "Stolen election? Can't be. It just can't be. Not in the U. S. of A."

http://acid-test.blogspot.com/

Their current posture is presumably some combination of game face, power of positive thinking, and overconfidence, but there may also be a more practical factor. In the runup and aftermath of '00, I read (can't recall where) that Rove was getting faulty polls, some of which showed GWB winning PA easily (actual: Gore by 4) and MI as a tossup (actual: Gore by 5). Could be happening again . . .

I don't know...the polls are SO against them that tampering can only be done carefully, even if they do it selectively, which I agree is all they need. Democrats are finally pissed off enough that they're not sitting down and taking it--finally, though it took too, too damn long--and such a discrepancy might lead enough Democrats to push back. Traditional voter suppression--too few voting booths in Democratic areas, purging lists, ID laws, etc.-- is less trackable and more effective. Although takes more effort than the one hour it takes to hack a Diebold machine, it's "squishier"--easier to argue about, which simply leads your opponent into a messy, digressive argument and therefore off-track.

And besides, they didn't "steal" 2000 with computer hacking--not enough machines around. They did it through the Supreme Court and stirring things up in Florida. And if they really use a Diebold-hack strategy, all they need is one hacker to flip--the Democrats to get just one hacker to crack--and game over. Enough Republicans are turning against them that this is getting risky.

Still, I think they're partly depending on this, probably depending on some sort of October surprise, carefully placed rumors, and such, but I also think sasetc. is right on--they lock on to failed policy, and stick to it. Bush is a poster boy for denial. I don't think he thinks he cooked the evidence for the Iraq war, and I don't think he is cynically lying about the collapse of Iraq now. The guy lies to himself, which makes lying to others so easy. I do think overconfidence is part of it, and it may be what brings them down.

How much of this is my wishful thinking--wanting them hoist on their own petard--and how much of this is good analysis, I'm not sure. Honestly, I think all of us are guessing to some degree. Josh, you're a historian--you know about contingency and unpredictability. That's also in play.

Re: Exit polls did not fit election results in 2004. This is flat out impossible to believe

Actually there are several reasons (both legitimate and illegitimate) the exit polls may not fit the final tallies. Key fact about exit polls is that they are taken in the morning and the unspoken assumption is that voting behavior is invariant over time: if some X percent of the voters at 8am are voting for John Doe then X percent of the voters at 6pm will be voting for him too.
Legitimate reason 1: The exit polls themselves induced the GOP (and GOP voters) to get out the vote so that later voters tended to be GOP voters.
Illegitimate variant 1: the GOP also did what they often accuse the Democrats of doing and “voted the cemeteries”
Legitimate reason 2: Democrats are more likely to vote in the morning, perhaps because they are more likely to work afternoons or to have Tuesdays off (perhaps because they are retired or unemployed) while GOP voters tend to hold 9-5 jobs and so vote more heavily in the evening.
Illegitimate variant 2: the GOP made sure that Democrat voters in strongly Democrat precincts seeking to vote late would be massively inconvenienced by long lines and malfunctioning voting machines hence would become discouraged and not vote, thus skewing the late voting totals toward the GOP.

As for “bugged“ voting machines, having worked for software companies, I find it extremely unlikely that anyone could get away with it. Any technical person employed in such a company would have access to the code (which would also have to be tested to a fare-thee-well, especially if such a ploy were attempted, as software failure could be catastrophic) and there’s no way the employer could be sure that their workforce would not include Democrats or even just honest Republicans. One outraged employee (or simply disgruntled ex-employee) and the scam would be blown out of the water with extreme consequences for both the company, its managers and CEO, and the party they were cheating for.
Conspiracies requiring the active cooperation of large numbers if people simply do not work and are far too risky to attempt. The scandal of 2000 and 2004 is the scandal of vote suppression at which the GOP absolutely excels, and it is here that efforts at insuring honest elections should be concentrated.

Finally, Bush and Rove’s confidence is hardly surprising. These guys are notoriously disconnected from reality and pleasantly imagine all is going well when it’s raining cluster-events outside. See: Iraq.

=== As for “bugged“ voting machines, having worked for software companies, I find it extremely unlikely that anyone could get away with it. ===

That is somewhat contradicted by the e-mail archive that leaked out from the large voting machine provider that described how they routinely hacked[1] the database when it crashed (which being based on Microsoft Access(!) it did quite often, as I can well believe). Even if you accept that those people were working with the best will in the world and had no nefarious intent, the fact that they routinely hacked the voting data for years (and probably still do) without anyone finding out makes it clear that it would not be that hard to commit fraud.

sPh

[1] Real definition of "hacked", not current traditional media negative definition.

Rawstory now running a teaser:

Republican sources tell Raw House GOP losing hope, believe Dems have new 'October surprise...' Soon...

UN observers, anyone?

Tom

The Republican's ability to tamper with voting machines is a real possibility. From this week's Economist:

"In September three scientists at Princeton University got hold of the most popular touch-screen model and took it and its software to bits. They found serious flaws allowing a competent hacker to infect the machine with a program to transfer votes from one candidate to another. Such a change could be undetectable without a recount (assuming one were possible), and the program could be introduced into the machine far in advance by anyone having access to the machine's memory-card reader for as little as a minute. The readers are protected by a lock, but the lock is a standard one, and keys can be bought on the internet: besides, the keys circulate among election officials. And the researchers found that their program could be spread from machine to machine via the memory-cards. Voting-machine companies make things worse by keeping their software secret: were it published, security experts would be able to assess it and recommend fixes."
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8028608

There has been recent news that the Republican party is re-deploying money from some races to others. The explanation is that they are moving the money from races they expect to lose to races they think are winnable. This is plausible, but it would also be interesting to know if they are moving money away from districts where most of the voting machines are Diebold-style, non-paper-trail-generating machines. Why spend the extra money on a campaign when some clever programming can fix the result in a nontraceable manner?

I'm not sure why so much is being read into this...?

Bush and Rove are still overconfident about IRAQ, let alone the election. Has either of them ever shown any emotion other than smug overconfidence?

We're talking about the guy who made jokes about not finding WMD while American soldiers in Iraq were dying, looking for WMD.

They have one card, and that's all they know how to play. If they weren't overconfident, then I'd worry.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Four possibilities.

1) Bush is genuinely delusional. Not out of the question.

2) Rove and Bush are bluffing.

3) The fix is in, quite likely. To keep the House and Senate, they would only need to swing 5 or 10% of the votes in a perhaps 3 senate races and 10 house races.

4) They really don't care. 12 Senate Dems and 40 House Dems voted to give the President authority to torture, to set aside the bill of rights, to shred the Geneva convention, and to terminate the 800 year old right of habeas corpus. Even if Bush loses both the house and the senate, these traitor dems will remain in his pocket and will give him a working majority. He'll never be touched.

They have a new campaign slogan that will win everybody over:

Vote republican

Because somebody needs to be above the law!

They stole it by suppressing voter turnout, especially in predominantly Black districts, where they changed the polling places, brought in uniformed cops to intimidate voters, and closed the doors before everyone had cast their vote. Then they refused to support a recount, and became obstructionist, busing in congressional staffers to pretend to be outraged local citizens. It's all documented.

"If you talk about it, even the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible." -Herman Hesse

Vote tampering, vote tampering, vote tampering! I beg you to post on this, Josh. We need to see this issue addressed in ADVANCE of the elections.

His confidence reminds me a great deal of his confidence regarding Florida in the 2000 elections. Early on, when he was informed that he had lost Florida, his response was a simple 'No I didn't.' His more recent statement makes him sound like a man who knows the answer before the question is asked.

Maybe Rove and Bush are so confident because they know that the Diebold voting machines are rigged!

I was wondering if we will all wake up on the day after the election and find out that the Republicans have maintained control of the House by a seat or two--just enough. Hummmmm....

I think it's important to remember how very little information about states of mind that we are able to get via news stories and television. If we watched Bush and Rove deliver their bluffs in person, I bet we could tell within 30 seconds how much substance their claims had. Given what we do know about their personalities, my hunch is that they would both come off as liars, bluffers, and bullies, because that's what they are, after all.

Both men have built their careers on acting the way they're now acting, and both are habitual liars; each has a personal ethos to lie at the slightest provocation. Everything they both say is 100% unbelievable. The only reason we give their little tantrums any credence at all is because we don't see them regularly in person, and because we're not habitual liars, we find it difficult to bear in mind that other people may very well be. We all tend to project our own spiritual strengths and weaknesses onto others. The fact is that Bush and Rove are, as a matter of habit (which is to say, ethically), liars, bluffers, bullies, and we should interpret everything they say and do through that lens.

Bush is a self-deceiver. He can't admit, even to himself, who he really is and what he really thinks. Reality for him is only ever a dim reflection of his own desires and anguishes. Emotionally, he's 13 years old. He acts as though he can get what he wants simply by wanting it badly enough. Whatever good qualities he may have been born with have been spoiled. He's spiritually crippled. He bluffs and bullies because he actually thinks that's how leaders act.

Rove, on the other hand, is so habitually cynical that he wouldn't tell the truth even if it was wonderful. He'd still embellish it. He has a twisted, stunted heart, and so it's nearly impossible for him to imagine a world in which he doesn't have to lie and cheat in order to get what he wants. He bluffs and bullies because he literally cannot think of anything else to do.

As to stealing the election, I don't doubt that they'll try; nor do I doubt that they'll both fail and succeed to certain extent. The real question is whether the Amerinan people--who have thus far given these losers a pass on cheating--will continue to put up with their shenannigans. I somehow think that the carte blanche of 9/11 has expired. Candidates get away with stealing elections only when people let them. I frankly hope they really try to steal it, because I have a feeling convenient GOP victories will provoke a good deal more outrage now than they did in the past 6 years. Times have changed, but Bush and Rove have only become more like themselves.

J. Powers

Why so confident? Hmm, let's see:

1. Diebold machines are just as hackable as before, and the company is still owned by republicans.

2. There is all sorts of talk that LOTS of Dems, especially those of color, are going to find their registrations suddenly, magically, disappeared when they show up to vote.

3. Since they showed the 2004 election to have been stolen, exit polling is apparently not going to happen this year. (Phone polling on the day of the election has not been cancelled, and will likely not jibe with the "election results.")

4. Because we live in an era where we have to hope they're confident about stealing it, because if they aren't we also live in an era where it is not unthinkable for the President of the United States to stage a terrorist attack, declare martial law and cancel the elections. (An Iran scenario seems less visceral than an attack on our soil.)

Our only hope may be that, since the programming of the Diebold machines have been so thoroughly opened for public dissection, some extremely clever hacker who doesn't like the GOP has his own lil' November Surprise planned. I'm not happy to live in an era where I have to hope our guys are just as cutthroat as the GOP, but you plays the cards you're dealt.

My guess is a small-time October surprise, nothing big like an invasion/bombing campaign of, say, Iran or North Korea. The latter is too risky. Maybe the "capture" of a terrorist, someone they can claim is of some importance. Or maybe something as small as raising the terror alert level.

My other guess is that they have written off the House and are quietly plotting how they plan to attack the Democratic leadership next year.

If the repugs win in November and all the exit polling shows strong support for the dems again I am gonna want those f'ing machines taken apart and examined with an electron microscope...because it will no longer be "conjecture of wacko conspiracy theorists" (tm)...and the people doing the exit polling, after so many years of getting it right, haven't all of a sudden become incompetent in doing their jobs either.

Yep...if the GOP retains control of Congress in the face of exit poll numbers showing the dems doing well two election cycles in a row, the fix will definitely be in.

I agree and believe what one analyst said, 'Rove, is a master of staying on message and being disciplined to keep the troops in line and the electorate psyched that they can win if they vote".  There is nothing to gain by conceeding they may lose before the election.

"Key fact about exit polls is that they are taken in the morning "

False. Exit polls are taken continuously throughout the time the polls are open.

"The exit polls themselves induced the GOP (and GOP voters) to get out the vote so that later voters tended to be GOP voters."

The media does not release exit poll results until the polls close.

"One outraged employee (or simply disgruntled ex-employee) and the scam would be blown out of the water with extreme consequences for both the company, its managers and CEO, and the party they were cheating for."

The emails that have been leaked and testing that has been done are more damming than testimony because they are empirical. There has been damning testimony from ex-employees also. None of the consequences you speak of has occurred.