It was mid-October 1992, and Bill Clinton led George HW Bush with 16 points in the polls. In the end, Clinton won the elections by 6 points. In 1999, Al Gore led George W Bush 51 to 40 points in at least one poll. In 1973, Jimmy Carter led Gerald Ford in one poll by 13 points; Carter finally won by just 2.

All this is meant to convey one message: Democrats, don't you get your hopes up too much just yet.

This race is going to tighten to microscopic margins, and John McCain might yet win.

That's why Barack Obama's campaign is pushing people to vote early, and vote now, while Obama is still high up in the polls. This is especially the case in Ohio, where the Democratic state leadership has done everything it can, within the confines of the law, to allow early voting everywhere -- especially in districts which in 2000 and 2004 were very close, and which narrowly went for Bush.

And Obama's campaign just might have learned something from Tom Bradley's campaign for governor of California, in 1982. The Bradley Effect is named after him -- but for the wrong reasons. The Bradley Effect, in my book at least, had everything to do with motivation and early voting, not with racism.

Tom Bradley led his white Republican counterpart in the polls by a wide margin, but in the end lost. Many to this day wrongly say that it was racism that led white people to say to pollsters that they were going to vote for Bradley, while in the end, they voted for the white candidate.

Not so.  Closer examination of the polls leading up to the election in hindsight showed Bradley's lead narrowing significantly. In the end, Bradley's lead had evaporated to just 45-44.  He then lost the election because of early voting; Republican voters simply were more motivated than their complacent Democratic counterparts, and they went out to vote early in massive numbers, precisely because Bradley was out-polling their favourite candidate.

This is the Bradley Effect the McCain is now banking on. Team McCain is hoping that the strong polling numbers of Obama will motivate McCain voters to go out to vote early.

Team Obama is trying to do two things at once: dilute the Bradley Effect, and gain the upper hand in the process while he is still leading McCain in the polls.

And that's smart thinking by people who seem to know their campaigns history. Election Night on November 4 will tell who outsmarted who.

This fight could still go either way.

Let's see whether John McCain will 'renounce' this one when it breaks, courtesy from yet another national-socialist multi-billionaire:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/05/17/who-wants-to-be-the-next-millionaire/

From the grapevine:

"(Karl) Rove wants to lead the GOP's 527 effort... There are going to be strategy meetings, people who are not yet associated with 527s but who will later on associate themselves and spread the strategy..."

Strategy? So what's the central, focal point he's got against Obama?

"Oh, that's easy, Karl's got it all in his head. And I mean that - he's got it memorized. 'His pastor said 'Goddamn America', and said that AIDS was concocted by our government, as a genocidal tool'. And then, ummm... Oh yeah: 'this pastor wants black and white to come out against corporate America. Throw in Rezko' - we have our own people constantly taking notes at his trial. 'Combine that with Obama's obvious anti-patriotism, and we've got ourselves one toxic cocktail.'"

"He just keeps repeating that mantra over and over again. Every group of depressed GOP'ers he talks to, he just repeats those lines."

To which I said, "yeah - but people won't fall for that, 'cause you know it ain't true. And Obama's campaign knows it, and they'll tell the voters that it ain't true."

"Hah!", said the conversationist. "Now you're sounding like one of those fringe netroot bloggers. Why do you think that people like Rove are succesful?  Lee Atwater, Roger Stone? Because they know, and have always known, that it doesn't matter whether something's true or not. All that matters is what sticks in the voter's mind."

And then I remembered this little gem, written by Hunter S. Thompson in "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '74".

It's Lyndon B. Johnson's senatorial campaign in Texas and he's trailing his GOP opponent by just a few percentage points. It's very close to election day and his campaign manager has just told LBJ that he's out of options.

"Hmmm," LBJ grunts. "Wait a minute - doesn't that guy own a pig farm? He does, doesn't he?"
"Errr, yeah he does, but I don't see - "
"Well, why don't we let it leak that he's humpin' his own pigs?"
"SIR!" the campaign manager blurts, "we can't - I mean, we - sir, we know he's not doing that!"
"I know that, and you know that," LBJ said, "but let's have the son of a bitch deny it."

The rest is history.

It's what sticks.

And with registered voters like the ones in this gem here - http://www.kajleers.nl/?p=140 - you know that a lot will stick.

I could regurgitate what someone has already written in far more eloquent terms. So without any ado, I give the floor to Greg Palast.

“Amateur Hour in Blue

We can trust Correa to keep the peace South of the Border. But can we trust our Presidents-to-be?

The current man in the Oval Office, George Bush, simply can’t help himself: an outlaw invasion by a right-wing death-squad promoter is just fine with him.

But guess who couldn’t wait to parrot the Bush line? Hillary Clinton, still explaining that her vote to invade Iraq was not a vote to invade Iraq, issued a statement nearly identical to Bush’s, blessing the invasion of Ecuador as Colombia’s “right to defend itself.” And she added, “Hugo Chávez must stop these provoking actions.” Huh?

I assumed that Obama wouldn’t jump on this landmine – especially after he was blasted as a foreign policy amateur for suggesting he would invade across Pakistan’s border to hunt terrorists.

It’s embarrassing that Barack repeated Hillary’s line nearly verbatim, announcing, “the Colombian government has every right to defend itself.”

(I’m sure Hillary’s position wasn’t influenced by the loan of a campaign jet to her by Frank Giustra. Giustra has given over a hundred million dollars to Bill Clinton projects. Last year, Bill introduced Giustra to Colombia’s Uribe. On the spot, Giustra cut a lucrative deal with Uribe for Colombian oil.)

Then there’s Mr. War Hero. John McCain weighed in with his own idiocies, announcing that, “Hugo Chavez is establish[ing] a dictatorship,” presumably because, unlike George Bush, Chavez counts all the votes in Venezuelan elections.

But now our story gets tricky and icky.

The wise media critic Jeff Cohen told me to watch for the press naming McCain as a foreign policy expert and labeling the Democrats as amateurs. Sure enough, the New York Times, on the news pages Wednesday, called McCain, “a national security pro.”

McCain is the “pro” who said the war in Iraq would cost nearly nothing in lives or treasury dollars.

But, on the Colombian invasion of Ecuador, McCain said, “I hope that tensions will be relaxed, President Chavez will remove those troops from the borders - as well as the Ecuadorians - and relations continue to improve between the two.”

It’s not quite English, but it’s definitely not Bush. And weirdly, it’s definitely not Obama and Clinton cheerleading Colombia’s war on Ecuador.

Democrats, are you listening? The only thing worse than the media attacking Obama and Clinton as amateurs is the Democratic candidates’ frightening desire to prove them right.” - Greg Palast

You can read it in full here. Harrowing. When will those Yankees learn that hypocrisy is not a virtue?

For all the criticism levelled at Team Clinton for her so-called harsh treatment of Team Obama, the latter should be happy and thankful for it.

Why?

Because Team Obama can learn a thing or two from the attacks, knowledge it will need during the general election.

Team Obama will be up against another team,people that have no scruples whatsoever, a team that will have no problem letting surrogates plant fake stories with befriended journalists about Obama and his selling of crack cocaine to kids.

There will be fake stories about Obama's hustling, beating up of former girlfriends, hell - Obama's pimping.

At the same time, Democrats will be getting robocalls from 'Angry Black Man', which will make them think twice about going out to vote. (And which is exactly the objective.)

Expect Angry Black Man's 'pro-Obama' phonecalls to be made to Jewish and Italian pensioners in Florida. At 3 a.m. in the morning.

There will be 'independent' talk radio hosts who will mercilessly pounce on Obama's second name, Hussein, and how Obama used to play with Muslim kids on the school yard in Indonesia.

The madrassa story will be revisited with a vengeance. Each Team Obama counter-attack will only be used to keep the fake story alive. There will no longer be an accusation, but there will be monologues / dialogues about the accusation, which is just as bad.

There actually will be TV ads with Obama's skin made darker than it really is.

Left-leaning, unemployed Democrats who are vehemently opposed to NAFTA will get robocalls from so-called "alienated Democrats" who will say that Obama's actually not going to renegotiate NAFTA. "Ralph Nader however is against NAFTA. Should you not be voting for him...?"

Michelle Obama is going to be depicted as unpatriotic, someone who is a far worse feminist than Hillary Clinton. She too will  be accused of having "too much influence" on her husband with her "anti-patriotism" (cue Obama sans US flag pin, cue Obama not singing national anthem).

Obama the candidate will also be pounced again and again on the differences between his speech rhetoric of unity, and his "divisive, ultra-liberal" platform.

And much, much more.

Chastise Team Clinton for the rough handling it is giving Obama? Sure; be naive. Pretend this is the first presidential campaign you're witnessing.

Go ahead, make the same mistakes Team Gore and Team Kerry made.

Go ahead, tell yourself that the mainstream media is on Obama's side. (Read this excellent article on that; or my own months earlier, here.)

Go on then - tell yourself that "the American electorate will see through these smear tactics". Go on, tell yourself that "the American people will see these smears for what they are."

Like Gary Hart's supporters did. Like Al Gore's supporters did. Like John Kerry's supporters did.

Team Obama has thus far been doing quite a bad job in responding. Campaign discipline obviously also isn't what it should be.

True, it is learning; the quick 'resignation' of Samantha Powers was a testament to that. Team Obama is starting to understand that it's not reality or truth that matter, but the voters' perception of both.

So in between all your fuming and toothgrinding about the "smear tactics" of Team Clinton, know this: whatever happens, Team Clinton is giving Team Obama a taste of what's to come for Obama during the general election.

Oh, and wait a minute... If you think that Obama is going to change the way politics are done in the US, or change the way how election campaigns are done, also: think again.

Obama would be able to take that moral ground and keep it if the press would support him in it. But they won't. Publishing companies, TV and radio stations, news websites: they all have salaries to pay. Reporting on  rumours, backstabbing and scandals sell.

Cuz however much voters would like to see a change in politics, they just can't help longing for juicy, raunchy articles about sex, lies and videotape.

So. If anything, be thankful for what Team Clinton's doing. Come July, she'll be out of the game anyway and Obama's shining armour will have grown thicker.

One hopes...